We all think in terms of what we remember. I have not watched a television series for at least thirty years, preferring to limit my viewing to where they keep score. My thinking is conditioned by my possible misunderstanding of the present and the past, and not liking the present political situation very much. My mystery writing was formed long ago by Raymond Chandler and my science fiction writing by Ray Bradbury, so everything I write is dated, and so, very likely, is every thing I think. In the fifth grade I was told tin was the principal export of Bolivia, and I believed it then and I believe it now. For me, and I expect for most of us, our worldview is conditioned by what we knew or were told or what we experienced in our growing up years, and the contemporary world merely adds a patina, positive or negative, on our preconceptions.

For those of us who grew up when the radio was king
The world is now a very different place
A place where saying love of country is the only thing
Now brings a sneer and laughter in our face
We lived in towns and cities where the doors were never locked
And kids were free to roam the neighborhood
But nowadays those places are long gone and harshly mocked
By people who have never understood
That just because we grew up in a world now in the past
That maybe we had something new to say
That maybe we know something new about the play and cast
And see we’re not so far from yesterday
That things we saw as growing up we’re seeing yet again
The world it changes not nor do the times
For history remains the same except for where and when
There’s no repeat as Twain said but it rhymes