I took a friend to see the grounds of the state hospital where I spent much of the 80's. As we toured the campus, I gave him the history of the hospital and my experiences there. I felt nothing, that is until this morning. I had a dream I was working with my bosses in the community store where I worked for 20 years. In my dream I saw everything, the grill, cash register, deep fryer, cold table, diningroom, offices, storage room, patio, pool tables, pinball machine, soda machine, sandwhich board, soda fountain. The more I thought of the dream, memories of all the good times I had there came back to me like a flood. I began to cry. Tears flow for the times when we had concerts under the stars by the gazebo on hot summer nights. Swimming in the pool, playing pingpong and making out in the movie theater. I have been thinking a lot of those days and the hospital. So going there and seeing the old building where I was first admitted at age 17, the laundry where I worked for a time, the castle building where I hawked wares from the store affected me more than I thought. The quote at the bottom of this post is so true..happiness is made of minute fractions of time and space. Those snippets of memories brought me back to the beginning of a wondferful journey. I was happy at the "hill". I was taken out of my parents home, which was a bad place, and put in a good place that cared about me, took care of me in a way like never before. That hopsital saved my life, changed my life and gave me a chance for a new and better life. I've written about the "hill" many times before, but none of those times has affected me like this. I know I cannot go back there, nor do I want to. I realize, more than ever, how my experiences there affected who I am this very day. I was molded and shapd into a mature loving, kind and caring man out of a mass of a wild child. How could I not cry or feel nothing but gratitude?

Take good care,

David

The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions—the little soon-forgotten charities of a kiss, a smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment in the disguise of a playful raillery, and the countless other infinitessimals of pleasurable thought and genial feeling.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge