01.14.09
The biggest, best, worst, ever!
One of the reasons I picked the TV news channel I watch when I first moved to Rochester was the weatherman on that station. It was January and promos on the different channels were emphasizing how bad the weather was going to be. Every time I heard one of these promos, I was expecting to have to leave an hour or two early for my five minute commute to work. This, of course, would be after spending most of the morning digging my truck out of a snow drift higher than the roof of the house. the weatherman came on the 11 o’clock news and said something to the effect of it will be cold and windy with a few inches of snow, but nothing we can’t handle. Finally, I was able to relax enough to go to bed and get some sleep.
Now it seems that every time I turn around I hear about the “biggest event ever,” or the “worst storm in a generation.” or “the best way to lose weight.” You get the idea. We can’t just have a sale or a rain storm or a party. It has to be the biggest sale or the rainiest storm of the ‘rockinest” party ever. Yet even these events do not measure up to my memories of similar events from my younger days.
Some of that is obviously the perspective of youth, which can be a topic for another time, but much of it is build up, the hype that seems to be so prevalent, so necessary in today’s world. I don’t understand why every event, every day has to be the most, the best, the worst happening ever or at least in recent memory. I know the every day occurrences don’t make good headlines or sell more newspapers, but they do oftentimes make the best memories, the best friendships, the best families. Perhaps it is just the fact that not having huge expectations makes reality easier to not let you down, much like going to a movie that you’ve heard so much about, but doesn’t thrill you.
It is the day to day events that not only make up the greater part of life, but also build the core and foundation of the individual that is then able to stand up to the actual biggest, best, worst events that get thrown at us. So many older people that I have spoken with concentrate not on the disasters nor the huge celebrations when they reflect on their years. Rather they speak of family, friends, beloved pets, and other people and things that made up day-to-day life. these are the people and things that make up our lives and they are also the people and things that we will one day hold as our dearest memories.
So, while the biggest, best, and worst do happen occasionally and do add a certain spice to life, it is the everyday and the over-and over again that for me, make the memories. These, so called, mundane every day events are what I remember most now as I look back on younger days and I expect they will turn out to be the truly memorable and the actual biggest, best and worst times of my life.
