You can’t go back in time, but you can look back and this day, it’s all about a swimming pool triggering memories of sun, sand, youth, music and beverages.
I WENT TO the apartment pool today. I’ve been going most days. Fills the time when I’m not with Connie and I feel the need to, well, do something. The pools is just a few steps from my apartment and I know some of the folks who hang there and they tolerate a fat old man pretty well.
Except, today I was finding that when I closed my eyes and took it all in, I wasn’t a fat old guy. I was young, strong, thin and could start a day on the beach with a Pineapple Wine/Colt45 crushed ice breakfast, move on to beer on the beach, finish the night with Lord knows what, doing Lord knows what, falling asleep in the dark on the beach and listening to some of the best music in the world, all on a transistor radio or coming from a bar across the street.
Funny how it comes back. These were pre-Connie memories, back when I was last on my own.
The music in my ear this day was Stevie Ray Vaughan, Little Steven Van Zandt and Jimmy Buffett, instead of the Stones, Motown, Beach Boys, Safaris, Jan & Dean. Behind the music were the sounds of splashing and laughing and my old body started to feel carefree, shrinking back in time.
But when I reached to my side, there was no margarita, no bottle of whiskey or cooler of beer. Nope. I have a disk issue and will be seeing a surgeon this week. Right now, I am on a muscle relaxant and a couple of pain killers and later I’d drive (just seven blocks but still, a drive) down to see Connie and I have matured a bit. I won’t do it after a couple of drinks.
So I let the sun beat down, to the sounds of people laughing and splashing in the water and free my mind to wander back to faces and places I’d long forgotten, experiences that somehow come back across the years and boy, do I wish I could reach out for that margarita, bolt it down, run into the surf, come back and do it again and fall asleep on the beach under the stars.
I can’t. I know that. I will be 78 in a couple of months, and I know I can never go back. Not a chance. I can look back, though, and on this sunny afternoon by a pool, maybe that’s just enough to remind me that life has been good and it goes on.
Even with 40 extra pounds, a busted body and no margaritas it can be good. Sweet dreams under the sun. Drift off with Stevie and Little Steven….
Rich Heiland, has been a reporter, editor, publisher/general manager at daily papers in Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio and New Hampshire. He was part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team at the Xenia Daily (OH) Daily Gazette, a National Newspaper Association Columnist of the Year. He has worked as a consultant doing public speaking and training business specializing in customer service, general management, leadership and staff development. He and his wife live in West Chester, PA. He can be reached at [email protected].