A Window of Time

It's snowing.  The sky over the lake as I look south has the ominous look of winter just getting ready to assert itself.  I find myself wondering if I'll be able to hold out until spring.  We really haven't had much snow, a few inches last week has now become mostly ice as cars and footsteps compress it.  This new stuff is starting to look serious.  I step gingerly to avoid taking an old guy spill.

On New Year's Eve there were two fireworks shows over the lake courtesy of the big resort just a half mile to the east of us.  It's a big deal every year and the owners know enough to have an early show for the little kids at 9PM and save the grown up pyrotechnics for midnight.  There is always a big crowd for both.

We invited two of the nice young guys who installed the entertainment system for our new home to bring their families by for the evening so that the kids could enjoy the early show from the front deck.  We have a gas fire pit out there which was just what was needed to put a nice dent in the ten degree air.  Both guys have lovely wives and beautiful children.  The youngest kid has only been around for ten months and the oldest, a girl, is ten.  All very well behaved, they were naturally excited for the night's festivities.  It was just what we needed since we said goodbye to our Christmas visiting grandson, Dan, just a week ago.  I actually found myself watching the kids' faces as they took in the ordinance exploding over the bay.  Fireworks, I've seen plenty of times but little people I find more fascinating as the years pile up on my odometer.

Earlier Linda and I had been discussing the very real fact that the year 2015 sounds pretty serious.  You know--like we're well into the twenty-first century and there is no going back.  Y2K?  Wasn't that a concern just last year?  Nope, it was fifteen years ago that we all worried that the wheels might come off the world.  I wonder what we now worry about needlessly as we head into this new year and also think about what will surprise us as it enters from left field.  There's always something completely unanticipated and it does no good to stew about it.

A few days ago and old pal sent an email with three pictures attached.  At first I wondered why he had sent pictures of complete strangers to me and puzzled over it for at least two minutes before realizing that the pictures were of Linda and me.  I didn't know those people!  The shots were taken in 1970 or '71 and it is now clear to me that forty-five years or so can do an incredible amount of damage.  "Look at that hair!"  I found myself wondering what I would say to this young couple who had all of those years ahead of them.  How can you explain the Internet, 9/11, computers and all the changes both personal and professional that lay just over the horizon?  Obviously you can't.

I thought of this as I watched the faces of the children engrossed in the sky show over the lake and took comfort in the knowledge that one day they might recall spending a New Year's Eve with an "old" couple on the shores of Lake Coeur d' Alene just having a good time.  Each, like all of us, has been given the clay of life with which to shape some sort of permanent monument to meaning.  I only hope that years hence they take pride in what they see when looking back through their own window of time.