Dr. Barton Goldsmith: Keep track of your past

I spent a lot of years humming and strumming, and I wrote a few dozen songs, most of which I remember only in fragments. But I stopped playing when I entered graduate school and left that life behind. I’m glad I made a sobering choice to go back to school and build a real life — in one place. Music took a backseat to papers and dissertations, and fortunately, I got published while still in school, so I was able to channel my creative urges into what became the column you read today. Not a bad transition of talent, and it makes sense that as I became busy creating other things, making music became less important. Since then, the occasional serenade was about all I’ve been good for.

Recently, I took my guitar to get some repair work with the idea of selling and replacing it with a less flashy model. I looked at a couple dozen in the shop, but when mine came back, it played like no other, and it’s not going anywhere. I’ve been playing again, almost daily — not because I have any plans to write music or go back onstage (shoot me now) but because my neurologist friends say it’s good for the brain. It turns out that playing a musical instrument for just five minutes a day will ward off Alzheimer’s and dementia, so that’s as good an excuse as any to revisit my musical past. My old vinyls are stored somewhere too, and eventually I’ll find them, but then I’ll have to find something to play them on. I think it’s called a record player.

Things change, everything updates, and of course it makes sense to get rid of old things that are just collecting dust, but my advice is to not be too hasty. I remember throwing out a case of tapes without even looking at what was in the rack, and it was not that long ago. There were at least a couple dozen early speeches and music from friends who have passed away, and my thought was, “Cassettes will never get played again. Dump them.” But the more I think about it, the more likely it seems my recordings were in there too, and I trashed a decade of my history. Nothing else of that time remains except a pair of blue high-heeled boots and fond memories of touring Europe and having hair.

There’s no harm in holding on to old photos and other mementos from your bygone days. You never know when you may want to revisit those times and reminisce about those things that brought you joy.