On Saturday, Thomas and I decided to go to the park, so he could practice riding his bike on a flat surface. We loaded into my little four-cylinder Toyota pickup, and he proceeded to crank down the window. He rode down the road with his arm resting in the window. It seemed like just yesterday that I was doing the same thing in my grandma’s old four-cylinder Toyota pickup, but it wasn’t yesterday–it was nearly forty years ago.
When we got to the park, a bazillion people were already there. To my surprise, the park was hosting a statewide soccer tournament this week. Never have I seen so many people at the park, and it was hard for me to comprehend a rural North Carolina county hosting such a tournament. But times have changed. When I was growing up, soccer was played in cow pastures and hayfields because the good fields were devoted to football. But this whole park was now devoted solely to soccer. After Thomas played on the playground, which was swamped with kids, he wanted to go watch some soccer games.
Soon his “watching” turned into playing with other kids on the bleachers, but I took it as a chance to watch some games. I was taken aback by how good these middle school age kids were. At that age, I was obsessed with soccer, but not nearly that good, and I was considered one of the best players on my rural team. Times have changed. We departed at halftime of a 0-0 game, and secretly I wanted to stay to see who would win, but Thomas’s patience was running thin and we needed to get back home. But watching those kids, it felt like just yesterday that I was one of them, but it was nearly thirty years ago.
At a major intersection on the way home, a silver minivan pulled up beside us. A middle-age man was driving it, and emanating from the van were the most indecipherable lyrics in all of music. Instantly, it felt like just yesterday, when I was blasting Eddie Vedder singing “Yellow Ledbetter” from my own car. But it was over twenty-five years ago.
“What’s that man saying?” Thomas asked, listening to the music coming from the van.
“Good question. Nobody knows,” I said, smiling.
The next day, for Mother’s day, I helped Natalie hang her grandpa’s old porch swing. When he passed away, the family sold his house, but she saved it as a memento from all those times she used to swing on it with him. It has been sitting under a shed at our house for many years, as she waited for me to finally get around to hanging it. I finally did. Thomas then proceeded to lay down and take a nap in it.
“It seems like just yesterday that that used to be me,” she said.
“I know the feeling,” I said.
