In 1955, Orson Welles made a movie called Mr. Arkadian...nothing much about this movie was remarkable or particularly memorable...it was no ‘Citizen Kane’...it wasn’t that kind of movie...in fact, all I recall about it is that it seemed to be a cheaply made, cliched, somewhat hokey film...but the plot was interesting and fascinating to contemplate ...Mr. Arkadian seemed to be eradicating all who knew him at one time in his life...now why would he be doing that?...in fact, he hires a private detective to research into his past to see what he can come up with...the few people he talks to have the same unfortunate consequence of turning up dead, and he fears he might be the next...which brings up something I find interesting...what if everyone you knew...you ever knew was dead?...there’d be no one that has any ‘dirt’ on you at all most likely, at least firsthand...of course there would be no one who personally remembered anything at all about you...old-time better memories and all that would be permanently erased, but then that would be collateral damage I suppose...this happens naturally as well...as I’ve gotten older, many people who knew me have died...friends, family, acquaintances...in fact, those who did know me from long ago, or who knew YOU long ago would probably remember a far different person than the one that walks the face of the earth today...carrying silly memories or remembrances of you...still thinking that you are the same kind of person today as you were then...if you do run into them, they say something like “Wow, you’ve changed a lot!”...well, I hope so...I wouldn’t want to be the same person I was back then...would it be all that bad if they were gone?...I mean there wouldn’t be any cringe inducing moments when they brought up something embarrassing about you from your past...something you wish was forgotten...but no, there’s that annoying person who has to keep bringing it up...you’re not that same person anymore, so it would be nice if everyone left it alone and moved on...I was recently at a Costco getting some lunch when two older men seemed to recognize each other...they went on to ask each other some questions and discovered that they had gone to the same high school, and were in the same graduating class...so the reminiscing began…”do you remember Bob so-and-so” who was some kid that they went to school with…”how about Dr. Smith the science teacher?”...”what home room did you have?”...and a few stories that didn’t need to be told where a crowd of people could hear them...a lot of innocuous questions with innocuous answers...as though it was the most important thing in the world...it seemed like two men caught in some kind of time warp...reliving old memories that didn’t need to be re-lived at all...it all seemed so pointless to me...maybe I don’t treasure memories as much as some...certainly not those from high school anyway...on Facebook, I wonder about some who still have people from high school as the majority of their friends...I don’t know, they still live in the same town or area...maybe they’ve gotten around, who knows?...could they still be living within that same small circle of friends all these years later?...they say that as we get older, all we have left are our memories (if we are healthy mentally)...that seems trivial, but I suppose it’s comforting to some...when we grow older we should still be creating and doing...not content to reminisce about old times.
