A Moment

I felt 10 years old again as I walked through the maze of brightly colored machines that twirled anxious people vigorously while they desperately clung to the handle bar and flashed a smile mixed with a scream. The smells raced into my nostrils and immediately my mind flashed a memory of the beach, the boardwalk and the pavilion full of children, teenagers and happy parents. Those smells....those smells are so familiar - so deep set into my mind. I will forever know that smell. As I walk through the gaudy painted mechanical rides that bring quick amusement at cheap prices, I think back to when I was a kid. I wonder where all those feelings went while I was getting old. Fantasies...thrill...amazement. I wonder why I don't think about them more often. I look down at my son and I long for him to embrace all of this and store it deep inside of himself but still on the surface so he can rejoice in it from time to time. I want these memories to fall out of him and trip him so that he will never forget. Childhood memories of the town carnivals are treasures worth more than gold. The men that look like they have been doing this for 100 years waiting patiently for the next round of people to walk through the gate only for them to latch those doors for the one thousandth time. These modern gypsies that travel through time to make people remember and, for some of us, hold onto precious moments in time that are long since in the past.