....There Is a Season

There is a place here in my home town that has seen every season of my life. It's right down the road from me, it's known as "Lion's Park," but for the uninitiated, it's sort of a misleading name. It's not really a park in the traditional sense of the word. No long stretches of unnaturally green manicured lawn, no swings or sand boxes. It's got a few ramshackle picnic tables, a few ugly cement barbecues and the prerequisite "outhouse." It's also got a creek and beautiful native trees and grasses.

Here in my home town it's a common site for teenage assignations and anything else you don't want your parents to watch you do. Needless to say, I've spent a fair amount of time there and it holds a lifetime of memories, good and bad. I've fallen in love there, laughed there, cried and screamed there. It's seen my frantic first kisses and angry break up scenes. It's seen my daughter grow from a hairless baby in nothing but a diaper to a beautiful girl on the brink of adolescence. No other place in the world screams home to me the way it does.

Tonight, after spending the evening with my cousin, watching our daughters run around like maniacs, I drove my daughter to Lion's Park. We sat on the tailgate of my 4Runner, listened to music and stared at the stars. The feeling of history was so think you could touch it. It was one of those sweet moments you could almost feel hardening into a touchstone to bring out in later years and remind yourself of what used to be...