Christmas 1970: Be Careful What You Pretend To Be

Well , for me I had finished my first semester in college. As happens , the great return home. People returning for their first real back home time in months. I find this time an interesting psychological moment in ones life. One has transitioned away from home or high school , things have changed even though often to Mom & Dad your still their kid. You feel one must act differently now.....show your new self ....your new gestalt or whatever. And so it was with my hometown crowd. One of the things that fascinate me as a man that likes history and archaeology is how quickly our societies artifacts age in our American culture. I remember people discussing how our bedrooms looked different. Not quite the "cozy" place it once was. As for me I remember my desk I set at during my previous yrs at MHHS no longer appeared to fit like it did. Odd. I also noticed people I had known for yrs were assuming the new role. Kurt Vonnegut once said "Be careful what you pretend to be , because you are what you pretend to be". We were pretending to be a new something. Psychologist , teacher , architect , insurance salesman , sailor , minister.....college student etc etc. We had said our goodbyes & now attempting new hellos. We told our version of war stories , drank a few , talked about who is where and in some cases who had bombed out in their first version of freedom away from high school. I believe this is somewhat universal. As I write this , kids have returned home to a different world they must make a new reality of. OK enough of the shrink. Anyway I had returned to what was to be the final Christmas with my Father who would die the following September. The artifacts of my teen yrs began to be subtracted , new artifacts added. Some of what my wife calls my junk , personal & otherwise. Oh well. But I write this personal piece of history all most as a reminder of Vonnegut's quote because what I was pretending to be was in actuality what I was becoming. Perhaps this reminder of that long lost Christmas vacation should be chiseled into some of our public blds...................... PRETEND WELL.......................