The Good Old Days

The Sunday Scribblings prompt is The Good Old Days. Click on link or logo to see how other bloggers responded to this prompt.


My "Good Old Days" lasted through more or less 70 years of my life with Otto before his accidental death last May. That 70 years includes the years I knew him at Stanford as well as the 68 years we were married. But in deference to the prompt, I submit this re-created memory of a morning in 1940. I can find no pictures of Otto and me together in our college years. With no digital cameras in the "good old days", college students were stingy with their film. So here are two separate pictures of us to show how young we were at the time to which I refer in this poem, recently written (not even in my computer yet. I'll have to sidetrack this post while I write it into my file of poems).

Otto, spring of 1940

Phyllis, spring of 1940

FIRST MORNING

Last night you held me
as raindrops pattered.

This morning
every puddle on the muddy path
reflects sky
shoots glints of sunlight
from its ripples.

Drops of last night’s rain
still cling to trees,
refract rainbows,

and every atom in me dances.

Phyllis Sterling Smith

I don't think I miss "the good old days" in most ways. I love computers, talking face to face (on Skype) with grandchildren in Brasil or Asia, designing with my graphics programs, and, of course, posting on this blog. What I do miss is Otto - and I wouldn't mind being young again. But, as one of our not-too-bright governors of California once said, "I look forward to the future with anticipation."

If you would like to see a few more of poems, go to my newly restored website Dragonhaven.