If you also follow me on Facebook, you might recognize the little passage below. I originally posted it over there about this same time last year, after a midnight drive down Provo Canyon. I’d been in Heber, a small town in the mountains above Provo, Utah, for an annual car show my parents attend there. It’s become a bit of a tradition for Anne and me to spend the day with them, but last year, for some reason that now escapes me, I’d gone alone and stayed quite late, and my mental gears started to turn during the trip home, resulting in this little exercise in scene-painting. Not to toot my own horn, but I really like the mood I captured in this post, and I received a lot of nice feedback on it, mostly variations on “why aren’t you writing a book?” (A question, by the way, for which I have no good answer, or even a good excuse.)

Well, this past weekend was the Heber show again, and that got me thinking about what I wrote last year, and how one of the most frustrating things about Facebook for me is the inability to easily access old posts. They’re still there, if you care to scroll back through your Timeline, but there is no search feature or other convenient method to quickly recall your good stuff. Fortunately, I saved a screenshot of the post — as I said, I was proud of this little chunk of writing, and frankly, I thought I could use it and the supportive comments as an ego-booster on those occasions when I start doubting my abilities — so I have a local copy available. And now I’ve decided to post a copy of it here as well…

Coming around the back side of Deer Creek [reservoir], the surrounding hills black shadows in the night. Alone except for a monstrous full moon hovering just behind my left shoulder; it fills the car with silvery light almost bright enough to read by. The top’s down, of course, and the heater struggles against wind that flirts on the edge between “chilly” and “downright cold,” while Springsteen sings about girls in their summer clothes.

 

These are the moments you wish could stay…

 

If you’re curious, the Springsteen song I referenced is “Girls in Their Summer Clothes,” a lovely, somewhat melancholy tune from his 2007 album Magic. Listen here, if you’ve a mind to.