I met someone a while ago.

You may know him, too. His name is Nostalgia, and he is the most talented,

charismatic, and poignantly direct person I have ever known.

He sure gets around. If you

haven't met him yet, chances are you will soon. He knows everybody, and

just how to cozy up to each of us in a way that is uniquely personal.

Once you've met him, you'll see him coming from a mile away the next time

he crosses your path. He is sweet, endearing, and tearfully emotional.

He is also a shrewd businessman.

In fact, lots of people have

invested in Nostalgia, who is at the top of his game in a diverse range

of business interests. He's into auto manufacturing, design, the entertainment

industry, the publishing world, and even pharmaceuticals, if you can believe

it. But be careful around Nostalgia. He's one of those friends who can

get you to do some crazy things.

The first time I met Nostalgia,

he was hawking some great old tunes on the radio. How is it that he knows

just the right songs to play? Talk about pushing your buttons. You can

be transported to another place, "see" people and places you

haven't seen in years, and tap in to a whole range of human emotions,

all in the span of a few lyrical moments.

I can hear "Spinning Wheel,"

and the public pool. I can still smell the chlorine, strongest as you

mazed your way through the dressing room out onto the pool deck, and feel

the slick, mucousy mask of dying algae and mildew as it languished on

the concrete floor and wooden bench seats. Mere seconds later, I can feel

the seizing of my stomach and the wracking beat of my heart as I stood

at the end of the high diving board, looking down at a far away pool that

couldn't possibly be THAT far away.

From just a few bars of an

old song, I can recount the epic choice of either backing down the high

dive ladder, humiliated, or closing my eyes, spitting in the face of fear,

and feeling myself falling for what must have been an eternity till I

hit the water. And all because of Nostalgia.

Nostalgia makes me rent old

movies, like "The Big Chill" or "The World According to

Garp," and relive how a group of self-absorbed kids could sit around

in someone's basement after a movie, eating chips and drinking Cokes,

choosing which characters represented each of their friends, or themselves.

Nostalgia knows that it doesn't

matter how many times you've seen a movie, or how many times you may have

plagiarized a likable phrase like, "That has a certain symmetry to

it." Seeing it again can still put you back there, over and over

again.

And later, when you have a

little money in your pocket, IF you have a little money in your pocket,

Nostalgia will make you buy things all over again that you bought a long

time ago and eventually got rid of.

How does he do that? It seems

like you should get some sort of previous user discount when you buy something

for the second time.

Car makers are reissuing signature

trademark cars. Ford is doing a limited edition run of the old Thunderbird.

When I read that, I thought it odd they didn't do a limited addition of

the old Mustang convertible.

Then I thought, Why doesn't

"slow on the trigger" General Motors reissue the 1980s era Cutlass

Supreme? It's not like a gas guzzling engine is a turn off to middle-aged

folks today. Volkswagon did it with their famous Beetle, and even cranked

out some great retro flower power ads to go with it.

Nostalgia is all about helping

you part with your money for big-ticket second-time cars, not to mention

platform shoes, wide leg jeans, tie-dyed shirts, and greatest hits CDs.

Perhaps Nostalgia's biggest

coup was when he got interested in the pharmaceutical industry. I can

almost see him sitting around the big, shiny mahogany boardroom table

brainstorming about baby boomers this and baby boomers that. This one

has high cholesterol from years of digesting dairy, fatty meats, and a

half ton of fast food French fries. That one has high blood pressure,

or a bad ticker, or urinary incontinence, yikes.

And then Nostalgia said, "Remember

when you used to have s-x a couple of times a day?" For an instant,

you could have heard a pin drop, then the pharmaceutical geniuses went

to work 24-7 on a 21st century love potion.

They knew they would need a

lot to go around, so somebody suggested Niagara. Since that name was already

being used, they cross-pollinated Niagara (meaning big, hearty, plentiful)

with Vivacious (meaning "animated, sprightly, spirited"), and

the rest, as they say, is history.

Nostalgia laughed all the way

to the bank on that one. He's on the board of every major corporation

now. Brand new talk shows came online just to deal with the fallout. Nostalgia

is always stirring up some kind of trouble.

So just remember, if you meet

my friend Nostalgia, be prepared to cry a little to your favorite songs

as you drive around in your reissued classic car, picking up your prescriptions

and renting old movies at the video store. That Nostalgia.

[Your comments are welcome

at: [email protected].]