Hindsight, or How I Survived the Depression

 

Albert Huffstickler

 

 

At the age of eight, way back in the Thirties,

I was madly in love with Eleanor Powell.

She was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen

up there on that giant drum tapdancing

in her top hat and black tights,

those long, elegant legs resplendent in sheer hose

and her fine eyes crinkled with love and laughter. Don't ever try to tell me

that children don't know anything about love.

They know all about love.

Eleanor Powell danced nightly through my young dreams

and I danced beside her. I was complete.

Well, the years passed and things happened

and I have to confess that I forgot Eleanor Powell completely.

That's how it is when you're trying to live a life.

You keep working harder and harder to keep

certain things going and the day comes

when you realize that the things you kept going

weren't the important things: you'd let those lapse.

I had managed to secure a place in the world

but, in the process, I'd forgotten Eleanor Powell.

Nights now I try to remember but I'm not too successful.

Too much has happened, too many dents in the fenders.

And so sometimes now, because I'm old,

people will come to me for advice

and the first thing they ask me is,

"Do you know anything about love?"

and I tell them, "No,

but you should have asked me when I was eight.

I knew all about it then."