Prenostalgia

Prenostalgia is defined as nostalgia for something that occured before you were born. How is it possible to be nostagic for something that you never actually experienced yourself? But, it is a common thing.
When I work in my studio I run my iPod thru some speakers and so I listen to music I choose. Usually I like classical music, but every now and then I grow nostalgic and play Frank Sinatra, or I become prenostalgic and play WWII music, of which I have a collection, the Andrew Sisters, the Ink Spots, Dick Haymes, Glen Miller, all wonderful stuff. Technically I was alive during this time, but I was a toddler.
I remember when our daughter Miriam was in her teens and she loved the 1960's, she was only a child then, but she had a thing about it, I suppose it appealed to her natural rebelliousness. Now you would hardly know that, she grew up and matured. Now she is going thru the same thing with her own daughter.
Everyone seems to pick up nostalgia from their parents, so that I remember listening to the song "jeolousy" that my mother loved, and "besame mucho" and "Brazil" and the "jungle music" of Duke Ellington. It's difficult to explain this prenostalgia. Maybe we hanker for an era before our own time that seems sophisticated and safe, although it certainly wasn't. Our lives have improved, what with the advances of science and the defeat of the twin evils of fascism and communism. But, now we have the scourge of militant Islamism, with its suicide bombings and mass murders. In comparison to this grim reality for some the past seems like a comforting shelter