This article mentions a slew of lost-to-history nightclubs in New Jersey. See how many you remember or got thrown out of.
There are plenty here I heard of, plenty more I had been to (funny though, seeing as I never did drink, but I was pretty damn social back in the day), and lots that grew a reputation for any number of reasons. But reading the list of names surely brought me back.
And believe me, living in the past as I do, the last thing I need is a reason to once again dive deep into my memory.
I am sure all ‘older’ folks look back on their youthful years with some positive nostalgia, in which they are all too ready to compare those ‘better times’ with now. Yes, for me, they were better, but I am sure I recall a lot of those times through the proverbial rose-colored glasses. How could my twenties not have been easier, fancy-foot-free-er, full of hope, as I was still so young, had very few responsibilities, had infinite energy, and lived for the moment?
But what I can say definitively, beyond my emotions about them, is that the times were different, very different indeed, from how things are now.
When my father was sewing his oats in the 50s, surely the world was different than my running around years in the late 70s and 80s. But there were still some familiar touchstones in his socializing to mine. Mainly, to meet friends or potential romantic partners, as much as my pop had to, I had to go out. And lots of our going out was based around hitting those clubs mentioned in the article above, maybe seeing a live band, just hanging. These days, with cell phone communication, social media, and a sure dip in twenty-somethings even populating bars, things are truly different from what they were in my day.
Better? worse? Kinda even-Stevens when you count up all the good and bad? Should I even really be judging what I considered social in my day, to what it is considered now…
Man, I sure do miss hanging out at those clubs.
