It was October of 1983, sometime in the mid-afternoon. Dad had taken me to a dentist appointment down at Bates Technical College, and after it was over with, Dad decided we would walk downtown and go to Woolworth's, just to take a look around. We made our way down 13th for a few blocks, walking by the old Samson Apartments, making a left onto Fawcett Avenue, and then down a few more blocks down 11th Street.
As we walked down this street, with the afternoon sunlight turning gold as it was just beginning its descent, everything just felt right at that moment. We had just been through some rough seas within the last number of months; after he and mom had divorced, the family had been ripped in half as a result, and you can't forge ahead as if nothing had happened, even though we had both been doing that for a while. There would be some more rough seas ahead of us as we forged ahead in the new household situation, but for a moment, where we had been bonding together pretty good, everything just felt right at the moment, with no worries to be had.
We had just seen the Beach Boys at the Puyallup Fair the month before, and had a great time. We were having fun watching a plethora of new movies on TV, and were soon going to appear on The Rock Show. Plus, Halloween was on the way, and that (along with the subsequent holidays) was always a great time to look forward to. Down at Woolworth's, we looked through the albums section, and one of us found a copy of Richard Pryor's album That Nigger's Crazy, which went home with us.
Flash forward 27 years later to October of 2010. I found myself walking down 11th Street one golden afternoon, the sun beginning to set as I was heading to the bus transit-center, and the long-ago memory of that afternoon came to me. I was now a dad myself, and I was wondering if I was going to be walking down this hill with Geoffrey one day, with him taking it all in and enjoying the moment. As the sun was setting that afternoon, I later reflected on this moment that the sun was now setting on the final days of having Dad around, which wasn't going to be that much longer before he was taken from us. He really loved Geoffrey, perhaps thinking of the days when I was that young, and maybe it was like having me from that time back home again.
Funny how a fleeting and seemingly insignificant moment from so many years ago seems to last forever.
