It seems a gigantic wave of nostalgia has crept over my psyche and stalled there the past few weeks. First, it was the death of Phil Everly at the beginning of the year and the barrage of sound clips of Everly Brothers’ tunes that ensued. Then a few weeks later, legendary folk singer Pete Seeger’s time was up. I hummed along most of the day to medleys of his songs covered by other artists during the 60s that I knew by heart, though I’d not heard them in years. This past Tuesday it was snippets of sweet Shirley Temple songs that pulled at my heartstrings. But, what immersed me into this nostalgia kick the most was the appearance of Paul and Ringo at the Grammy Awards, followed by the 50th anniversary special of the appearance of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. I don’t have cable and I do have a tiny digital T.V. but it freezes up all the time, so I figured I’d catch the performance highlights online after the show. I’ve scoured the internet and pieced together the performance – it seemed to me they just picked up where they left off all those years ago, sadly sans John and George. When the Beatles firmly announced they would never reunite, their loyal fans always had that glimmer of hope it would happen; that is, until we lost John and George. I’ve followed the Beatles since their arrival in the States and their appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. My parents never missed that Sunday night show and I used to watch it with them just to see Topo Gigio. The Beatles were not my parents’ cup of tea; they preferred country western singers or Lawrence Welk. But I distinctly remember parking myself in front of the tube and watching them that night. I was only eight years old when the Beatles hit the scene, much too young to be a screaming teenybopper, though I do remember doodling “I love Paul” surrounded by hearts and flowers in my school scribbler. I know in ’64 all the girls in my class loved, loved, loved The Fab Four and we proudly wore tin buttons proclaiming our “love” for our favorite Beatle. Today the word used to describe the phenomenon of the Beatles would be that they are “trending” … but in those days, they created excitement that has never been duplicated since. I am happy to have been part of the throng that was so enthralled with the Fab Four. Our Valentine’s Day cards that we exchanged with classmates in the mid-60s probably were plastered with the Beatles’ faces, although I Googled around and could find no such images. Still further wending my way backward with some more grade school nostalgia … I recall, at the tender age of eight, exchanging Valentine’s Day greetings with classmates that were pictures of little animals or girls and boys with cutesy or corny sayings. The teacher would have a dish piled high with pastel candy conversation hearts on her desk and we’d scoop up a few as we filed slowly past the cardboard “postbox” to drop our Valentine’s Day cards into the slot. Later, our teacher would play “postmaster” and distribute the cards to all the students. I will bet you had such an experience in grade school as well. It was just plain and simple fun. Hopefully school kids still have such activities because I fear they grow up too soon in this age of too much electronics; of course, nowadays they probably text each other “love notes” (or pictures) or perhaps post Valentine’s Day greetings on their Facebook status. I often think I should have lived in another era as the world sometimes seems to be spinning way too fast for me and I would like to jump off and head for the hills.