Entertaining question to kick around today.
If you could rewind your life to any age or year and relive it, what would it be?
I’ll go first. (Mine might have something to do with rewinding back to public civility and party lines…)
But, I digress.
When I was 10, I got to do two things I’ll never forget. If I could go back, I would in a heartbeat.
I got my first real bike. My dad gave it to me by riding it out of one of the bays at the service station he owned at the time.
Picture big guy riding small blue girl’s bike. Priceless memory.
The second thing we did was visit the Space Needle for the first time. My parents had a birthday tradition back in the day. They didn’t have a lot of money, but on your day, the birthday boy or girl got to pick the place for dinner.
Yours truly picked the Space Needle. (The Space Needle was only ~two years old in 1964.)
You should’ve seen their faces when I announced that’s where I wanted to go. But, it was tradition, so we all piled in the car on my birthday and drove the 150 miles to Seattle. We rode to the top, and had steak dinners—all five of us, plus one on the way.
Another precious memory I’d like to relive, more so now since there’s only two of us left.
Okay, Killzoners, your turn. What does your Life Rewound look like?
***
How would you live today if you knew you had no tomorrows left?
Follow Annie Lee as she navigates what she believes is her last day on earth.
Walk in her shoes . . . and ask yourself the same question. Will your answer be the same one Annie discovers?
I mis-read your question at first thinking in terms of if you could go back in life and re-do something—I think because that is always on my mind. If I were able to re-do something in life, knowing what I know now, I passionately, desperately wish I had gone to school to become a physical therapist. Older adults need help with all the stuff nobody prepares you for as you age (not even if you’re a physically active older adult).
But to answer what you DID ask:
“If you could rewind your life to any age or year and relive it, what would it be?”
Without question my answer would be the day in 1997 when my childhood dreams of moving west were realized. As a child who grew up watching westerns and seeing all those breathtaking mountain ranges and awesome landscapes, I never wanted anything more than to move west to live near the mountains. Growing up in flat & featureless Maryland, I was desperate to “Go West, Young Girl.” 😎
It took till I was in my 30’s, and I didn’t initially know which western state I would move to, but Arizona turned out to be my home and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it. Even now during a heat wave when all my fellow Arizonans are whining because of the 100+ degree weather.
And I get to see mountains EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. I have been so blessed.
Good morning, Brenda.
As to the first part of your answer, I wish I’d joined the Navy, which I wanted to do when I was 16. Never happened. Then, I wish I’d stayed in school and earned a nursing degree. Alas, life intervened again.
We have friends who live in AZ part-time and they feel the same way as you about it. I’ve never been there, but maybe someday. Here in the PNW, I see mountains when I look out my windows. We get heat also, sometimes 100+ in July/August, but it doesn’t last long.
I’m glad you got to “Go West, Young Girl”!
Have a great day…
The summer of ’72. I went to the beach often with my best friend Randy. I still associate the drive with Carol King’s song “It’s Too Late” on the radio. Her album Tapestry was a sensation that summer. I was going to be in college in the fall, Randy had one more year of high school, and unbeknownst to both of us this would be our last summer together. I wrote about that here.
Mornin’ Jim…
Ahh … the summer of ’72. I was preparing to relocate from WA State to LA to attend college. There were many folks who tried to talk my parents into keeping me closer to home, but they wisely allowed me to “go find myself”. Only, I didn’t. It wasn’t until 8 years later when I returned to my hometown that I “found myself”…I’d never left! Life’s funny, right?
When I lived in LA, I remember many trips to Laguna Beach, top down on my friend’s VW bug, listening to Carol King and John Denver. Those were the days.
Thanks for checkin’ in this morning!
Depends. Would I need to relive the years following that time? If so, I wouldn’t go back. If I could pop in and out, it’d probably be the summer of ‘91, when I met the love of my life (the only man I should’ve married but didn’t) and began a new chapter filled with excitement, passion, and sheer bliss. Strangely, it was also the summer I started writing. We wrote children’s books together.
Hi Sue!
Popping in and out–yes, I think I might want to do the same. My two memories were both book-ended by not-so-fun events in our family’s life. But I guess that’s how life is.
I’m kinda feeling nostalgic today…can anyone tell? 🙂
Have a great day, my friend!
