Change

Makin' your way in the world today takes everything you've got.
Takin' a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.
Wouldn't you like to get away?


Sometimes you want to go, where everybody knows your name,
and they're always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see, our troubles are all the same,
You wanna be where everybody knows your name.


You wanna go where people know, people are all the same,
You wanna go where everybody knows your name.


Cheers Theme Song Lyrics
Title: Where Everbody Knows Your Name
By: Gary Portnoy and Judy Hart Angelo

Cheers TV Show
CrazyAboutTV.com

Anyone over thirty remembers those lyrics and the odd assortment of characters that came to visit once a week on TV in the years from 1982 - 1993 through eleven seasons. The actors have moved on to other shows and movies, but the music still rings in my mind. It reminds me how I like my comfortable routines where I know what to expect and it relaxes me. I like to be around the familiar and with people I am used to seeing. I've always felt that "people are all the same" even though some often forget that. I like my rut in life. 

This morning I visited my local supermarket for the last time because it closes at the end of the week. It opened a few years after we moved to our home in 1985. My visit today became a very nostalgic experience with Carly Simon wailing Let the River Run from 1988 on the PA system. The shelves were practically empty with the few remaining items selling for 20% off rock bottom prices. Half the lights were off and only a few staff members remained. Customers seemed very subdued like it was a wake.

Certainly the supermarket folks know my face but only call my name when I've used a credit card. That's not the source of the nostalgia. I liked zipping in for a few minutes multiple times a week to grab what I wanted because I knew what was on every aisle and shelf. It was a compact, well-stocked store located a quarter mile from my house. Now I will have to go to a market five miles away. It has practically everything but car tires and far too much floor space with too many aisles and non-grocery items I neither need nor want. I like to grab the milk and bread and keep moving. I will miss the little market nearby.

I don't particularly like change. I like to "go where everyone knows your name and they're always glad you came."  I started to wonder where that might be for me. I don't hang out in local bars and I don't report to a job now. Mostly I like to hang out with family, long time friends and the blogs are a big comfortable community. Most of the folks in the blogs that I choose to read recognize that "people are all the same,"  even though we've assumed some new monikers. I love roaming the blogs because they remind me-- "Takin' a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot. Wouldn't you like to get away?" Life changes and that is the way of the world.