The year must have been ‘78 or ‘79 and I was fifteen years old. 

  The costumed and face-painted gothic rock band Kiss was playing the Montreal Forum and a friend and I went to our first big show. 

  Recently I attempted to watch a few YouTube clips dating back to that era and couldn’t. “My God,” I horrored, “I not only sat through that noise I revelled in it and left with my ears ringing and my head in a whirl!”

  About a year ago I probably talked for the last time to an old friend I have known since elementary school. More than fifty years ago we would sit in the back of the class and fill our desks with cartoon drawings. Today he gives public and private art lessons and lives alone in a small apartment several kilometres from where he grew up. 

  Anyway, a year ago he was telling me how he had executed a couple of drawings and paintings featuring Kiss for a friend of his who had turned his basement into something of a shrine dedicated to Gene, Paul, and whoever else they had enlisted to fill out the ranks of their ageless leather, stud and face-painted foursome. 

  “Really?” I said. Then added rather tactlessly I suppose, “isn’t it just about time he … uh… you know … uh … grew up?”

  As I pen these words in my local coffee shop an endless stream of golden oldies and classic rock hits play over our heads … and hearts. 

  Do you ever get the sense that nostalgia is holding back your personal growth? Let’s have fun with it at omphaloscafe@gmail.com!