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Flying to Ohio, I recalled one of my favorite memories from this summer. It was a Saturday afternoon when Sophie, Jake and I danced to Paul McCartney's "Ever Present Past" (from his great new album, "Memory Almost Full"). During each version of the song, we marched around the house with straight arms and stiff legs until reaching the living room and the jubilant chorus. Then, while Sir Paul's music takes a bittersweet, melodious turn, the three of us danced crazily, like teenagers on "American Bandstand" in the 1960's: Twisting, shaking our butts and jumping around like loons! It was great fun.

I can see their smiles now. Sophie, with her wide eyed, opened mouth grin that she inherited from Julie grabbed my hands and wanted to dance in a circle. And Jacob, all squinty eyed and giggling, laughed hard and ran out of breath. In the end, we were all sweating. "It went by in a flash, it flew by in a flash" is how the song goes. "searching for the time that has gone so fast, the time I thought would last."

Lasting words that strike into the heart of any parent.

As I conjured up these images and recalled them during our flight, I started crying. Jesus, I was crying on the airplane! At least if our in flight movie, "Firehouse Dog" had been showing, I could have blamed it on that sappy film. I would have look over at the 16 year old teenage hulk sitting next to me and said, "Dude, that dog... and Bruce Greenwood. Freakin' Bruce Greenwood, man."

Of course, that hulking 16 year old was sound asleep and had his elbow dug into my rib cage. I guess I could cry in peace.

Comments

Terje said…
It was so weird to read your entry just now. My kids are jumping around in our living room to "Dance Tonight" (my 2-year old son - his name is Jacob, too! - refuses to listen to anything else these days), and it's saturday afternoon!

Thanks for sharing. Your writing leaves me with tears in my eyes.

Terje

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