Old Cars and New Tricks

There is one good thing to living in a small town, if you take a little walk it is usually pretty easy to get away from most of the things that annoy you. Our house is no exception. With a short and easy ten minute walk we can find a small beach on the side of a winding river. (Depending on the time of year of course.)
Along the way to that beach you travel down an old rail grade that has long since been decommissioned. The black sand is very prominent in the summer, but in early spring like it is now the area is alive with small blades of deep green grass. It in itself is a beautiful sight, but not the point of today's blog.
I have walked down this trail perhaps a hundred times in the last ten years. So many times now that I don't even often bother to look around and truly see what is out there.
Except for some reason this last time my eyes opened and I had a brief glance back in time. All from looking at this picture...

I don't know why I saw a glimpse of the past this time when I observed the wreck. But for some reason I had a flash of insight, or a vision of the past.
I saw a proud father standing next to a shining red car fresh off the lot. His family close waiting to climb inside and go for their first ride.
In a blur I watched the life of a car, and it's family as they all got older. It only took moments inside my mind, and a few feet along the trail, but as I kept walking past I began to imagine how this ruined frame transformed and became the pile it was on the side of the trail.
At that moment I had to stop and go back to snap this shot, my own family waiting as I did it. No questions asked, they already know I am odd in my own special way. For some reason I felt the need to mention this moment in time, yet I don't know why. Perhaps as I climb closer to my 39th birthday I am starting to think more about my past. The decisions I am making and the impacts they will have on my family. Until one day my own children are grown and our car is a pile of twisted metal in a scrap heap somewhere.