I drove my neighbor’s daughter to school the other day – to the same high school my children attended many years ago. The girl in the passenger seat could have been one of my own; tall, pretty and put together; she sent me back through time faster than she could say thanks for the ride.
We had a mini van back in the day, one with seven seats that were all usually occupied. Our black lab, Yeller, fit perfectly in the space between the driver and passenger’s seats – he took the run to and from school with me on the regular. Yeller could recognize his own kids half a block away even in the gaggle of students making their way across the street.
I thought about those long ago days as I took my place in the parade of cars inching toward the curb in the drop off spot across the street from the school. Memories flooded back as years fell away. The crosswalk in front of me turned into a time machine, the faces of the students morphed into those of kids who are long since grown up. I saw Gary, Blake, Laura and a host of others I knew and loved back then. My morning was suddenly drenched in nostalgia.
It is said that time flies – so I took the flight, non-stop over the millennium and landed smack in the middle of the 1990’s. Last century. My kids were suddenly teenagers again, the old dog was sitting beside me and I was piloting a mini van that wafted the aroma of damp hockey gear and stale French fries. I was on auto pilot.
I let memory paint the scene. A steady stream of teenagers marched toward the school, back packs weighted with yesterday’s homework. A group of students huddled under a tree in the small park adjacent the school, a cloud of smoke hanging in the air around them – the ruffians, the risk takers. My own kids buckled into the seats behind me.
My memory conjured faces; the metallic smiles of those sporting braces, the frowns of those writing exams, the smirk of the ones who planned to skip a class; and in the faces I saw both the past and the future. All those kids became really great adults, even the class skippers and ruffians. They grew up. They stepped into the world and became citizens of now. They are the tax payers, the policy makers and the care takers of today. They are setting their examples for the generation crossing the street right now. And it’s a good one.
The kid in the passenger seat said goodbye and thank you. I pulled away, back into traffic and today, with a sense that even as things change they somehow stay the same. With that notion the world was suddenly a bit brighter, more hopeful.