Head Tale

Contemplating a Luther College Dorm Room

Shea and I rarely take three weeks’ vacation at a time – we usually spread our holiday allotment out through the year – some in the winter (especially in years when we can afford a hot holiday), a week or two in summer (sometimes together and sometimes not) and then a few days around Christmas and/or assorted other days here and there throughout the year.

But I realised the other day that we had a funny coincidence with our holidays this year – we took a three week long summer holiday when Pace was three years old and we did it again this year now that Sasha’s three.

It’s been a great holiday that unintentionally became a walk down memory lane in many ways…

• Camping in Greenwater with my kids after that was one of the main places I camped with my parents when I was a kid
• Pace had a buddy his age camping in Greenwater and I often had a friend with me too (this year, Pace’s friend’s entire family was there whereas when I was a kid, M&D often let me bring a friend along.)
• Camping at Nickel Lake in Weyburn is a place I’ve been camping ever since I’ve known Shea and is closely linked to my memories of her and her family as well as my own family (my grandfather and grandmother apparently used to go there in the earliest days of the park)
• Unfortunately, we lost one of my nine aunts & uncles on my dad’s side during this holiday but I was able to get out to Indian Head the day after the funeral to reminisce with the many family members who had gathered there.
• During one trip to Indian Head, we stopped at the Dairy Mart which was a main summer hangout spot for me growing up.  We also went swimming in the Indian Head pool where I spent so many years as a teenager (not as a lifeguard but I was there enough to probably be made an honourary one!)
• We also stopped for some snacks and a potty break at the IH Esso on our way through to Katepwa Lake and that reminded me of my first summer job there.
• Yesterday, I ended up attending a mini-reunion for a handful of people who attended Luther College at the U of R.  We got to visit the dorm rooms (which are currently under renovation but the unrenovated ones look the same as twenty years ago!), look at old yearbooks and photos, swap stories of college hijinx, and even eat in our old cafeteria!
• Late last night, sitting by the fire in our yard, I ended up reading through one of my journals from my 1995 exchange to England and that brought back such a rush of memories.  Not foreseeing Facebook, I didn’t always do a great job of keeping people’s last names and people’s full names are long gone in my memory for the most part – but the faces, voices, and personalities of Cath and Eric and Ed and Al and Brenda and Lyndey and “Guitar Pete” and Liz and numerous other people I met – were as vivid reading my journal last night as they were twenty years ago.

I’m sure there are numerous other throwbacks that I’m not including here (and admittedly, some of these flashbacks are inevitable when you holiday in and around places you’ve spent your whole life rather than going somewhere you’d never been before.)

But as I said, it just struck me that so many of the events of this particular holiday ended up with a mist of nostalgia on them!