Jack’s Mid-Missouri Memory: How Old Must Nostalgia Be?

How old must nostalgia be?

I was thinking about the good old days the other day as I usually am, and I remembered someone at Payless Cashways asking me before the warehouse closed in 2001 ,if I thought I would be writing nostalgia articles about Payless and my years there someday. At the time I didn’t feel nostalgic about the warehouse and the people because they were all still around. As I sat thinking about that fact I also began to think about how old a memory had to be before it becomes nostalgia?

I realized it did not take long, because my definition of nostalgia is the same as the one for homesickness. I wrote about that feeling some years ago when someone asked me what was the actual definition for nostalgia. I of course called upon Webster, and found homesickness is actually contained in his dictionary’s definition of the word. There is also the longing for things, persons, and situations that are not present. It says nothing about a time limit, which I had already surmised on my own.

It has been nearly fifteen years since the people of Payless Cashways said goodbye to each other, and it took way less than that amount of time for me to start getting nostalgic for them and the jobs I did in that warehouse. I can go by and see the building anytime I wish, but even if I went inside it would not look or feel the same.

My oldest son, Darren, and several employees from Payless are still there working for Dukes in the building+, but without the constant whine of the conveyer, and the hustle and bustle of machines and the people I worked with it just wouldn’t be the same. I do get to see some of the people now and then in person or on Facebook, but that just makes me miss them more.

I hesitate to start naming people because there were so many I considered friends, that if I left someone out I would hear about it when we met next. Just let me say I had no one that I worked with at Payless, that I could say I did not like during the 12+ years I was in that building, and considering the fact that most of the time there was almost four hundred of us I think that is worth noting.

When I started this memory it was to say there is no time  limit on nostalgia, I have cherished memories from my childhood, my years as a sailor, the various jobs I have held through the years, and the one I have now. There are people here at the radio station who have gone on to other pursuits like Dennis, Danny, Becca, and Mike that have left me with memories I will never forget, and there is Frank Powell and Stu Gressley, who have passed on, How could I ever forget them? Now another freind is thinking of leaving the station and I will undoubtedly miss him when he is no longer working with me; So I guess the bottom line is if someone is not around tomorrow it will not be too soon for me to include them in my Mid-Missouri Memories, because nostalgia has no time limit.