One reason the past seems so nice is because you know how it came out.

You think, “I arrived in the new city, and it thrilled me! I saw so many interesting things.”

Actually what you had on your mind at the time was how irritated you were about something. You were worrying about where you would stay that night and how you would find the place and would the taxi driver cheat you. In a new town, nothing looks the same as it does once you are used to it.

I sure don’t miss my youth because I remember so much of it.

Ah, the old Christmas songs! They remind me of comfort and home! But they also remind me that I was counting the hours of my Christmas vacation until I had to go back to school and wander around at recess trying to avoid the white trash bully I was scared of.

When you think of youth, you don’t remember that each and every tooth had to pulled out as the new ones came in. Do you remember walking around trying to decide to pull it out?

Do you remember the measles? Mumps? Just lying there with nothing at all to do but feel bad?

Do you remember boredom, boredom, and more boredom?

And the DECISIONS! It’s cute now to laugh at what you were afraid of and how little you knew. It wasn’t funny then.

There is a very important point here that relates your own personal history to history in general. It is contained in one very wise saying:

“You are not studying history. You are studying other people’s PRESENT.”

You see that guy looking at you from an 1880 photograph? To you, he is in the time of Garfield and Arthur, when the telephone was brand new. You see the past behind him and the future in front of him. You are seeing him as a part of history.

Actually that guy is sitting there in a time as modern as today. He is not a part of history. He is Modern Man, just like you are. The only difference is that you have the cheat sheet. You know what is coming next. You have tomorrow’s newspaper.

When you were young you didn’t have the cheat sheet. What drove you nuts then is cute today.

It’s the cheat sheet that makes all the difference.