I’ve had a blog since 2009. My first post was on September 30, 2009. I was nineteen.
It was a post about nostalgia. This post will be similar. I will be reminiscing about my nostalgic post.
It’s interesting how one can make a memory, store it, and then remember it decades later.
But it stays hidden behind new thoughts, smells, sights, and sounds until the right moment comes, and then the newness is nudged out of the way, and we are ushered back to the same place, the exact moment we experienced those feelings so long before.
I experience this often.
I might share my original blog someday. I don’t use it anymore. Presently, I have a blog called The Caney Mountain Blog.
I’ve been writing down my thoughts and feelings on paper since childhood. I wouldn’t call it journaling; I never considered it as such. I just knew I had feelings and insights that I wanted to express. And since no one was around to talk about them, I wrote them down.
My first online post was at the onset of the fall, and I have some delightful memories from the fall of the year.
I don’t remember which year it was, but one fall Saturday in late October, our dad got us up early one morning, and we spent the morning hours traversing the countryside, stopping at each of the mills nearby. I remember Hodgson Mill specifically.
They used to have a little store inside. One could buy trinkets and goat milk soap made by local artisans.
The morning was cold, the air was crisp, and it was as frigid as a Siberian winter. Joseph and I entered Hodgson Mill shaking like two armadillos accidentally shipped to the Antarctic.
I’ll never forget this: they had apple cider.
I’d never paid much attention to apple cider, but this morning it saved my life from certain death.
There was a little table by the door with a hot water dispenser sitting atop it. A packet of Alpine’s Spiced Apple Cider sat next to it. The kind lady offered us a hot steaming cup of cider, and our lives were changed.
We went back for seconds. And thirds. Why not? It was free. And we were freezing.
Many times since then, on a chilly October day, I’ll make my way to a nearby grocery store and meander to the coffee aisle to grab a packet of nostalgia. My tastes have changed since then. I’ve had better cider than what comes packaged inside Alpine’s cardboard box.
But nothing else has a better memory.
to those who need to pick up a packet of good memories,
– Caleb
caneymountainblog.com 