Let’s do the time warp again…

I am not a “look through old photo albums” kind of guy.  Once in a while I drag them out, usually to look for a specific image I need. Whitney wrote a lovely essay for the Canoecopia gazette, about growing up in a paddling family, believing that paddling was normal, the sort of thing every kid did from the time they could sit in one place and keep from drooling on themselves. In our case, they were drooling on themselves but it’s a wet sport and we let it go.

I have plenty of digital photos of W. from her middle school and high school years, but the early pictures taken before digital are all in a big Rubbermaid in the basement.  I had to ask Stephanie where it was, that’s how often I get into that stuff.

I’ve seen these pictures before many times, of course, but I was not prepared for the fact that:

1. 15-20 years have passed.
2. I had hair then.
3. Whitney is pretty much the same person as she was then, just in a different body and with a better vocabulary.

Whitney has grown up nicely, and no father could be prouder. I don’t wish I could go back and live those times over again…once was plenty, and I enjoyed it immensely. I don’t wish my kids wouldn’t grown up so fast…a futile wish, and it would be the epitome of selfishness to wish a child to grow up slower, as it would prolong puberty, which sucks even at its normal rate.

A wistful nostalgia is fine, though. I can still remember those days as if they were yesterday.  One of the nice things about growing older is that time accelerates and it’s easier to remember things that happened years ago as if they happened yesterday.

Whitney is no longer a toddler wearing a really loud “bikini” and Ian is now taller than me, and has burned through a fair number of paddles since his first one, hand-carved for him by our friend Patrick.

I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Respectfully submitted,

Canoelover