Here’s a view from the past taken in the present. A little bit neater and cleaner than the old park walkways and fences were, and two bridges over the Mississippi river now. But I sigh a bit, and hug some past memories, and some lost time and loves.

The Mississippi river in the downtown Riverside Park. We ate our lunches there when we worked in the downtown stores. Our children played in the park and splashed in the river. Every child had to play on the cannon there. Sometimes we just went there to sit on the rocks and watch the river.

The River Queen paddle boat docked there in the summer, and we went to the Saturday night dances. There was a band and a bar (our ages didn’t matter) and we wore our formal dresses and danced with the bad boys we didn’t know and would never see again. We drank too much and had to act sober when our parents picked us up at the end of the night. It was good. We were innocent. And we were so very young then.