I remember when I was not yet a teen lying in bed wondering when I would be considered an adult. Hummmmmm probably around 26. I hit 26 and wondered when I could be considered an adult and thought 41 would be about right. Then I woke up one morning and I was 41, yesterday I was 26.. What happened… but then again when will I be considered an adult in the real world… 53 yeah 53… that works and I’m sure I will be considered an adult and people will respect my input as such. 53 came and went so I got to thinking it over again… 60? Well now that I am facing 62 I don’t have any more age goals besides waking up in the morning. I can hope people respect my opinion and input, but if they don’t then it is their loss. I have represented myself to the best of my ability. Physical limitations have now crept into my presentation on a daily basis… Knees are aching , eyes are not as sharp and I have to continually ask: What did you say?
I went out to the valley where I grew up this past weekend with my scouts for an over nighter in Knox at the fork. When we crested the mountain from Mink Creek there was a shiver of anticipation and then the mountain burst upon the scene and I pointed out where I had grown up. Around the corner and there was the school I attended. Yeah, it has changed, but the same bell calls the kids in to class. See the A on the hill over there, as I remember it, we put it up in the mid 60’s. Here is the place where Jeff England lived, it is kinda broken down. They looked at me and at the house again… then said you must be really old. This is the place where a gentleman named CT Hansen lived. This is where I buried our car in a snow drift. Good thing dad had broken a path through so we could get to the snow machine that took up home that night. Then the house… Yeah, it burned down in 81, but the other buildings, at least most of them are still there. Some broken down… some gone I saw myself sliding down the side of the garage covered in snow on a scoop shovel and howling with joy each inch of the way. I surveyed the fields that I worked during the summers and saw my dad checking the moisture, then checking the seed with a hope and a prayer to the Lord for rain, soft, cool, nourishing rain. Into the canyon that I love the best and found my initials on an aspen tree. The letters I could recognize, but I was the only one. They had all grown old like me. Yup the aches and pains are there, the grey is there, but the memories of a full and rich life with loving parents, a loving wife and two tremendous sons. Life is good, feed it with memories that with good fortune can be passed to our children with a song strong enough for them to remember and pass on to their children. When the chaff is blown from the harvested wheat of our lives, all we have and can pass on are the memories of what we have accomplished as parents and as a person of worth, honesty and integrity. There is no cheating life. Yes, live it to its fullest and enjoy the feast laid before you. The time will come when the table will be cleared.
As the song “ It was a very good year” goes:
When I was seventeen
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for small town girls
And soft summer nights
We’d hide from the lights
On the village green
When I was seventeen
When I was twenty-one
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for city girls
Who lived up the stair
With all that perfumed hair
And it came undone
When I was twenty-one
When I was thirty-five
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for blue-blooded girls
Of independent means
We’d ride in limousines
Their chauffeurs would drive
When I was thirty-five
But now the days grow short
I’m in the autumn of the year
And now I think of my life as vintage wine
from fine old kegs
from the brim to the dregs
And it poured sweet and clear
It was a very good year…
And now snowflakes fall…..My most treasured assets are my friends, family….and memories..