The echo of a long remembered song.

Here I am again, in this smokey place with my brandy eyes....
I'm talking to myself.

I remember a time when all I needed in the world on a weekend was ten bucks.  Ten bucks would buy two tickets to a movie and a pizza afterward.

That feeling, waking up on a Saturday morning with nothing on your mind but what you were going to do that day, without the pesky responsibilities interfering with the good time.

Not that I needed the city sounds and the city lights and surround sound in the movie theatre and the sounds and lights of the pub.  I was also perfectly content staring into a bonfire as a thousand thousand stars made their presence known on a cool summer's evening.

Things have changed.

Ten bucks won't even park your car these days.

The kids along the Cedar road have grown up; some have families and there are new children on the Cedar road and new places built along the way.

You can carry your phone in your pocket and you can get movies on them.

The world has gotten warmer, and colder somehow.

But give me a bonfire and the sound of the river going by; give me a phone to chuck into the corner and ignore for awhile; give me a thousand thousand stars to gaze at in wide-eyed wonder.

Give me all of that and I can get through another day, or a week or a month.

Or as long as it takes.