Rosy retrospection is a cognitive bias that causes people to remember past events as being more positive than they were in reality…Diclinism is the belief that a certain entity, such as a country or a company, is declining, and is potentially headed toward a future collapse…Because rosy retrospection causes people to believe that the past was better than it actually was, it can cause the present and future to appear bad in comparison, which is why rosy retrospection can often lead to diclinism. (Effectiviology)
Growing up in Pittsburgh, during the decades when Spring could include snow showers until Easter then immediately evaporates with 60-degree weather. When Summer was the time to always be on the lookout for thundershowers scary enough for all the mothers living on our street to shout in unison “get inside now, and then, immediately unplug all electrical plugs in the house. When Autumn approached and the Jewish Holidays fell right after Labor Day and even though the weather outside was still SUMMER HOT, you had to wear wool, because it was after Labor Day, and the year you wore your BEST-EVER Halloween costume, All Hallows Eve was victim to lake Effect Snow, and not even your mask was seen due to that damn scarf! And when Winter lasted from October to May, and you invented at least 50 shades of GREY, which from the unprofessional eye just looked GREY. It was the 50’s. My 1950’s and I still remember them with perhaps Rosy retrospection.
Today, I was driving home from the gym. Just a 12-minute ride from Provincetown. I was listening to the ’40s and Beyond channel on Sirius FM. The song, ‘As Time Goes By’ was playing, sung by a singer named Arthur “Dooley” Wilson. Suddenly as I was driving, I pictured myself lying on the living room couch, snow flurries playing tag outside the Picture Window, falling on the already three times shoveled sidewalk, by ME, the boy in the family. It was about 4pm, you know Midnight in Pittsburgh back then in the winter. I remembered I was watching KDKA, Channel 2’s Saturday Afternoon Million Dollar Matinee.’ I did the “Rabbit Ear,’ ritual moving the antennae this way and that, adjusted the vertical and the horizontal and ran back and forth to the sofa to make certain that the sound was just perfect. For the next three hours no parent, or siblings home, and lying beneath my Grandma’s hand-crocheted afghan, using the plump pillows usually taboo unless company was expected, for my head to rest, I was set for a Black and White movie treat, as Casablanca was the featured film.
Maybe all of that happened as I have written, if not, I am CERTAIN, most of that happened. I was about two miles away from my home, and Glenn Millers Moonlight Serenade began playing, and of course, I remembered my mother telling me it was her favorite of Big Band music. I arrived home, and by mistake hit the button for CNN Radio, and I heard the words, Manchin, Sinema boycotted, McConnell swearing he is not a Racist, Biden was full of too many promises, and TRUMP! I sighed, saddened that my ROSY RETROSPECTIVE had been shattered by a too real DECLINISM!
