Children At Play

Set the GPS to the Bacchus cottage on Sunday morning. Letting the technology lead the way utilizing it's "shortest distance" option it did an excellent job of keeping the Wee and I off the beaten track and away from the usual piles of long weekend traffic. Two lane country roads,wet gravel and very few cars or much else. Hints of the approaching change of season dot the scenery as a prelude to the show soon to open.

Arriving at the cottage around two with a cold beer soon in hand the place took on shades of the past. Many old friends with busy lives now that don't get together as much. As with good friends the true test is time apart. If you can pick up right where you left off then they are real friends. It's always been that way here and I suspect it will be as new generations find their way onto the path we've already traversed.

The next morning comes earlier than I remember. The sounds of Anita and Jim's two little ones bring the cottage to life albeit with some reluctance specifically from me. As I sit in my room I consider the simplicity of their young lives and it’s appealing. Which car to play with next seems to be their biggest decision. That has a certain appeal to it. Simply being kids.

As I continued to fight the blankets I looked back at the previous evening. Wrapping things up around 1:30AM Jim, John and I sat up plowing through salty snacks while finishing off our beverages. Many laughs, of which my stomach still feels, echo in my head and remind me of evenings 25 years ago back when we were kids. The time spent just being friends and leaving the worries of today parked off to the side serve me well as a recharge and a reminder of our good fortune in whatever shape it takes. While I enviously pondered the easy lives of those little boys racing fire trucks up and down the length of the cottage it suddenly occurred to me that we’d been boys too last night. Yes time travel doesn’t exist but in some small way it did last night. The blessing of friendships that have endured and a quick glance back feels good. Two and a half decades later it’s still a whole lot of fun.