You’re Currently Living in Your Glory Days. Act According and Make Sure to Take a Few Pictures.
A glimpse of North Idaho in the early 1980’s. [Dad is center of the group, bottom row in the blue denim jacket]
My father spent his 20’s and 30’s living in the panhandle of Idaho. He was a mill worker, a houndsman, and an avid big game hunter. He drove his lifted Fords fast (definitely flipped a few), and he would put beer down like it was water. The best part? He had a rowdy band of heathens (pictured above) he called best friends that were all the same. North Idaho in the 70’s and 80’s was a young man’s paradise.
And in between all the close calls, he managed to document almost all of it on 35mm film.
When I was growing up, I remember my dad having shoeboxes full of photos, favorite trucks and good dogs, but unfortunately after one of the defining tragedies of my youth, we lost it all in a house fire in 2015. I was lucky enough to look through these boxes a few times and experience my fathers glory days 40 years after the moment had passed. Now years later as I see my 25th birthday approaching on the calendar, I realize that I’m currently living in those days that my dad has so many fond memories from.
It sets forth a haunting reminder that someday I’ll miss these days till I’m sick to my stomach, and that I need to really stop and take it all in sometimes. I’ve been lucky thus far to live a life worth documenting, and even now I write this article on tour with a country band driving down a long and lonesome Oklahoma highway, and with these experiences I carry a sense of responsibility to document these moments so someday maybe they can be revisited in a shoebox 40 years later.
So where does this leave us now? It leaves us with an opportunity. An opportunity to take chances, live a life that tells a good story. Ask her out, buy the plane ticket, take the chance, and disappoint your family a little. I think too often people realize their glory days have passed them by until it's far too late. I’m thankful that my Dad took some initiative back in the day to snap a few pictures and write some words down on paper. The call to action in this article is to realize where you are in life right now. You’ll never be younger than you are today, and tomorrow the same will be true. Don’t let the best days of your life be for nothing.
The time is going to pass regardless, and I never want to look back and realize that I just let it all pass by me or that I didn’t strike the iron of my youth while it was hot.
All I’m trying to say is live a life worthy of a shoebox.
