A GOOD TIME MEMORY

Rocky Mountain High, Vail, CO

“If you take care of the moments, the years will take care of themselves.”

I recently wrote in my post on Time that it’s been observed that children primarily live in the present, adults also live in the future and seniors live more in the past.  I believe we should aspire to a good life so that when we begin to fall back on life’s memories, we will smile.  After I posted this blog, I was out on the street driving to dinner with a Carolina blue sky overhead sprinkled with lazy cumulous clouds.  The temperature was approaching a summertime 80 degrees and a recurring memory began flashing in my mind’s eye that such an occasion has prompted in the past.

I was instantaneously drawn back to a scene just off Interstate-70 between Vail, Colorado and the suburbs of Kansas City where my young wife Karen and I had settled into an apartment after our wedding.  We remained engaged for the four years she took to graduate with an education degree as I started my Industrial Engineering career and attended evening classes for a master’s degree. 

This scene occurred about 50 years ago as we drove home from a liberating vacation in the Rocky Mountains as young career marrieds.  We had hiked mountain trails, explored aspen forests surrounding clear lakes, ridden summer ski gondolas, participated in a group horseback ride through alpine meadows and swam in the resort pool.   Later, we dined at fine restaurants in the cool evenings and walked the stone paths back to the condo.  By this point in time, we both had good paying jobs and were free from debt with the exception of a car payment.

The scene that has been indelibly branded into my mind was pulling off I-70 on our way back home into a small country town for a rest stop and refreshments.  The panoramic blue skies and lazy summer clouds were a duplicate copy of today and the weather was warm, humid and breezy.  We were suntanned, wearing shorts and t-shirts, and singing with the windows of our Oldsmobile Cutlass rolled down while a country tape of John Denver’s Rocky Mountain High wafted out into the prairies. 

I remember experiencing a moment of euphoria at that time and savored every second of being fully alive.  I’m certain I had no idea that this perfect moment of the good life would randomly enter my consciousness every time I was placed in a similar Deja vu time and place.  But I’m eternally grateful for the loving memory.