This past Saturday, Ed and I attended our daughter's boyfriend's son's birthday party deep in the Shenandoah National Park up on Skyline drive. The day was flawless, with cornflower blue skies, fluffy clouds lined in lavender, crisp breezes, and the smell of autumn everywhere. The sound of the cicadas and the breezes in the trees reminded me so much of my childhood and our family trips to West Virginia to see my grandparents. It's amazing how melancholy a waft of sweet, freshly mown hay or the sound of tires on a gravel road can make you feel exactly like you did when you were 10 and riding on the back of your grandfather's old tractor for hours on two iron bars in flip flops because you didn't want to hurt his feelings by asking him to stop so you could climb down and try to stimulate blood flow in your feet once again. It's unsettling to know that those memories of mine, thousands of particular roads, sights, sounds, and smells are a conglomeration of things special only to me that no one else can understand or share. When I'm gone, they will be gone with me. I hope I can explain them well enough to my grandchildren to make them interested in keeping at least some of the memories alive, at least for one more generation. It will take some field trips to get those smells and sights and feelings instilled in their little souls. I think it's a worthy project.
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