Summer 1979. I was in Israel for a month. I traveled from Sharm El Sheikh in the south to the Syrian border in the north. I soaked in an oasis at Ein Gedi that Kind David liked. Climbed Masada. Spent an afternoon on a beach in Gaza. Walked on the Temple Mount around the Dome of the Rock. I was 16.
Very special memory: Before dawn we hiked the path to the top of Jabba Musa. We had to be at the top before sunrise. At dawn we started Shacharit, the morning prayers. One of the girls in our group read from the Torah for her Bat Mitzvah. She read Exodus 20, The Ten Commandments, Jabba Musa is known at Mt. Sainai in English.
Memory I would like to forget. I spent a week on a Kibbutz, Nir Oz. I worked in the fields each day. The road ran along the field. The other side of the road was the security zone. The Army patrol came by each morning. At sunrise I could hear the call to prayer from the mosque in Gaza City, on the other side of the fence.
On October 7, 2023, Nir Oz had a population of 450. On October 8, 190.
Good morning, Alan.
Your trip to Israel sounds almost life-changing. As does the memory you’d like to forget. There are no meaningful words that I can come up with to say to those, like yourself, who live life closer to that sad day than I do. 🙁
Thanks for sharing this morning. Have a good weekend…
I do like time travel stories. Always have. One of my favorites was written by a fellow high school alum. He is a bit older than me, he is class of 1969, I am c/o 1980. He wrote a paper for class about going back in time and meeting his father. In college he expanded that story into more of a script. It became a movie. “Back to the Future”. The Delorean got added way later.
Wow! How cool.
My mother in law is also an alum. As are my children. Oldest child was assigned the locker used by Cornell Haynes. He runs down the hallway in this video. He has the bandage on his cheek.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVio5Rmti20
Wow, Alan–how cool that you knew that story before it became a movie. It was one of our favorites back in the day.
Summers in Newport Beach, and going to Balboa Island to the Fun Zone in the early 50s. Saved our pennies all year in a big pink piggie bank; its red hat would tip up when you put a coin in the slot. (Oh, to be able to have that much fun for pennies!). Having a chocolate coated frozen banana (from the guy who invented them and turned down Disney to sell them at his upcoming park.)
Hi Terry!
When I was in college in the mid-70’s, I had some friends who hailed from Newport Beach. Such a beautiful place! If I wasn’t such an introverted nerd during those college days, I might want to re-visit. But I was so awkward and shy…nah, don’t want to be that person again. 🙂
Have a good weekend!
My college years were some of the best years of my life. I had super strict parents so college was my first taste of independence. During that time I went to Costa Rica as an exchange student for 3 semesters. I treasure those memories. Lots of growing pains and mistakes made, but I learned to make my own decisions, learn how I wanted to live my life and what I believed. I also learned so much about other countries, their cultures, and their perspectives on the United States. Invaluable lessons that still apply to this day.
Hi Kelly!
What an experience for you, living in Costa Rica! I went to a small town in Mexico, about 100 miles south of the border, but only for a couple of weeks to help out at a school that was being built. That was a good experience for me, and a chance to try out my 7+ years of Spanish I’d taken. I quickly discovered that Spanish in the textbooks is way different than what’s spoken by the natives.
Thanks for chiming in this morning. Have a great day…
I have two things I’d love to go back and re-live. The first: weekends at Great Uncle Fred’s farm in rural Georgia. Enjoying life with a herd of cousins, climbing trees, running barefoot races on the dirt roads, fishing in the pond, plodding along on the back of the giant gelding, Ol’ Dan. Nothing to fear (except for the snakes, of course, but we were at least smart enough not to wander into the woods.)
The other first: any day in kindergarten where I first learned to read and found new worlds in books. It was in kindergarten that I learned about discipline and how to follow directions (which Mrs. Wells was very strict about), and it was there that I developed the desire to do the best I could.
Hi Kay!
Your memories of Great Uncle Fred’s farm sounds like mine of spending several weeks every summer at our gramma’s house (to give our parents a break, of course…). She had horses, cows, chickens, dogs and cats, all those things us city-dwellers found fascinating. Until we had to clean the chicken coop, that is!
I never went to kindergarten, but I do remember first grade. Mrs. Majors. Great teacher, loved to read to us. Like you, whole new worlds opened up. We can only hope and pray that children today are being taught to love books written by flesh-and-blood authors, right?
Have a good day, and thanks for stopping by!