Now and then...

"How did it get late so soon?"
- Theodor Seuss Geise (Dr. Suess)

The photographs were attached in the email from John. 

The note said, “Ted, Your blog came just as I found these - another reminder of the "better" parts of our lives.”  He had come across them somewhere in his files.

1969…

With Vietnam looming on the horizon, Dave, Mike and I visited John in Ottawa.   He took us to the houses of Parliament and we actually bumped in to the Prime Minister at the time – Pierre Elliot Trudeau – who took a few minutes to chat with us about our impending Southeast Asian adventure.  One Royal Canadian Mounted Police escort was all he had…it was a different day!

We drove from Ottawa to Muskoka for a few days and on a sunny Sunday morning had our picture taken standing on the dock in front of the Lake Joseph Community Church.  People came by boat or car to hear ministers of different faiths preach...my father loved taking his turn in the pulpit.  In the coming days, John (on the far right) would return to Ottawa and we…well, we would head so far west, we would end up in Southeast Asia.

On an evening that year, John or someone shot a photograph of the Dreisinger kids “…sitting on the [family] dock of the bay…” on the shores of Lake Joe.  My eye caught the camera, the girls looking away as though something in the water had drawn their eye.  I wore my military fatigue jacket, Anne my university athletic letter sweater and Nancy…Nancy had a wistful smile that generally gave me the impression she ‘knew’ things…things the rest of us just didn’t get.  I was 21, Anne 23 and Nancy 19.  We wondered if this might be our last time together.

2013…

It’s curious as I look at those young people who had so much in front of them…so many doors to open…so much promise yet unfulfilled.  In many ways I resonate with them even today.  I mean, when I am sitting quietly or writing or reading or thinking or really doing anything that does not require a significant physical challenge, I do not feel any older than the fresh and innocent faces in those faded photographs.

I realize, of course that I am older…little more than a quick glance in the mirror tells that story, BUT inside…inside I feel as I have always felt…inside I have the same curiosities, the same desire for the certainty of knowing…knowing and understanding my place.

Then, I thought people in their 60s were ancient.  Now, I am uncertain what being in one’s 60s even means.  Now I am uncertain that time has any meaning at all.  By now much of the story has been written.  I survived the war and made my way through life to the keyboard of this computer as I write.  Anne dumped that letter sweater and followed the passion of her life…music.  Nancy?  Well she never lost that wistful smile, and in fact as the years went by, it was clear she did know things the rest of us didn’t get, and while she has left us sooner than any of us could have dreamed, she taught me much indeed.

Between then and now a lot has happened and yet when I look at that photograph of the three of us, I feel the slipstream of time has brought me to this moment in an instant…a “…twinkling of an eye…” and that in fact from then to now there has been in a real sense – no time.  When I look at that photograph I feel a sense of wonder at who those people really were.  When I look at that photograph, I feel the same sense of adventure lying in front of me now that I felt then.

It is what lies ahead isn't it? I can’t wait to see what the day brings…

- ted