Day 163/365 The Real Thing

For anyone who has ever seen the real thing, from that moment on it becomes a no-brainer to distinguish hype and media-created frenzy from the genuine article.

Beatles in 1964 versus "the newest band that will change music forever".

Aretha Franklin versus "the newest company promoted pop diva".

Classic Coke versus new Coke.

Patrick Swayze versus the other so-called leading men.


Mountain Lake Hotel in Giles County Virginia versus mouse-created plastic resorts.

When I was a child, my dad took a position teaching at a biology summer camp a half mile or so away from the Mountain Lake Hotel. That summer in the early sixties was very much like the summer portrayed in Dirty Dancing, at the fictional Kellermann's Resort.

Well, except I was seven, and, unlike Jennifer Grey's character Baby, and being a child, people put me in the corner all the time. Usually I deserved it.

That summer the lake was full and all it's mysteries remained on the bottom.

But in 2008, the mysteries were exposed when the lake bed ran dry, and a pair of old leather shows were found embedded in the cracked dry mud of the lake bottom. Eventually a ring, and a tooth were found, leading to the identification of a man who had been boating with his wife and two friends in 1921, fallen from the boat and drowned. Of course, close to his remains were the

casings of several .32 caliber bullets. I know I always take a .32 caliber handgun with me when boating. Don't you?

The lake has slowly started filling again. Someday the famous gazebo may be on the waterside again.

Summer of 2009 puts the dock about 7 feet from the water.

That's what real things do - they ebb and flow -always changing, forever inconsistent.

And sooner or later, they change forever. And you lose them.