Thinking Out Loud, Volume CCCVI

I would venture to say that there aren't many of you who can honestly say the same thing I do when I make this point: I love bologna sandwiches. It's not so much the taste or the texture that I find appealing; it's just that there's something special about them. They bring back pleasant memories. Although it was not a topic that was discussed with us kids, I overheard enough of the conversations between my mom and dad to know that, financially, things were tough around our house. Just like the majority of the women of that era, my mom was a housewife; and my dad was the sole breadwinner. His paycheck came on the fifth and twentieth of every month, and I know that practically every pay period, they were out of money by the time payday rolled around. However, even with our precarious financial situation, there was seldom a year that rolled around when we didn't go on vacation. Now, these weren't vacations where we stayed in nice hotels and ate at fancy restaurants...I don't recall ever doing that. We had some relatives who lived in Illinois and some who lived in Oklahoma, and that's usually where we'd go. Sometimes we would take camping trips with friends and sleep in our tents. I can remember one trip when we left home on a ten day camping trip to Colorado, and my dad took $100 with him...and those were the days before credit cards...which brings me to the point of the bologna sandwiches. That's what we had for lunch on most of those days, and I loved those vacations so much that when I have a bologna sandwich today it brings back those pleasant memories from my childhood and those wonderful family trips.

Here's a similar story but with opposite effects. I remember one night when I was a little boy and I was riding in the back seat of my cousin's car on a trip back home from Shreveport. I had just eaten some peppermint candy sticks, and I got car sick. I threw up all over his back seat. It's a terrible memory. Even though that incident happened more than fifty years ago, I'm still reminded of it every time I eat peppermint. As a result, if you offer me peppermint, I will probably tactfully decline.

Isn't it weird how our minds affect us that way? The two examples I just gave are both related to food, but it can be with anything. It could be a song that was popular during an unhappy period of my life that brings back those unpleasant memories. Yet there are some songs that I really like because they remind me of some good times in my past. There is a beautiful jogging track that goes practically all the way around the ten-mile circumference of White Rock Lake in Dallas, yet in the three times that I've run the White Rock Marathon, my toughest struggles were while I was circling that lake....and I don't want to run it any more, no matter how gorgeous the scenery.

I believe that much of what we like or dislike, where we struggle or where we excel, and what makes us happy or makes us sad, is all in that small space between our ears. I also believe it's something that we can control if we put forth the effort...and I'm putting forth that effort. The areas that bring me happy thoughts, I'm leaving alone. But the others are the ones I'm attempting to change. I'm trying to think happy thoughts about some of the running routes that have given me grief in my past. I bought some peppermint Life Savers as a step back toward the candy sticks. When I hear some of the songs that bring me unhappy thoughts, I try to focus on the music instead of the memories. I may even go back to Dallas some nice pleasant day and make one more loop around that lake...but with a different attitude. I think it might work. I may even try to look for the good qualities of some people I don't like and see how that works.

Preston