The memory that travels with me

[gerisullivan]

As I crossed the Hudson an hour ago, I looked down at the river to the right, to the left, and back to the right again. Then I looked in my rear view mirror, remembering Chuch Harris sitting in my back seat, looking right then left then right in gleeful joy every single tme we crossed the Mississippi when he and Sue visited Minneapolis in 1989.

I've driven well over a quarter million miles in the years since. Every single time I cross a major river, I look right then left then right, remembering. Chuch's love of rivers, his excited exclamations when crossing one of the "big ones" -- a river he'd long been fascinated by without ever expecting to actually see it, his glee Every Single Time we crossed the Mighty Missippi -- brings constant and continued joy all these years and miles later.

I'll look right then left and right again as I cross the Connecticut River a few miles from now. But first it's back into and through the clouds sitting low in the Berkshires.so pretty, especially when the thin a bit as they soon most likely will.

Here's to safe journeys and lifelong memories of love and joy.

Comments

[maruad.livejournal.com]

When I was a child, Assinniboine Park had a marvelous fish pond stocked with goldfish and lily pads. I would lean over the water and watch with joy when the fish would swim up into view. Golden fish from the murky depths, they always fascinated and thrilled me.

Wonderful memories are treasures of life, always to be cherished and enjoyed, rising from our depths like goldfish from a pond, unbidden but never welcome. Here's to happy memories, may you always have them and may you always be gathering more.

[pameladean]

What a lovely memorial habit!

A few summers ago Eric and I went to the South Shore of Lake Superior, and one of the rivers we drove along and stopped by was the St. Louis River. It's utterly unnavigable, full of abrupt turns and huge looming edgy rocks and shallows and potholes and rapids and waterfalls. It's gorgeous. "River!" I kept yelling. "River river river!" Then I started to call it my new favorite river, and had to backtrack. "My new river that I like." Because how can you have a favorite river? It's like having a favorite book. Just not possible.

P.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

When I drove across the Wabash on my way from Chicago to Cincinnati - not a route I have a chance to take often - I lustily sang Allan Sherman's parody of "On the Banks of the Wabash". It lasted as long as the bridge did. On the way back to Chicago, I sang it again.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

We crossed the Mississippi a number of times when I was a kid. Mom hated the humming noise the steel decking made.

Days after Cathy and I were married, we were driving a Jartran truck, with her at the wheel. We planned to switch before the big river, but found ourselves in a one-lane detour with cement barriers on both sides with no chance to pull off. Cathy took us across the long, narrow bridge as lightning lit up the rain that was pelting us.

This August I drove Sarah up to the U.P. A lane was closed on the Mackinac bridge, so I had to watch where I was driving. Still a lot of fun, though.

[thirdworld.livejournal.com]

Lovely. Sensawunda in all things. Best way to live.