Tom Bombadil

I've had a few flashback moments in recent days. I almost always enjoy it when this happens (unless it is a flashback to bad memory).

1) My 3rd daughter came up from North Carolina and accompanied us on a road trip to visit family in Ohio and West Virginia. In Ohio we visited my 2nd daughter. We did some things that we used to do 10-15 years ago. It was great. Walking down the street with the two of them, along with my wife and my 16 yr old, brought back so many memories.

2) When in Morgantown, WV, I walked around my old college campus and down the main downtown area. Like I did so many times when I was in college and during the several years when I worked at WVU. Those were good years. Had two daughters with me when I was downtown and the old toy store that we used to frequent was still open. Bought them a few things.

3) Just yesterday I was driving through a little town in Wisconsin in my Integra with the roof open & windows down. One of those towns that haven't built a new building in 80 years. As I was cruising and enjoying my drive, a couple of great old songs from Crosby, Stills & Nash (no Young on these two) came on the radio. I had the strongest flashback to the 1970s. It was a lot of fun.

Some bike rides have these moments too. For me they happen when cruising along, as even in my teens I wasn't prone to hammering and so hard rides don't bring back memories.

Anyone else have occasional to experience the occasional pleasant flashback?

Terrierman

Yes. Lovely.

Digital Gee

I had a flashback that Cheech and Chong got back together.

Tom Bombadil

I said pleasant memories!

Suzie Green

I posted this in the TdF forum, but basically it goes as following. My Dad introduced me and my brother to the Tour in the mid 1970's and we got hooked on following the races, even though the Tour news was hard to get at the time. It just seemed to make it more mysterious though. Not being able to actually watch the racing allowed your imagination to work overtime. The three of us would go out for Sunday rides, and each hill was Alpe d'Huez or the Tourmalet, each town line was a bonus sprint. We were Tour riders in our own minds. Great fun for us all. My brother is now 2500 miles away and I don't see him often enough. Dad passed on several years ago, and each time the Tour comes around I think of the 3 of us, riding again in our own imaginary race. Every time I ride my bike, I feel Dad riding along with me.

ken cummings

Tom, your post took me back in time. You mentioned Morgantown, WV. I worked in a coal mine near there in the summer of 1970, living in Morgantown.

asabike

+1

Tom Bombadil

In 1970 I was living in Belington, WV, a small town close to Elkins. My grandfather & great-grandfather were coal miners for decades.

I like Morgantown a lot. It is nicer now than it was back then. They've made many improvements along the riverfront, including putting in a very nice bike path that runs for over 30 miles along the river. There's a chance we might retire back to there in a few years.

oldride

Wonderful story thanks for posting it. Your Dad sounds like a great guy!

Louis

Unfortunately I have no pleasant childhood memories, but reading yours and Suzie Green's made me smile.

Monoborracho

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ycgegp0KdE4

Metric Man

Music and certain weather conditions do it for me...warm summer evenings with a slight breeze and certain classic songs from the 70's. Bob Seger's Night Moves will do it for sure. Driving down PCH at dusk with the windows down, the smell of the ocean...yep, I just flashed back.

zonatandem

We ive in Tucson, AZ but are spending the summer months in northern Utah town of Logan.
It's like stepping back 25 years into time . . . laid back, cool, friendly and some great terrrain for tandeming to boot!
All kinds of small town stuff on weekends: Sidewalk Days, rodeo, Lions Pancake breakfast, Summerfest, Art in the Park, Cruise-In (over 1,000 antique, hotrods, muscle cars, customs barreling through downtown)
LRRH (Little Red Riding Hood bike tour), County Fair, Demolition Derby . . . and the list goes on!
Yup, we're really back in time!
Pays off to be 50+ . . . and retired!
Pedal on!
Rudy and Kay/zonatandem

Artkansas 

As it happens, I woke up this morning thinking about the summer when I was 15 years old. It was 1969. My parents had just divorced. I had just flunked out of 10th grade and I went to spend the summer with my father in California. I was involved with the Unitarian youth groups, so my Dad got me involved in the local California group. The second person I met there was a girl who I got romantically involved with and a couple of years later became my girlfriend. It helped that we had almost identical steel string guitars from Sears.

