Hour in the Sun 

 by John H. Bradley

 

“…I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days.”

                                                                                          ------HenryDavid Thoreau

 WhenThoreau wrote that line, he was thinking of the Walden. Pond he knew as a boy.

 Woodchoppersand the Iron Horse had not yet greatly damaged the beauty of its setting. A boycould go to the pond and lie on his back against the seat of a boat, lazilydrifting from shore to shore while the loons dived and the swallows dipped around him. Thoreau loved to recall such sunny hours and summer days “when idlenesswas the most attractive and productive business.” 

Itoo was once a boy in love with a pond, rich in sunny hours and summer days.Sun and summer are still what they always were, but the boy and the pondchanged. The boy, who is now a man, no longer finds much time for idledrifting. The pond has been annexed by a great city. The swamps where heronsonce hunted are now drained and filled with houses. The bay where water liliesquietly floated is now a harbor for motor boats. In short, everything that theboy loved no longer exists – except in the man’s memory of it.

 Somepeople insist that only today and tomorrow matter. But how much poorer we wouldbe if we really lived by that rule! So much of what we do today is frivolousand futile and soon forgotten. So much of what we hope to do tomorrow neverhappens.

 Thepast is the bank in which we store our most valuable possession; the memoriesthat give meaning and depth to our lives.

 Thosewho truly treasure the past will not bemoan the passing of the good old days,because days enshrined in memory are never lost. Death itself is powerless tostill a remembered voice or erase a remembered smile. And for one boy who isnow a man, there is a pond which neither time nor tide can change, where he canstill spend a quiet hour in the sun.