Memory Lane

Early on in our marriage, I was pretty good about putting photos into picture albums. But somewhere around 1996, I discovered photo boxes. Yesssss.  

I've been sorting through some old photos over the past few months. My future daughter in law had requested some pics of my son when he was younger. Of course, this wasn't a quickie project. I pulled down our photo boxes out of the study closet, plopped down on the floor, and was entranced for hours.

My goodness.

Eventually, DIL's pictures were scanned and sent, but in the process, I found a few other photos that sent me headfirst into Ah-The-Good-Old-Days land. I remember as a teenager what my reaction used to be when my parents went there. It was a mixture of puzzlement, sympathy, and frustration: Didn't they KNOW that time goes on? And that while the past is fun to reminisce about, it's gone, man. Not cool anymore. Wow, man. The best is yet to come, man. Groovy.

I'm so glad that my parents weren't into hitting their kids. I probably deserved something punitive right about then to remove the smug expression that I'm sure I was wearing. Yeah, man.

So, fast forward to yesterday when there I was, sitting on the floor, thinking about how much things have changed; particularly ever since we built our house sixteen years ago. This is how I remember our house from then:

There was nothing around our house. Nothing. It was wonderful. The kids would run out the back door into a huge expanse of trees and grass and blackberry bushes. And this is what the kids looked like back then:

I wish my couch still looked like this because it's still in the same room. 

Sigh. I can't imagine why my son won't wear his spatula-through-his-head thingie for his wedding. Honestly. His fiance could be carrying the frying pan! How cool would that be? Groovy, man......

We knew that our little chunk of solitude wouldn't last long, and we were right. Within a few years, developers began to carve up the land behind us.

Drat. There went the bike trails, and blackberry bushes -- meaning PIE -- and the huge it's-great-to-be-a-kid backyard. Of course, none of this land belonged to us. At least, it didn't until we decided to buy a chunk of it and add it to our existing property. We could only afford to buy a small piece -- one city lot -- but I'm so glad that we did. John started planning our new and improved backyard immediately.

See those two stick trees on the top right hand corner of the picture? The ones right near the fence corner? I love those trees for many reasons, but the best is that before we planted them, I saw John laying down on the dirt on his back, arms stretched out at his side. He reached up and scratched a mark where his head was, then scuffed a line with his foot.

What ARE you doing? I hollered from the deck.

"I want to be sure to plant these trees perfectly spaced to string a hammock between them!" he shouted back.

Hahahahahaha! Brilliant, I thought. And it was a brilliant idea. Those pin oaks have become massive and beautiful and support a hammock perfectly.

And, provide schnauzer shade.

Aw, gee. I suppose I really should tell myself the things that I was telling my parents all those years ago: That while the past was great, it's probably true that the best is yet to come.

Really, it is. Groovy.