Time Travel

I’m going to tell you a story today that might bore some of you, it’s a personal story about traveling back in time. Well, sort of anyway.
But first, maybe someone could answer a question that‘s been bugging me. Why would you name your son Robert, Richard, or Charles and insist on calling them Bob, Dick, and Chuck? I realize there are more pressing issues but just the same, I believe this practice is responsible for a lot of our problems we face as a nation today. Talk about an identity crisis. These poor souls don’t even know who they are. What about their family members? You have no idea how confused I was as a child when I found out my uncle Bob was actually my uncle Robert? I thought maybe he was in some sort of witness protection program or something and was just using our family as a cover. No, things were never the same once he let it be known his name was Robert. I was thinking maybe somebody out there might know why and maybe when we started doing this to our kids. Now before you go flying off the handle, I’m just kidding. I do find it weird though.
Okay, I promised you a story about time travel today. As some of you might remember, I moved here from Greensburg. I’ve told you about road trips we used to take to places like Belvidere, Sun City, Medicine Lodge and to a place called Devil’s corral. Devil’s corral is a huge area of sandstone rock formations on a ranch about 20 miles south of Greensburg. This particular bunch of rocks resemble a horse shoe and people have been carving their names in the rocks for generations. Okay, it was also a good place to have a keg party on a Saturday night. We always had a roaring fire, plenty of ice-cold beer, and there was always someone willing to provide the music from the cab of their truck. I won’t go into all the things that took place out there on some of those Saturday nights as some of you might not approve. Just trust me when I say they were good times.
And once you got over your Saturday night hangover and made up with your wife, Devil’s corral was a wonderful place to take your family for a Sunday afternoon picnic. We’d spend hours cooking, eating, and exploring the area on my wife‘s motorcycle. We were out there one Sunday with a bunch of friends and their kids and decided to add our names to the wall.
I remember it like it was yesterday. I was 25 years-old. My wife and I had been married 4 years and our little girl was 3 years-old, she carried her cabbage patch doll with her everywhere she went. Probably had it with her that day. I remember, what started out to be a group project ended up being my project. All the sudden, everybody found something to do. I was stuck, it took me all afternoon but I got it finished. Yeah, good times.
I spent last weekend with my friends, Eric and Ronni Sears from Greensburg. Eric and I went to Devil’s corral. It was one of the best road trips we’ve ever taken. First of all, it’s dirt roads the whole way. There’s a couple low water bridges, and a lot of the is on open range where you’ll probably going to come across cattle in the road. When we finally got there I just kind of stood there looking. Looking and remembering. Once I started up the hill towards the opening on the front to the corral, it was like stepping back in time. I was scanning the walls for our names but coming up empty. I was about ready to admit someone had probably carved over ours. Or that time had simply wiped us out. I was snapping a few pictures when I saw it. There we were, Kevin, Linda, Misty, Jerri, Jenifer, and Katie, it was dated 2-27-83.
Yeah, that was a good life back then. But you know what? The 25 years that followed were just as good. My wife and have been married 29 years now. We have 2 more sons, a daughter and son in law, and grandkids all over the place. How much more could an old guy ask for?