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Spirit Matters: The more things change, the more they stay the same · Illinois Valley - Shaw Local

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  Speaker 1: Spirit matters. The more things change, the more they stay
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  Speaker 1: the same. Written by Jerlyn Zavada Novak and Spirit Matters.
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  Speaker 1: This article is being read by an automated voice brought
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  Speaker 1: to you by Everlet. Back in my formative years in
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  Speaker 1: the eighties, my parents insisted the radio dial be set
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  Speaker 1: on oldies stations which played music from the nineteen fifties
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  Speaker 1: and nineteen sixties. Let me say this as gently as
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  Speaker 1: I can. I hated it. Every generation has its own sound,
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  Speaker 1: and I didn't like theirs. To me, every song sounded
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  Speaker 1: vaguely like the last one, sappy and saccharin. No thanks. Still,
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  Speaker 1: when they listened to that music, there was an observable
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  Speaker 1: change in their demeanor, like they were somewhere else while
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  Speaker 1: it was playing. This is a perennial argument between generations.
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  Speaker 1: While I couldn't find the value in their songs and lyrics,
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  Speaker 1: they claim they couldn't even understand what ban in my
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  Speaker 1: generation were singing, and that the volume of our music
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  Speaker 1: was leading them to early hearing loss. Well, I am
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  Speaker 1: now in my mid fifties and the oldies stations can
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  Speaker 1: we please change that? Word have caught up with Generation X.
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  Speaker 1: It is not uncommon these days to find radio stations
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  Speaker 1: targeting my age group, presumably because we are the generation
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  Speaker 1: that now has the spending power. Newsflash, we don't. I
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  Speaker 1: was in Walmart this past week when I noticed a
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  Speaker 1: Matter of Trust by Billy Joel, a song I hadn't
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  Speaker 1: heard in a long time, playing on the loud speaker. Curiously,
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  Speaker 1: hearing this song from nearly forty years ago helped calm
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  Speaker 1: my anxiety from not being able to find the cleaning
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  Speaker 1: product for which I was looking. Although this was one
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  Speaker 1: of Joel's eighties hits, it is a bit lesser known,
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  Speaker 1: at least not played as often as say Piano Man
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  Speaker 1: and we Didn't Start the fire. Still, it was in
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  Speaker 1: regular rotation back in the day during my late teen years.
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  Speaker 1: While I don't have any specific memories tied to this song,
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  Speaker 1: somehow it became a part of me and who I
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  Speaker 1: was at that time in my life life and just
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  Speaker 1: hearing it made me feel good, lighter, happier, younger. On
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  Speaker 1: a side note, I was in the car recently when
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  Speaker 1: Joel's I Go to Extremes came on the radio, having
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  Speaker 1: a similar effect on me as my encounter in Walmart
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  Speaker 1: and a few of Michael Jackson's later hits have as
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  Speaker 1: of late, done the same for me. There is something
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  Speaker 1: about the popular culture we grow up with that stays
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  Speaker 1: with us for the rest of our lives. Like generational music,
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  Speaker 1: the television shows we watched leave a nostalgic imprint that
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  Speaker 1: is often reawakened in midlife and when life gets heavy
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  Speaker 1: for whatever reason, turning to these hits from the past
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  Speaker 1: makes it all more tolerable, at least for a moment. Interestingly,
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  Speaker 1: I was looking through YouTube this week when I noticed
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  Speaker 1: a nostalgic video set in the fifties in my feed.
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  Speaker 1: It was created with artificial intelligence, but the premise was
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  Speaker 1: that it was a rainy fall evening in a small
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  Speaker 1: Vermont town. The various scenes depicted people shopping, baking, and
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  Speaker 1: walking their dogs. It emphasized coziness, community and connections. In
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  Speaker 1: a way, the video was too perfect, that is, sappy, saccharine,
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  Speaker 1: not accounting for the darker realities every generation lives with
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  Speaker 1: that we tend to forget when we look back at
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  Speaker 1: an idealized time in our lives. Still, I found myself
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  Speaker 1: enjoying the video. It was calming, and I recognized in
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  Speaker 1: it feelings and experiences I felt while shopping in downtown Street,
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  Speaker 1: or in the nineteen seventies and early nineteen eighties with
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  Speaker 1: my mom, a happier time, a more hopeful time, a
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  Speaker 1: less dangerous time. The wonder years, if you will, that
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  Speaker 1: common thread of soulful longing for years, passed from one
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  Speaker 1: generation to the next, is something worth exploring. It might
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  Speaker 1: just help us recognize and rediscover that, when it comes
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  Speaker 1: down to it, we are not so different from one another.
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  Speaker 1: After all. Ultimately, we are really all searching for the
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  Speaker 1: same thing. Coziness, community connection, Belonging Spirit Matters is a
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  Speaker 1: weekly column by Jeralins of Audenovac that examines experiences common
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  Speaker 1: to the human spirit. Contact her at JAYZ Blue three
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  Speaker 1: three at yahoo dot com.