From outside the box

Twilight was setting in as I came to halt, almost at the end of my run around Bidwell park. I had been jogging on the park road that runs along Woodland Ave. Thru the trees I could see the light glowing in the bay window across the street. The scene was familiar, one that I had grown up with. But watching it this time was different because I knew that everything was about to change, this scene would soon be a distant memory.

The year was 1989. The house on Woodland Ave. that I was starring into was the house my parents lived in. Inside the large bay window my Dad sat reading the newspaper and across the room Mom was sewing. My Dad was in his eighties and had recently been diagnosed with bone cancer. He had a few months left, at best. For several minutes I just stood there and took in the scene. "Someday, years from now I will be walking along this road, at this very spot, and I will glance over at the same house, and I will remember this moment", I thought to myself as I stood there in the dim twilight drinking in every detail. I thought of the Carly Simon song that says, "These are the good old days", and they were. I sent the scene into the future, like a postcard being sent to myself via time travel. Later that year my Dad passed away. A few years later, in 1993, cancer would take my mother as well.

Today I was walking my dogs in the park and came upon the same spot I stood at almost 19 years ago. I remembered the postcard I sent myself all those years ago, and decided to retrieve it. As I stood there in the park this afternoon, starring across the street into the same bay window, I swear that I could almost see two old folks sitting in the living room, reading and sewing.

If there is one thing that older people understand better than younger people, it is that time passes so quickly. The older you get, the faster time seems to go by. As I stood there today, gazing across the street, it seemed like it was only last night I was watching my parents thru the same window. I was thankful to myself for taking a few minutes to take that mental picture back in 1989.

Actually, I take these kinds of snap shots all the time. I'm always sending myself postcards into the future. Some get lost along the way, but many of them get retrieved. I retrieved another one just the other day as I was driving out to Oroville. Several years ago I was driving by the swamps out there where they are now working on the new overpasses by highway 70. There was a bull standing out in the middle of the swamp in water up his thighs. There wasn't any other bulls or cows around. He was silhouetted against the setting sun, a true Kodak moment. Since I didn't have a real camera with me, I took a mental picture and sent it off into the future as a time traveling post card.

Life is full of these special moments. If you keep your eyes open, you will know them when you see them. Norman Rockwell used to paint pictures of them. Next time you see one, take a mental picture and send yourself a postcard. The postage is free and you never know when you will get mail from yourself. It's always a pleasant surprise.