random thoughts – Day 1,147 – (Monday) – memories

Awww Facebook Memories, you continue to kill me. Bit by bit.

Today’s memory is from my old marketing agency job in Tennessee. It was the link to one of the several videos I worked on in my role at BLF Marketing.

One video we did was to commemorate 80 years of history of a family-owned bank in Georgia. Another is about the four-year long Civil War occupation by both the Union and the Confederacy in Clarksville, Tennessee. Another was about the iron casting process and Clarksville Foundry, a foundry operation that had been in business since before the Civil War, and at the time, was celebrating 100 years of ownership by the same family.

The video memory for today’s date, originally shared in 2013, was for “New Old Stock,” a profile of artist Mike Andrews, who uses casting patterns from Clarksville Foundry in his work. Checking out the video again and seeing my name under the writing credits is bittersweet. There are the great memories of being part of the team on the project and pride for having been involved. There is also sadness at having left the company and the city, removing myself from the environment to return home to New England. 

Once upon a video credit.

Being included in video credits was an even greater thrill than seeing my bylines and photo credits each week when I wrote for Our City and later, when I freelanced for The Leaf Chronicle.

It’s probably not healthy to live in the past, but dang, it’s really hard not to do so when the past was actually pretty damned great and the present is, at best, lackluster in comparison. On the bright side, there is now a fresher understanding of all the “when I was younger” stories of old people I’ve met. Some day, I'll be the one in the old people's home, dragging around a box of old newspaper articles and making people watch videos. Oh wait, it looks like that already started. Run while you can.