A Bittersweet Ride Through Childhood: the Amber of Nostalgia

Nostalgia is not nausea, although it sometimes can unsettle the stomach. It’s not Gnosticism, even when it seems like a secret wisdom only your soul can read.

No, nostalgia — as our friends Merriam and Webster put it — is “a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition.”

But, if we live too long in that amber, we can also be dragged backward, growing stagnant. We start saying things like, “Those were the days” — as though these days are worthless. A Bittersweet Ride Through Childhood: the Amber of Nostalgia

Sadly, we who are now in our later rounds of life (I’m not allowed to say “old people”), to us, nostalgia isn’t just a passing breeze — it’s often the air we breathe. It comforts, soothes, even redeems. But let me be clear: too little nostalgia, and we forget who we are. Too much… and we forget where we’re going.

Let me show you what I mean — by taking you for a ride. This happened back in 1957, Altoona, Pennsylvania. I’d just turned five years old.

My First Car

My grandfather — we called him Pop — bought me a car for my fifth birthday. Not just any car. A fire-engine red 1940s Murray’s pedal car, rear-wheel drive, open top, one seat, with hard rubber wheels and a heart full of glory.

Unlike the pretty new model in the image, mine came from the Salvation Army used car lot. The windshield was missing and it was a bit dented and rusty here and there, no roll bars, no seatbelts. But it rode like a dream, and if I wanted to take my girl for a spin, well, she had to ride on the hood. Safety was a footnote in those days, and love was aerodynamic.

That morning, I was up early, eating what we called “coffee soup” — a slice of bread doused in hot coffee, with condensed milk and sugar. A Depression-era delicacy that made repeat appearances years later, in my Navy days. Pop came in through the back door, looking like Otis from The Andy Griffith Show (in looks and blood-alcohol content). He sat down beside me, and flipped open the newspaper from his inside coat pocket.

When I was done eating, he said, “I forgot something on the back porch. Go get it for me.”

And there it was. My car. My first car. She wasn’t shiny or new, but she was mine. And that changed everything.

Learning to Drive

Pop took me into the freshly paved bakery parking lot next door for my first driving lesson. I’d seen Mickey and Minnie drive on TV, so I figured I was already overqualified. Up to that time, I’d only been twice inside a moving vehicle, but I knew I was born to drive.

Once my feet hit the pedals and those wheels began turning beneath me, I fell in love. I wasn’t pedaling — I was flying. It didn’t matter that I was mostly going in circles. I had roads to ride. Adventures to chase. Look out California, here I come!

That car was the first real gift I remember receiving as a child. It gave me something I didn’t yet have words for: freedom. Even if it came with rules.

Rule #1: Don’t go into the street.

California Dreaming

A few days later, with a nickel in my pocket and a craving for ice cream, I planned my first long trip. Ciccarelli’s Corner Store was just two blocks away. I asked Mom but she said no — she only went when she needed cigarettes.

Sitting on the sidewalk, hands on the wheel, I started to scheme. “Can I make it there and back without them even knowing I’m gone?” A few warm-up laps past the bakery lot helped me build courage. The sidewalk was empty. The street silent. Destiny called.

Kicking those dual pedals into high gear, I began clattering over the bricks like a runaway shopping cart. I passed Servillo’s, where my friend Eddie lived, half-expecting to hear my mom’s voice behind me. But no — I was gone, boldly going where no five-year-old had gone before. I was already half way there.

You see, Ciccarelli’s store sat on the corner, just across the 13th Street divide. And beyond that…was California.

My nephew and I once stood on that same corner, and I told him, “We can’t go over there. That’s California.” Why? Because I saw my Uncle Joe, who lived in California, crossing that street, and he told me, “I just came from California.”

Case closed. Geography sealed.

The Chocolate Cone and the Reckoning

I pulled up to Ciccarelli’s with a sense of triumph, parked the car, and climbed onto one of those round stools nailed to the floor. Chic was no fool.

“Let me see your money,” he said.

I showed him my lone Indian Head nickel that Pop gave to me the night before.

“Ice cream costs a dime,” he said flatly.

I just stared. Still holding the coin out like it had magical powers.

After a long pause and some pity, Chic handed me a small cone with a smaller scoop. “Next time, bring two nickels,” he muttered, taking my precious five cents.

Outside, on the stoop, I savored my victory. But as I licked the melting lava of chocolate began dripping down my wrist. Then, I suddenly realized — I had no idea how long I’d been gone. Turning my back to California, I stared toward my house. No sign of movement!

A rebel with sticky paws

Driving home one-handed, trying to manage the melting cone, I hit every crooked brick in the sidewalk. Chocolate was in my hair, across my cheeks, and dripping down my shirt. Let me tell you something I learned that day: Friends don’t let friends hold ice cream cones and drive.

When I returned home, I sat in front of the broken stoop, savoring the melted goo in the bottom of the cone. Wiping my paws on my bib overalls, and my chin on my shirt sleeve, I was done.

Without forethought, the dirt of the yard managed to cover the chocolate stains that gave away my secret adventure. I tucked my car deep beneath the dilapidated back porch where it couldn’t be seen by car thieves, and went inside.

My clothing was thrown onto the laundry pile in the dirt basement, and I was bathed and in bed. My secret was safe—until Chic ratted me out.

Turns out, when Mom went in for cigarettes the next morning, Chic smiled and asked,

“Did Jimmy tell you that he still owes me a nickel?”

A reckoning was afoot.

A Bittersweet Ride Through Childhood: the Amber of Nostalgia

So I told you that story to tell you this:

That pedal car, to me, wasn’t just a toy — it was a vehicle for how I remember the world back then. Including love, rebellion, freedom, consequence, and chocolate ice cream. A lesson wrapped in joy, sprinkled with disobedience, and topped with a scoop of something sweet. My fondest memory of an otherwise tempestuous and negatively influenced childhood.

But here’s the catch: if I remember only the sweetness, if I let nostalgia airbrush the edges, I risk forgetting the bumps, the guilt, the sticky hands, and the soda jerk justice. I risk idealizing the past instead of learning from it. That one moment in time was the best one, and I allow it to shroud the others.