When I was 24, I spent the summer as a counselor at a YMCA camp called "Camp Shadybrook". It was near Pike's Peak, and until that moment was the farthest away I had ever been from home. I've made up for it since then and have 2 passport books to prove it, but it had to start somewhere. It's funny what memories stick with a person. I remember the shapes of the alpine leaves, and feel of the dry high desert air, and I also remember the names of some great friends I made out there that summer. My nick-name was "gator" being that I was from New Orleans and all, and some friends from Myrtle Beach gave me a fishing hook to wear on the brim of my white Notre Dame baseball cap. I wore it for years till it rusted off because it reminded me of that summer, long after I'd returned. I've only fished a few times, but it was the symbolism that meant more to me.

Right now, we are in the dog days of summer and things seem to slow down a lot on account of it's too damn hot to do anything fast. It's in these slow spaces of time where memories of the past creep in to fill the cracks from the heat. If I could visit the past for select moments, and feel the air that seemed lighter then, and swim in blue that clouds provide, and sleep the sleep of airy dreams, I'd be here toda.......

At the top of the hill at Camp Shadybrook, there is a large basketball court under an open sky. During the day it is filled with busy kids, joyful to be little superstars. But at night, when the counselors come out to roll cigarettes and catch up on the day, the court becomes something else, a launching pad for trips to Garden of the Gods and debates over RUSH or David Grisman albums. We often bring blankets, or sleeping bags up there and just stare at the sky, 1000's of stars poking holes in the night, with a cool breeze blowing change in our direction. You can always hear it coming before it hits you. The wind moves the thick leaves in waves, before breaking free of the forest's embrace, and covering you like magic before moving onto the next town.

My album of choice has always been Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, and I listen in meditation while staring at those stars, wondering where I'll be 2, 5, 10 years later. I wonder if I will always know Kim, from Littleton CO (my summer crush) or if I will ever find a way to move out to CO permanently so I can listen to WSP at Red Rocks when they play, buy a kayak and ride the South Platte, travel dusty mountain roads in a jeep with my retriever Max, and live humbly in a cabin somewhere and work for the YMCA for good. I wonder if I'll be happy.

I love Pink Floyd, Colorado and mountain air. Fishing hooks, sleeping bags and laughy Taffy. WSP, David Grisman's Banjo and the sound of wind. They are my souveniers, roadsigns on memory lane reminding me how to get back to where I've been when being here get's too tough.

Here is a song that inspires me called Time by Pink Floyd. Evidently I'm not the only one that's ever wondered where the days have gone.

(I've included the lyrics to this song below the video)

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then the one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun
And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but you're older
And shorter of breath and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desparation is the English way
The time is gone the song is over, thought I'd something more to say