Golden Memories: A Gratifying Life in 25 Acts

By Allen Green

How many really "cool" experiences have you had? Ones where you have every right to say, "That was well done" or "I'm really proud of that."

Allen Green asked himself this question one contemplative December evening in 2021, and was surprised at what he discovered. He easily recalled 25 memorable, gratifying events in his life: starting various businesses; a unique mathematics discovery; being portrayed in a BBC documentary; exotic travels; ancestor discoveries; his "hippy" years; even spending time in Federal prison. The more he looked, the more he found.

So much "cool" stuff!

"What would happen," he wondered, "if I stitched all these memories together, so they would encompass most of my life? Would that change for the positive how I perceive my life?" He had a strong hunch it would. And so, he began living these questions for the next 12 months by writing down everything he could remember about each special experience.

Along the way, many other understandings emerged: about time, about the "past" and "future," about the nature of memories, about valuing the present. These ponderings began to be incorporated in the 25 vignettes he was writing, in the Introduction, and in the Concluding Thoughts.

And thus was Golden Memories conceived and born.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781667898391

Book preview

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Copyright Allen Green © 2023

Print ISBN: 978-1-66789-838-4

eBook ISBN: 978-1-66789-839-1

Table of Contents

Introduction

ACT 1 - The Piano: My First Love

ACT 2 - My Infinity is Bigger than Yours

ACT 3 - Going Beyond My Math Teachers

ACT 4 - A Little Science Honor

ACT 5 - Learning to Teach

ACT 6 - My Picture in Rolling Stone Magazine?? No Way!

ACT 7 - Vinton House: The Hardcore Hippy Days

ACT 8 - More Computer Programming, This Time Legal

ACT 9 - Tap, Tap, Tap: The Cobbler Years

ACT 10 - Should Have Stayed with the Piano

ACT 11 - From Employee to Self-Employed: Taking the Plunge

ACT 12 - The Big Move

ACT 13 - Building a House; Making a Home

ACT 14 - Caffe Le Palme

ACT 15 - The Egypt Connection

ACT 16 - Lambs and Llamas

ACT 17 - Hail, Viracocha

ACT 18 - The Golden Mean

ACT 19 - Honoring Leslie Lackman

ACT 20 - A Home for the Family Samovar

ACT 21 - Lieutenant Green: Your Ship is Sailing

ACT 22 - A New Beginning

ACT 23 - Tying the Knot

ACT 24 - Summer Serenade (and Other Family Discoveries)

ACT 25 - A New Cottage for Mom

Concluding Thoughts

Appendix

Introduction

Today is collectively referred to as Sunday, March 13, 2022. My body was born almost 74 years ago, according to the passage of time that most human beings living on planet Earth believe in. I have no way to independently verify that I have lived for 74 years, or that I actually had a whole bunch of interesting experiences, that I travelled to all sorts of countries, and explored any number of fascinating cultures and civilizations from prior centuries and millennia.

But, of course, you really did all those things. You could not have just imagined them, you are probably saying even now. And I understand why you would say that. My response is this:

Naturally, I have millions of memories just like everyone else. But what is memory, other than some information etched onto some brain cells? Based on any number of medical/scientific experiments, plus my own observations, memories can be created, destroyed, implanted, manipulated, and otherwise subject to numerous distortions and embellishments.

It is also interesting to note that reliving a memory of a past event, and imagining something that will be happening in the future, are, in fact, the same process. Images, sounds, conversations, emotions play out on some inner movie screen, taking our attention there, and away from the present. I do not experience any qualitative difference between past memories and future imagination.

So, I remember I had a bowl of cereal for breakfast this morning. Did I really? Did I even have breakfast? Was there really a this morning?

Did I drive home from work 2 hours ago?

Well, you got here somehow, didn’t you?

Well, I say back to you, when have I (or you) been anywhere else but right here? Since the present moment obliterates any notion of past or future, then so-called past experiences are likewise obliterated. All we really have is a memory, for what that’s worth.

Then, if there is no past, what is the meaning and purpose of all my (and your) memories? Why do we have them?

Taken all together, it’s known as My Life.

My life, or just my memories?

Generally, we have no other life apart from our memories. Take away all the memories, and what’s left? Well, something, but it really has no resemblance to my life. The life of an individual, of a nation, of a people, of a family lineage —- it’s no more real than our individual or collective memories about it.

