Seventeen Years Ago

Time flies. We all know it. We’ve all said it. It’s the topic around the water cooler at work. Where did the time go? Once in a while something really hits you though. Where were you seventeen years ago? I asked myself that today.

Seventeen years ago …

… we were just putting a new floor in our kitchen – and here we are, doing it again.

… my boys were fighting over which one would sit in the front seat of the car – and now they have their own cars.

… I had shoulder length permed hair which I dyed for the fun of it – not to cover the gray.

… my oldest son was taking hunter safety class, had just started junior high school, and was still pudgy around the middle – his own kids are in school now (and he’s replaced the pudginess with muscles).

… my middle son was learning the saxophone and had a squeaky little voice which sounded just about the same as the saxophone did when he tried to hit the high notes – the saxophone is long gone, replaced by an electric guitar which doesn’t squeak, but rather, makes a loud, sometimes annoying sound.

… we were raising hogs on our farm – now our barn sits empty, with thick cobwebs in the corner of the ladder to the haymow.

… my husband and I stayed out until the wee hours of the a.m. with friends – now we wake up at the wee hours of the a.m. when those coming home race noisily down the road past our bedroom window.

… my daughter Mickey wasn’t even a thought in the back of my mind yet – now she is a real part of my life and in the front of my thoughts.

… I was 31 years old - I don’t even remember ever being 31 years old.

And get this -

… Survivor, one of the first television reality/game shows started its first season on national tv.

Can you believe it’s been on that long? I still don’t believe it.