Who knows where the time goes..

Sometimes it is challenging to accept that you have a one way ticket on the escalator of time and space. Everyone else is there with you. As you get older you seem to become more aware of this reality. Perhaps that is because when we are young we are so eager to get to the next day, next week, next birthday! Things change. I have started to understand, in the slightest degree, the way our grandparents and even parents feel about days gone by, "the way things used to be." I am too young to be having "the way things used to be" moments, and yet I find myself in conversations about strange devices called floppy disks, or watching a 12 year old on the bus look at a man's portable CD player like it was from outer space, or looking back at music or TV shows from my youth that I thought were so hip but now appear unmistakably cheesy. One example however that stands out in my mind is the impact of progress on areas where I had a real sense of place.

When I was in my very early teens my friend Trent Johnson and I would go rabbit hunting out near Cedar Fort, Utah (west of Lehi). Trent was more of a hunting enthusiast than I (when his Dad went hunting, he had every intention of actually getting a deer... I discovered after years of hunting with MY dad and uncles that the worst possible thing that could happen on their deer hunt is that someone would shoot (and have to deal with) a dead deer). Trent and I had taken hunter safety together and viewed ourselves as skilled outdoorsman. We were, however, skilled outdoorsman who had to have our mom's drive us out to our hunting grounds. Once you left Lehi or, Bluffdale, this area was pretty much the sticks. We really developed a connection with a specific area and loved our Saturday afternoons out there. We rarely killed anything, but always had fun.
Years later I asked a girl from school(USU) out. It was summer time and she was staying with family in Utah Valley. She gave me directions and I agreed to pick her up. As I followed the directions I realized that I was generally heading towards my old hunting grounds. She mentioned that the relatives she was staying with were a young family. It seemed strange that they would be on a farm out there. As I followed the road out towards Cedar Fort I started doubting the directions... I must have taken a wrong turn...this cant be right. Then suddenly I noticed a newer looking apartment complex... then another... then a subdivision, then three subdivisions!!!! It was like discovering a whole new civilization... like Will Smith in Independence Day.. I was flabbergasted. It was utterly astounded how quickly this area, that I would have guessed would remain undeveloped for decades to come, had become quite literally a city in a matter of a few years.

Time indeed marches on. I think of Annie's grandmother who is 95. She has watched the Wasatch Front go from being a few larger towns with satellite villages into an endless fabric of cities and suburbs. For better or worse, it is part of what happens here on earth. We learn, we relearn, we adjust, we adapt... and yes, amid all of the convenience and progress, we even yearn for what we've lost.... except for floppy disks....