Recreating childhood’s happiest memories means passing on details from father to son

Left to right: Uncle Josh, Uncle Tom, Cousin Tommy, Dad;
Front: me, circa who knows when.

“The ‘good old days’ of outdoor adventure are often defined in my mind by very specific images — the shag carpet and felt curtains in our old camping van, Richard’s blue early-model dome tent arching with a sharp wind in the west desert, Poppy’s wise old smile as he cracks a joke by a campfire.

“Sometimes they’re expressed in sounds, like bacon frying, the leaves of a quaking aspen tinkling in the breeze, or a fish fighting as somebody — usually not me — pulls it from the water.

“More often, however, those times are defined by random but meaningful moments, like the time I was sleeping in our van along the Mirror Lake Highway. I woke up sometime during the night, opened a window and spent at least an hour listening to the powerful Upper Provo River course down the canyon.”

The above is an excerpt.  Click over to the Transcript Bulletin to read the full story.

Campin’ Cousins, circa a long time ago. I’m the toddler on Josh’s lap.