If You're Like Me...You Can Feel This Photo

 I turned the corner in an abandoned hallway as loved ones gathered in another room. I loved the scene before me so I snapped a photo. Today, I reviewed the pictures I took yesterday and the hallway returned to me.

I can feel this photo.

I can almost smell it, too.

I grew up in the Intermountain West, a peculiar place, both in geography and culture...especially culture. If you're like me, you've stood where I did, even if it were in a completely different building. You've seen this shot, you've walked on the carpet, passed the coat rack complete with wooden hangers, glanced at the bulletin board at the calendar of events. You also know what's inside in the empty rooms and what you'll find at the end of the hall.

It's as if you're home, even if you don't particularly like the home.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen this view, at different times, in hundreds of buildings. And if you've experienced a childhood like me, or spend much time in these buildings, you have, too.

Even looking at the shot now, I'm back in the smallish hall surrounded by memories. 

Not Many Memories...Of Getting Stuck In The Snow

Two days ago I sat in my office and watched as a White Pontiac slid down a snow-covered field and stopped, unable to continue. It was, in a word, stuck. The two teenagers in the car were also, in a word, stuck.

In a way, it brought back memories to when I was a teenager.

But, in another way, it didn't.

I grew up about an hour south of where we now live. The climate is pretty much the same and was most likely the same forty some years ago when I was learning to drive both in the snow and not in the snow. Here's where it gets weird. I don't remember getting stuck in the snow a lot. It helped I drove a VW Beetle, one of the best cars in the snow. Plus, I think they did not plow the roads as much back then. Yes, there were fewer cars on the road, but you would think with poorer driving conditions people would get stuck more often.

This is where I wonder if my memory is as reliable as I think it is. You know how older people (of which I now feel being a part...) will tell the young'ins about how life was back in the good old days? Are they just making stuff up? Are they embellishing? Or, are they relating facts as they really were? I think about this when I'm trying to remember what it was like as a teenager driving a car in snowy conditions.

Back to the present--I watched for a while as the two teenagers tried getting the Pontiac unstuck. They were unsuccessful. After a bit, when it was obvious they needed help, I called out to my youngest and we set out to give them a push. They must have called a friend because as we left out house a big Ford pickup truck drove up. I thought he might tow them out, but instead, all of us got behind the car and freed it from its frozen prison.

I wonder if in the future those teenagers will remember the time they drove down a field in January and required the help of strangers (and possibly a friend...) to get them unstuck. Then again, will those hearing the story believe them..?