I lived at the base of the mountains in Pasadena and went hiking up into Millard Canyon to pass the days, and got involved with the youth group. Over the course of the summer, there were group trips to see Hair, and hikes and camping trips in the local mountains. The girl had gotten a nicer guitar and my Dad bought me a guitar followed by a weekend in San Luis Obisbo at a ranch where I learned to ride a motorcycle and it culminated with that girl becoming tearful when we couldn't share a ride back to LA. The trip back ended as we all came in and Neil Armstrong was just landing on the moon. My first date was with the girl going to see Peter Paul and Mary at the Hollywood Bowl. The girl and I spent endless hours on the phone and "Leaving On a Jet Plane" became our song.

All too soon, it came true as I flew back to Florida. School was a big hurdle as I had to show up in class with all these people who used to be one year behind me and now were classmates. Oh the embarrasment.

That girl and I called it "That Summer". We're still friends.

What caused me to think of it? I think it was a dream where I was in this building under construction that morphed into a prep school. And then, come to think of it, she sent me a quick email yesterday.

Yen

Hearing Stevie Wonder's My Cherie Amour takes me back to a particular day on the deck of the Olympic-size swimming pool at the Los Angeles Police Academy when the song was first released. They played music through the speakers around the pool and I remember the spot where I was lying on my beach towel by the pool, listening to the music.

Listening to Brian Byrne, "Mr. Rock 'n Roll", play the oldies on KRTH 101 (K-Earth) takes me back to all those summers I spent with my friend at the beach.....

Noticing the sun spots and sun damage on my skin also takes me back to all those summers I spent at the beach....

I have a variety of pleasant flashbacks from time to time.

plumberroy

Another hillbilly I grew up back in a hollow, 2.5 miles to the bus stop. outside of Sissonville. Fall has always been my favorite time of the year when the leaves are falling and the ground is damp woods have a certain smell of decaying leaves on a cool fall morning Just can not help but go home for a moment
My Dad worked in the mines and his Dad at least 5 generations
Go Thundering Herd!!!

Tom Bombadil

Good.

They did release an update, which improves some of the video clips and fixes a couple of errors:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsZFiMo8TIc

That song brings back both good and bad memories. Good personal memories, but a lot of references to tragic deaths.

TruF 

Certain smells bring me back instantly. Also, sparkling new snow always brings me back to my first memory of snow back in Wichita KS. And definitely songs. We have a local radio station (KFOG) that has a segment called "10 at 10". "Ten great songs from one great year." I'm pretty good at guessing the year because of the memories the songs conjure up.

maddmaxx 

Everything takes me back in time...........................The things that I try to hold to a minimum are those that bring me back.

The Weak Link

B52s youtube videos. None of them are very good musicians, but in her younger years Kate Pierson might have been one of the most beautiful women in rock and roll.

Earlier this week I learned that she's gay, which is I guess cool with me but it means I never had a chance with her Bums me out for some reason. She also needs to buy a bike and shed a few pounds now.

BSLeVan

Tuesday I watched a kid cutting curves back and forth across a long straight decent on his bike. Just zooming back and forth from side to side. The section of road we were on was closed to cars because there was construction work being done a few miles ahead. It looked like so much fun, that I had to follow suit. It brought back memories of being 12 and riding my bike all summer long, as if the summer would never end... nothing but sheer joy feeling the responsiveness of the bike and the wind in your face. Every now and again something like this will happen when on the bike, and I really do feel like that care free, tousled hair kid again. A few weeks ago it was seeing a spent "Pixie Stick" along side the road and remembering riding home from Little League games with my glove strung on the handle bars, riding no handed and tearing open yet another Pixie Stick for a prolonged sugar rush. It seems to me the right memories can help refocus the present in ways the enrich how one approaches the day.

RonH

I was listening to the 60s channel on XM radio yesterday (XM channel 6). They were playing the top 20 from 1963 (I think). I heard "Surfer Joe". Brought back happy memories when I was 19 and in the Air Force, stationed in California. I could still "see" all those nice young things prancing around the beach in their bikinis.
Hey XM, thanks for the memories.

BluesDawg

Every time I hear "Satisfaction" by the Stones, I flash back to a motel swimming pool at Daytona Beach when I was a young teenager on a family vacation. That song was playing as I walked by the pool and for the first time really noticed how pretty the girls were in their bikinis lounging around covered in suntan oil.

Pax

My dad passed away this year and my mom and I have been spending a lot of time reminiscing. Last weekend I was helping her move a large glass wine bottle (think wine keg) that they got from our old landlord in Italy, it took me right back to Tony's tavern in Aviano...we had great times there in the 70's.

cccorlew

When I'm on a ride through a rural area and smell that horse, kind of a tar weed smell I am again 8 years old on Grandma's ranch watching her milk the cows.