One of the things I try to do is look forward, not backward but sometimes it's OK to dig up things from the past that make you happy.  Whether it's writing a letter or listening to a song from long ago, there are a lot of ways to find happiness in “the way it used to be.”  Today, I am going to start listing things I come across from the past that make me happy.  When I turned on Sirius XM Outlaw Country, I found the first thing on my list:  Tom Petty with “You don't know how it feels.”  

Tom Petty takes me and many others back to high school when we had the world in front of us without a care in the world.  It's tough to pinpoint what his impact was exactly but to me he came out as a rocker in 1977 when we needed it most.  Disco and punk had taken over the airwaves and kids like me needed some direction as far as music went.  In reality, Springsteen, Seger and bands like Cheap Trick and Steve Miller were part of the same movement.  Night Moves was an anthem for all of us growing up at the time, like many of Petty's songs did.

We'll leave it at that for now but Merry Christmas or however you celebrate the holidays.  Let's all try to find things from the past that make us happy while looking toward the future.