[Muffit]

They say time heals all wounds. It does so by distancing us from them. But this same mechanism robs us of cherished things as well, like the inexorable undertow of a mental ocean, dragging the memories we fear to lose out to sea.

I don’t know if you remember your first vacation, but I know I do. I remember because I only had one vacation during my entire youth. There was only one because my dad worked harder than any man I have ever met, and time off was something he never had. And because that one vacation went so terribly wrong my parents were too reluctant to ever try again.

Our destination was a place called Richardson’s Grove in northern California, some 12 hours away. And we pulled along one of those small funny looking round-ish trailers so popular forty-odd years ago. Things went wrong right away. My parents weren’t sure of the directions and my siblings and I complained and argued over the long journey. The car broke down and while my dad was looking under the car, I decided to look too. When I raised my head someone had opened the car door above me and I cracked my head open on its steel bottom edge. Climbing a mountain on a one lane but two way road, we met a car that would not back up, so we had to. Several of us children were in the trailer and one wheel went over the cliff as we backed up, nearly pulling us all to our death. And the worst thing, the horn got stuck in the on position for over an hour and drove us all to screaming and misery.

Finally we reached our goal and the next morning my parents took us to a small lake some walking distance away. It was a cold, beautiful, nearly brown body of water, with small rounded pebbles for a bottom that tickled your feet, and tiny water bugs that skittered here and there. On the way back, my brother decided to take a short cut, and me loving his little adventures, I had to tag along as well. My mom argued against me going strenuously, but somehow I prevailed. Children should listen to their mothers. The “shortcut” was scary and riddled with danger, just the way my brother loved it. We came to a portion of the trail which was nothing more than a tiny dirt ledge against a hillside, with a foreboding deep swamp some ten feet below. And at the worst point, the ledge had fallen away for about a foot. My brother crossed the break easily, being four years older and much taller than I. He dared me to try but I wanted to go back, it was much too scary. But you know how naivete can overwhelm common sense at that age, and I succumbed to his prodding. A moment later I was falling, stricken with terror, back first into the huge stagnantly warm pond, pin-cushioned all about with cattails. And I didn’t know how to swim. But by the wildest of chances, Lady Luck was kind, and when I struggled to my feet in the soft, deep mud, my head breached the surface – I had fallen in the shallowest part.

When we finally returned to our camp, my mom was so upset about me almost drowning she made me stay in my wet clothes in the chill fall air the entire day. And that shortcut spoiled my vacation for good.

Why do I share this with you my friends? I feel it is like the new BSG, taking a shortcut to success by using the name while changing nearly everything else by going down a different path. When the way home is clearly marked, we should follow it, and following what is familiar by taking the path taken 25 years ago is surely the surest and safest way home for millions of fans who remember that path.

Time has distanced me from that terrible day, just as time has turned my dearest days into shadows. Looking back, it’s not the fall that’s the scariest; it’s the fear of hearing I told you so all the way home.

Affectionately and respectfully,
Muffit