I try not to think about the past too much. Unfortunately, at least in my mind, ghosts of disappointments and painful situations tend to fight for center stage. There are many more happy recollections that come dancing forward as long as I make the effort to pull back the curtain.

We love living near Lapeer, Michigan, for lots of reasons, but part of the attraction is the way we are constantly reminded of so many meaningful life experiences. If my family had not moved to Lapeer from Saginaw in 1968, I never would have met my beautiful wife, Mary. We had our first date in March, 1971, and celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary last December.

Whenever I pass the corner of Callis and Davis Lake Road, I think of dark nights, driving slowly on Callis, which in 1970 was little more than a muddy cow path, looking for couples who were parking so we could flash the lights and honk at them. Probably wasn’t a good idea.

On Turrill Road, I am reminded of the summer of ’69 and the week I spent raking stones from a yard so grass could be planted. When I see the gray building behind the Sunoco station where George Avram Used Cars was, I think of delivering motor oil to K-Mart stores in Flint and Lansing, mopping floors, cleaning toilets, and throwing aerosol cans in a trash fire.

On Demille Road near Clark was a farm where I worked one summer, feeding cows and clearing grass from electric fences. The owner told me to replace the silo door securely when I went to lunch because cows would climb in if I didn’t. When I returned, I was greeted by three large calves happily enjoying their lunch in the silo.

Just off the corner of Turrill and South Lapeer is a building which is now a spa, but in 1984 was the house we lived in when our triplet sons were born at Hurley Medical Center in Flint. Because we were so close to the highway, driving to the hospital every day for ten weeks until our boys were released from the NICU was more convenient. They are now forty years old.

Sometimes I recall the Sunshine Bakery, where Tim Horton’s now stands, and teasing my aunt for paying $7.00 for a coffee cake. Not a piece of coffee cake, she got the whole thing for seven dollars! I try not to think about that when I pay the same amount for a mocha and one tiny vanilla bean scone across the street at Starbucks.

When we drive south on Clark for a backroads trip to Rochester, I look over and can’t help thinking about swimming in the pond and the thrill of my first ride in an airplane, which the pilot skillfully lifted off from the grass runway nearby.

Webster defines a remnant as something that remains or is left over. I like leftovers. As hard as I try not to think about the past, there is something of value in recalling good things, allowing the feeling of those events to sweep over us again, maybe just one more time.