Things Long Past Stay Under The Eyelids

I was looking at old toys yesterday and picked up a long forgotten (but not really) computer game. It was published in 1983 and on the cassette inlay card it said, 'if you have problems with the game loading please write to the address provided.' I immediately wondered if the company building where this address pointed to still existed, and a image was quickly assembled in my mind of a warehouse still somehow stuck in the 1980's operating in 2009.
Everything else was in todays time but this building, complete with flowers on the window sills and retro 80's digital style name, stood in defiance of time as if a dinosaur had dropped through a gap in space.
Memory plays funny tricks on the mind, and perhaps when one adds the yearning for a particular decade then the results can be potent. So potent that for a few minutes I let myself believe that this company of the 80's still did buisness in that era whilst all around was 2009. Current newspapers and mail was delivered to surrounding shops and houses but this building recieved nothing but news of twenty years ago, and old Heineken 'follow the bear' adverts sailed from within.
Picasso has nothing on the mind artist when imagination takes hold.
It isn't the only time when nostalgia fuels strange scenes either. Whenever I visit Porthcawl in South Wales a similar experience unfolds in my brain. There is a nightclub near to the entrance to the funfair and for some inexplicable reason, when I look at the curtains of the second floors my mind wanders to the 1960's, a time before I was born even. I imagine a 60's disco going on behind those curtains and women cavorting in mini skirts, while on the outside children of this decade are enjoying the fair rides.
And it doesn't end there for my Porthcawl adventures. On the beach front there is another club called The Buccaneer and this too brings to life a vivid picture of a long dead decade. Still the 60's and still the partying going on inside whenever I look at place. Its like if I stepped inside I would be instantly in the middle of the Swinging Sixties complete with dark eyeliner and bowls of speed pills.
Of course if I did actually enter inside I know it is todays date, music and fashions I would encounter. But I never do take a peek beyond the door, I do not want to ruin the illusion.