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Back in Time...

 I'm drifting back again to that earlier decade - sort of like inhabiting one of those flying dreams where we scan the clouds hurriedly and travel in some weird, angelic, time-lapse photographic way back to the year 1977 - the fulcrum year of my development - a year of brief hope before malaise and stagflation - standing as a wonderful marker between that "earlier time" of "before" which encompasses the 60's, 50's and 40's leading back to the War itself - and the afterlife of adulthood known to me as the 80's, 90's, 2000's up until the present now ...This decade that I have overvalued in so many ways and built-up in my nostalgic brain, but which for me because of my age and description - stands as the all-important portal...There I am again standing on the open green field, that seemingly infinite vista at Poly High School - playing catch with Ralph - and being overcome by a slew of overwhelming emotions...The fastball is coming at me but my my eyes can't see well enough to retrieve it into my glove...Pride in hand-eye coordination - so previously taken for granted is fading - and I seem to be going blind momentarily - or finally rather shedding my youthful 20-20 vision...It will be a few more years until I recognize while driving haphazardly during a rainstorm that I need glasses to correct nearsightedness...But this feeling of being waylaid by oncoming baseballs - not even my favorite sport by the way - is symbolic of some sort of abrupt end to youth and childhood... Looking out at that iconic field - situated so cozily in the nice part of town - off Victoria Avenue - I feel again like I'm bumping up against one of the boundaries of my small world....To the west lies Newport, Hollywood, Burbank, Beverly Hills, Malibu - all of these mythic L.A. locales that people like me understand only very dimly from what images we catch of them on television...

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