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DAVID BENTLEY'S WEEKLY COLUMN |
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NOTICING CHANGES
I visited my mom for her birthday last week. We ate all the foods that I had hoped to eat, and a few more as well. We baked three dozen cookies together. We visited the old neighborhoods and chatted with old friends. We went out to a local lake and enjoyed watching the wildlife and water. It wasn’t the Salish Sea, but it was interesting all the same. I even bought my mother a corsage to wear to church on Sunday. What stands out most as I think about the trip, however, is all the changes that I noticed. Change was everywhere -- the limp caused by arthritis in my mother’s hip, the remodeled airport, the interstate highway with multiple new lanes and exit ramps, the missing landmarks and new construction. At first it seemed that nothing was the same. However daylight and a good night’s sleep helped me get my bearings a bit and realize that I could still navigate in my old stomping grounds despite having missed the turn into my mother’s subdivision at 11:00 the night before. I found a few landmarks and was able to recognize that old landmarks had been replaced by new ones. The police station was housed in the old teen age clubhouse. A new police station was being constructed where the old bowling alley had been demolished. The new Walgreens was across the street from where the old one had been. The Holiday Inn was gone with an empty lot left behind. Some friends and acquaintances were immediately recognizable, others required a bit of conversation to to identify. A few of them asked my mother, "Is that David?" By the end of the week, I had survived all the changes around me and enjoyed my visit with my mother. After the three plane flights in stormy weather, I was happy to finally get home. I walked down Spring Street and immediately noticed a new roof on Haley’s Bait Shop, erected while I was gone. Change really is all there is.
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SAN JUAN ISLANDER © 2008 |
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