The Keys to Life

On one of our tailgate training days, Barry shared some of his philosophical ideas with John, Neil, and I. One of my favorites was his view that everyone is born with the keys to life but once they come out of the womb, they are thrown into a big pot, scrambled up, and distributed with other people all over. Throughout your life, your mission is to have relationships and dialogue with other people on different levels to find out if they are holding one of your keys to life so you can together unlock the meaning. He compared this to the Keys to Success which you are also born with in his opinion, but you hold on to these and use them whenever you need to unlock your next roadblock in life.

I really like that idea of relationships and dialogue to find the keys. This summer, I have been noticing a lot of those two concepts in and out of the office. I guess I really notice them all the time, but I have been paying more attention to them here. Darst (one of our VIP ((volunteers)) who is probably around 60) and I were talking Friday afternoon about the dynamics in the office. The range of ages in that little log cabin go from seventeen to over seventy, but the fantastic thing is everyone is a peer. No one really looks at someone else like they don't know what they are doing or that they can't handle something because they are too young or old. Everyone is held to the same standards of expectations, and everyone counts on everyone else when they need help.

I love that I am pretty much left alone at this point in terms of helping the visitors. When they come in to plan a trip, I am now fully capable of helping them get what sites they want or even to direct them around the park if they aren't sure what they are looking for. I know which sites are near lakes or rivers or mountains to help them plan the perfect trip. It's funny though because I had a question the other day (not the only one) and asked Walt (Darst's husband) if he could help me out and he in turn asked me a technology question later in the day. That kind of communal interaction is what is so great--the fact that the two different generations need the help from each other in order to make the office run as smoothly as possible.

Kendall and I have been getting out more to try and meet people around the town. Thursday night, JT came up from Denver so we went to dinner with him at a place called Chicago's and then headed to the Wheel Bar for the end of trivia night. That place is still not my favorite at all...it's kinda shady and the people there are usually lots older than us. Friday night, Kendall and I went to the Rock which we heard is the place to be for park staff on Friday nights. We loved it. There was live music, a bunch of people our age, and some friendly ones who actually started talking with us. We feel like the newbies still because everyone knows each other from last summer or more. When we walk in places, people look at us and wonder who we are rather than just coming up to meet us. We had a couple beers and talked with some guys who work at the YMCA camp down the road. They invited us to go bowling with them Wednesday night, so that should be fun!

Yesterday, we walked downtown and got coffee at a place called Coffee on the Rocks which is backed up against a really pretty pond with mallards and coy fish. After we walked back home (a couple miles) we showered off and headed to Boulder to run some errands. I got my China pictures developed and can now start the scrapbook!! (That's today's project since I have another day off) On the way home, we passed Aaron from my office walking up our street on the way to a party at the house of one of the Trails Crew guys. We weren't sure which house it was but we drove him down the road looking until we decided it was still too early. On the way home, we met one of our neighbor boys (Brady) and said we'd meet him at the party later.

The party was the same kind of deal as at the Rock where everyone had their groups going on and they just looked at us funny like we didn't belong. By the end of the night, things were much better and we were meeting lots of people. It's funny that guys are more willing to talk to new people than the girls are. It makes me sad that people can't just be nice to people and try to include the new ones because they too were once new.

Today is laundry day alongs with starting the scrapbook, but the laundromat always gives me a chance to people watch and observe that similar intergenerational communication.