The old strayed aimlessly sometime in the past (9)
I believe the answer is:
yesterday
'in the past' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'the old strayed aimlessly' is the wordplay.
'the old' becomes 'ye' (resembles a historical spelling of 'the').
'aimlessly' indicates an anagram (the letters rearranged chaotically or aimlessly).
'strayed' anagrammed gives 'sterday'.
'ye'+'sterday'='YESTERDAY'
'sometime' acts as a link.
I am not very happy about this link. It may belong to another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for yesterday that I've seen before include "some time in the past" , "Song (of the recent past?)" , "of most recent history" , "Number" , "Lennon and McCartney classic" .)