Fifty years later and some things still have not changed. I watched the Barrett-Jackson collector car auction over the weekend and it was like being a teenager again.

I saw the same cars I looked at longingly when I was a teenager.

I could not afford them then and from the prices that the successful bidders paid, I can not afford them now.

They are still just as unreachable as a chance to date the best-looking girls in my class (whom I also looked at longingly).

I do have a couple cars that I can take to a car show for a grown-up’s version of show and tell – one Ford and one Chevrolet, both in the best color, red.

They represent a time when cars were fun, not the soulless, government regulated, hermetically sealed bubbles we ride in today. You know, the ones that resemble a well-used bar of soap and are just as exciting.

The weekend was a trip down memory lane for me and a lot of aging baby-boomers. For me, it was entertainment of the best kind. It was a mix of eye appeal, envy and wishing.

If you were a car nut, it was the place to be. If you were not a car nut, then you were probably watching ESPN or some sporting event.

To each, his own.

Nostalgia is a great thing. Whether it is old cars, old tractors or pre-Beatles rock and roll, I can get swept away easily with the just the sight or the sound.

There is no mistaking it was a golden time those many years ago. For maximum enjoyment, you just had to be there.

It is our time for nostalgia. In another 30 or so years, there will be another generation trying to relive a time from when they were young.

The generation ahead of me appreciated Model T and Model A Fords. My generation lusted after Corvettes.

What my son’s generation will collect, I do not know, but there will be something and somebody will get rich off of it.

New businesses will be started and grown because there will be enough people trying to recreate and relive their youth as they buy parts and pieces while living on memories.

I am not sure if our memory fuels the nostalgia or the nostalgia fuels our memory but it seems to require both for a healthy dose of reminiscing.

Time, money and health are the next required ingredients to finish the job and as long as we have all of these, we will believe life is good.

As to that person you looked longingly at in high school, I am afraid those days are past and there are some things about nostalgia that are better off left back in time.

When nostalgia and reality collide, reality wins out. Nostalgia is our dream time and reality is the alarm clock whose noise ends our dreams.

However, for a few days during a weekend car auction, I can look and remember feeling the same thing 50-plus years ago when some thing (or some one) was so close and yet so far.

Rye is a Farm News staff writer and farmer from Hanlontown. Reach him by e-mail at crye@wctatel.net.