Category Doug Duncan

Jun 21 2022

Those were the days

Hi everyone,

An old friend of ours shared something he and his wife had recently done in response to an article he’d read about simpler times. Dr. DOUG DUNCAN and wife LINDA decided to reenact a day in the life of a summer event when ice cream in the park was a special treat. Here’s his report.

I purposely reminisced about those days yesterday by sitting outside in the shade on the hot day in front of a fan drinking a Coke out of a glass full of ice like we did in the days before anyone had air conditioning. Then in the evening Linda and I got an ice cream sundae and ate it in a park. Also enjoyed ignoring the bad diet just like we did as kids in the good old days.
Also, when we went to the ice cream shop I didn't bother to clean up after working in the yard or change out of my sweaty old clothes and sandal stained with dirt, grass and stains from picking and eating raspberries from our flower and vegetable garden. While we ate our ice cream we listened with pleasure to the frogs on the waters edge and geese as they walked by a few feet in front of us asking us if we were going to share whatever we were eating with them.  All this while we watched the blue sky and pink clouds fade as the sun set.

In addition to his profession as an orthopedic surgeon, Doug is a gifted photographer whose pictures illustrated  SOUNDS OF RAIN, the book I wrote after a trip up the Amazon a number of years ago. All four of us were on the trip, along with a dozen others from the Springfield area.

AMBASSADORS


Upstream the jungle hovers,
leans in from either side,
hides secrets behind vines.
Unexpectedly, three huts perch
along a strip of clay.

Men stand still as trunks,
size us up as hunters do.

Mothers pause, smile a little,
a courtesy to strangers on the river.

Children laughing with their eyes
run the bank naked or not
good will grinning across the water.

They wave and we wave back
until we turn the bend,
carrying away the memory.


(c) 2006 David L. Harrison

Thank you, Doug, for the great reminders of times that were.