Age

nies familiarity.

As a child, I greatly enjoyed visiting the Sears store at 15th and Walton Way in Augusta. The basement floor was like heaven for Dad, my brother, and me. It had toys, outdoor gear, tools, and by the mid-seventies, video game systems. The only time my brother and I left the basement floor was to either leave the store entirely, get some candy at the candy shop on the ground floor, or to be forced to try on clothes or shoes. We really didn’t like that last one. Somehow, we thought that Mom should just know what size we needed without us having to go through that drudgery.

On the basement floor, Dad’s eyes lit up when looking at the camping gear, fishing gear, and tools. He built up a nice set of Craftsmen tools over the years, and often took advantage of the fact that if you broke one, you could go back to the store and exchange it for free, right on the spot. I still vividly remember the day that our parents surprised us by buying us an Atari video game system at Sears on what we thought was a routine visit. We were out of our minds with joy over that. These memories with Dad, especially now that he is gone, are special. When stores close, or move, or even go out of business, we are cheated out of re-visiting the actual source of our memories. We know we can’t see and hold our loved ones in an embrace, but if we can go back to that spot that made them smile, it perhaps can rekindle an old memory that was fading away.

Fortunately, we have more permanent places like the national parks, that we hope and even expect will remain well past our too brief lifetimes, that can remain mostly unchanged and therefore continue to serve as touchpoints for our old memories. As we age, our memories might need more of these assists to take us back to mentally spend time with the people and places we have lost. The good news about grief though, is that over time, you don’t always cry when remembering a lost loved one. You begin to remember the happy things and you might even have a laugh or two.

I am not sure where things are going with technology and how it may continue to evolve our culture in unexpected ways both to good and bad effect, but I am glad that I have lots of memories of simpler times to see me through it. As things continue to change, I will do my best to adapt and to learn to accept it. I say that because my wife says that survivors accept change and adapt to it. I wish I could be that pragmatic. At least she is, and perhaps it will rub off on me eventually. In the meantime, I am going to try to not just enjoy memories, but to make the most of the present as much as I can, because everything else is just a memory or a dream. The present is