Dean Poling
The evening is memorable for no reason other than it is remembered.
Remembered so well it can almost be felt. Remembered in the way we remember to breathe, deeply, fully, automatically, for no other reason than it must be done.
Perhaps, the memory lingers because it was the same summer my wife and I married, the summer I became both a husband and a father.
Perhaps, the evening has stayed with me because it was one of the first times I had mowed grass since my teenage years. After years of living in dorms and apartments, house-renting led to the sweet sweat of row after row of mowed grass.
Perhaps that evening stays because I had changed positions at the paper, a new job, new responsibilities.
Perhaps, the great home-run race of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa has etched the memory forever in my mind.
Any one of these answers, all of these answers would be, could be the reason. They are but they aren’t.
The evening was not the wedding day of my new life with my wife; in fact, my wife and son were not even home this particular evening. It was one of the first times I had cut grass in years, but not the first time. My job change had happened a few weeks prior. McGwire and Sosa may have both hit home runs that night but no record was broken.
Yet, nearly 25 years later, the evening remains fresh. Off work early. Arriving home on a warm summer evening. Changing from office clothes to yard clothes. Cranking up the push mower. The back and forth, row after row, of mowing the grass. The sun sliding slowly out of the sky. Mowing finished, sitting on the back porch, sipping a beer, reading a magazine article about the McGwire-Sosa rivalry, as dusk darkens the ink on the slick white pages, waiting for my wife and son to come home, breathing, sweating, the crinkle of magazine paper, a breeze, the taste of a beer so cold it has no taste ...
Each life has moments that rise above the rest. The look on a loved one’s face just before everything changes. The slow-motion horror of something gone wrong. The elation of love realized. The birth of a child. The death of a family member. The achievements and failures. The wins and losses.
This particular evening in 1998 has none of those milestones, neither good nor bad. It was one evening in a lifetime of evenings. An evening that, taken on the face values of its schedule of events, has no reason to be remembered.
Yet, who knows what or why, it can be as simple as a smell, as simple as inhaling, a word spoken, a name heard, a memory returns, and I am briefly back in the summer of 1998 ... again.
Through the years, when this evening returns, unbidden but welcome, I have wondered why it stands out, why it is so remembered ... 25 years later.
Memories of that evening remain because I was at peace with myself, my God and the world.
What evening could be more rare than that? What moment could be more important in a life lived?
Dean Poling is an editor with The Valdosta Daily Times and editor of The Tifton Gazette.
The evening is memorable for no reason other than it is remembered.
Remembered so well it can almost be felt. Remembered in the way we remember to breathe, deeply, fully, automatically, for no other reason than it must be done.
Perhaps, the memory lingers because it was the same summer my wife and I married, the summer I became both a husband and a father.
Perhaps, the evening has stayed with me because it was one of the first times I had mowed grass since my teenage years. After years of living in dorms and apartments, house-renting led to the sweet sweat of row after row of mowed grass.
Perhaps that evening stays because I had changed positions at the paper, a new job, new responsibilities.
Perhaps, the great home-run race of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa has etched the memory forever in my mind.
Any one of these answers, all of these answers would be, could be the reason. They are but they aren’t.
The evening was not the wedding day of my new life with my wife; in fact, my wife and son were not even home this particular evening. It was one of the first times I had cut grass in years, but not the first time. My job change had happened a few weeks prior. McGwire and Sosa may have both hit home runs that night but no record was broken.
Yet, nearly 25 years later, the evening remains fresh. Off work early. Arriving home on a warm summer evening. Changing from office clothes to yard clothes. Cranking up the push mower. The back and forth, row after row, of mowing the grass. The sun sliding slowly out of the sky. Mowing finished, sitting on the back porch, sipping a beer, reading a magazine article about the McGwire-Sosa rivalry, as dusk darkens the ink on the slick white pages, waiting for my wife and son to come home, breathing, sweating, the crinkle of magazine paper, a breeze, the taste of a beer so cold it has no taste ...
Each life has moments that rise above the rest. The look on a loved one’s face just before everything changes. The slow-motion horror of something gone wrong. The elation of love realized. The birth of a child. The death of a family member. The achievements and failures. The wins and losses.
This particular evening in 1998 has none of those milestones, neither good nor bad. It was one evening in a lifetime of evenings. An evening that, taken on the face values of its schedule of events, has no reason to be remembered.
Yet, who knows what or why, it can be as simple as a smell, as simple as inhaling, a word spoken, a name heard, a memory returns, and I am briefly back in the summer of 1998 ... again.
Through the years, when this evening returns, unbidden but welcome, I have wondered why it stands out, why it is so remembered ... 25 years later.
Memories of that evening remain because I was at peace with myself, my God and the world.
What evening could be more rare than that? What moment could be more important in a life lived?
Dean Poling is an editor with The Valdosta Daily Times and editor of The Tifton Gazette.