It takes only one person having a memory of something, for that something to be alive, to live. And if no one remembers something, that something no longer exists, and never did exist.

Q: Then what is real?

A: Not much, really. But it would have to be something far less transitory than anything in the material realm, whatever that might be.

Well, enough of all that, however enjoyable, and even profitable, such ruminating might be. That’s not really what I had planned to write about. But I guess every major literary work needs a thought-provoking introduction.

Ironically, in order to write what I’m about to write, I have to ignore everything I just said in the preceding paragraphs. It’s back to my life being real, with all its experiences which created all the memories. There really is/was a past after all, and there’s one subset of this past that is of current interest to me, and maybe to you also.

So, onward and upward to the main event.

A few weeks ago (i.e. early 2022), I came to realize that it could be very healthy and healing to recall positive things about my life (i.e. positive memories stored in the brain), and the more, the better.

(I well understand, also, the necessity of becoming aware of those painful, traumatic memories, in order to become somewhat free of them.)

I could not recall any sort of therapy that involved recollecting the best moments and events of one’s life, in a sense making a quilt from all of them, the aim being to change the perception of one’s life from one of disappointments and regrets, to one of pride and satisfaction; to focus on what one did accomplish, rather than what was not accomplished (which has a lot to do with comparing oneself with others). I knew I was on to something.

So, I grabbed my journal, and began to jot down, in just a few words, positive accomplishments, moments of non-ordinary inspiration, becoming very good at something, seeing the impossible become reality, going where I thought I would never go.

I reviewed my entire life, from earliest childhood memories, right up to the present time. So many wonderful memories came up. I quickly wrote them down in a few words. After adding some more memories later, as well as eliminating others, there ended up being 25 extra-special events and episodes of my life: 25 Golden Memories.

It soon became apparent that a few special experiences required more than just a few words to describe them. Way more. They needed – no, they demanded — a whole page, or several. They needed to be expanded and elaborated in order to be put into a wider context. If nothing else, this would help me to extract as much as possible from these memories, even after so many years (supposedly) had passed. I thought it would also make the stories more informative and (I hope) entertaining for any future reader.

I next realized that, in fact, every one of the special memories needed to be expanded to include as much as I could remember about it. Why? Because these memories would, in no time, cease to exist apart from this little book. The more detail I could remember and write down, the more alive the experience would be, now and in the future, like something being continually resurrected, or reborn.

And so, I began recalling and recounting the 25 Golden Memories that are now the subject of this book.

May these stories be of some value to you, perhaps inspiring you to recall your own special memories and all the wonderful things that are You. Since we are our memories, we might as well bring forth the best ones.

Best wishes.

For the present is the only thing of which a man can be deprived, if it is true that this is the only thing which he has, and that a man cannot lose a thing if he has it not.

(Marcus Aurelius)

Allen L Green

Oregon House, CA

2023

ACT 1 -

The Piano: My First Love

That’s me at 7 months old

I came from a very musical family. Many of my maternal grandmother’s family members were accomplished musicians while still in Odessa in the early 1900s. Her father, Meyer Limonick, was a famous conductor, quite possibly known to the Czar. His eldest son, Louis, was an accomplished violinist. He is the source of my middle name, Lewis. (Mom thinks I look just like Great-Grandfather Meyer.)

Great-grandfather Meyer & eldest Son, Louis (c.1910)

When the Limonick family moved to New York City in 1908, almost immediately they began to earn a good living playing chamber music. Although only 10 at the time, Uncle Maurice (who was actually my great uncle) ended up being a good pianist, playing during dinner at fancy restaurants, as well as teaching, his whole life, mainly in Los Angeles. (More on Maurice later in the discussion of his composition, Summer Serenade.)

One of Maurice’s piano students was my mother, who was fairly accomplished herself, playing Beethoven, Mozart, and Chopin as I was growing up. Mom studied with Uncle Maurice from age 7 through high school. She got me started on the piano when I was around 8, which was no problem, as I loved playing and studying piano from that early age. I managed to make a short recording of Mom playing a Mozart sonata when she was 89.

Dad was an opera lover. When he was around 4 years old, he and his younger sister needed to relocate, temporarily, from Los Angeles to New York City while