Our Town and Our Old Videos: Glimpses into the Past

My first theatre production at Deerfield High School was Our Town. I did it because we had no money and it would include a large number of students. Recently, I have been looking at old videos and photos from my first decade of teaching. They remind me of Our Town.

A few years ago, Deerfield produced Our Town again. I cried my way through it. Similarly, I watched myself about thirty years ago on these videos. I felt like Emily looking at my very distant life.

I found the play and the videos frighteningly familiar. It happens each time I watch shows I have done, and I am surprised each time. The production is still inside me. The moments, lines, and nuances of the script don’t go away. They lie dormant, even for decades. So do the feelings I had for the people with whom I was working. 

I found, as I watched the videos and show, that I saw more than what was in front of me. I remembered the students from thirty-some years ago and saw them then and now. Thanks to the blessing of Facebook, I am still in touch with many of them.

As Emily returns to her birthday, I was returning to my own Deerfield Grover’s Corners. I didn’t need to die to relive my past. But, like Emily, I was painfully aware of how little I saw then.

During the last years of my career as a teacher, I tried to savor the moments.  Since my own children are growing up and no longer at home, the passage of time feels very real. I savor each phone call, text, and video chat.

When Emily sees her parents young and beautiful, I am filled with gratitude and fear. My parents are aging. They are doing it well, but again I am keenly aware of time. My wife’s parents are gone and, through her, I have a second-hand taste of that loss. And my students are aging, too. Their children were in my classroom.

Some of my former students have died. I can’t get over those losses. When one of those students appeared on one of the videos, it was a jarring and delightful moment. I wish I could go back and share with him what I know now. To paraphrase Mrs. Gibbs from Our Town, I was a blind person.

I watch the videos with wet eyes and wonder: Can we be the people the Stage Manager says don’t exist? Can we cherish and see each other every – every minute? Can we put the minutia and administrivia in its place and hold each other the way Emily tries to as she relives her birthday morning? I fully understand why she can’t go on with it. I had to stop the video a few times because the view became too blurry. It must have been decay from the old VHS tapes.

We do walk through the world in the dark. We don’t see each other. We take each other for granted and forget the miracles we make and live daily. The least important day is important enough.

As I reflect on my time as a teacher, as I review the old videos and memories, I keep coming back to Our Town. I am reminded of those years long ago, and the wonderful people whom I miss. That is the hard part of retirement: missing the wonderful people.

But I am so grateful to have spent time with them – and to have these memories.