When I was a kid growing up in the New York metro area I would often see a local commercial for a resort in the Poconos (a mountain range in eastern Pennsylvania) called Mount Airy Lodge. My family never went there. So far as I know I never even wanted to go there. Their commercials were extremely catchy, though, and occasionally I find myself singing their jingle because something will remind me of it. I find it very strange that I can be nostalgic for seeing a commercial for a place I was never interested in going to. Granted, the commercial made the place look like fun, it wasn’t really my kind of fun back then (or now, for the most part). Despite all that, the jingle reminds me of my childhood in a non-specific kind of way that can, for a short time, feel nice. (I am not wistful for my childhood; while I had a good childhood I like being an adult far better.)

Nostalgia is a very strange feeling when it is not connected to some form of escapism. When it is so connected it’s quite easy to understand; longing for a time when one was not subject to the stresses one is currently subject to requires no real explanation. This also is not remembering good times fondly. That too requires no explanation. Nostalgia can be for things that were not good times. Certainly, commercials were not why one watched television back then.

According to Wikipedia, Mount Airy Lodge was built in the 1890s and closed in October of 2001. Not a bad run, as these things go. Here’s the commercial which brought up this blog post: