Shack's Place: Time traveling via old journals and music

Isn't it great how hearing music from a certain period in your life can immediately remove you from the present and send you rocketing back across time?

Reading things I wrote years ago has the same effect and last night an old journal I haven't seen in many years brought 23 year-old me back to life, vividly. I encountered the expected things, like the partying beach lifestyle my roommates and I led, but I'd forgotten about the uncertainty of that age. Would I pass my Navy eye exam? If so, would I finish flight school and what would I fly? Who would I marry? Kids? Where would I end up living? All those questions have long answers now, 27 years later, but then they were blank sheets of paper. It was interesting and melancholy to stand in my 23 year-old shoes again and consider them.

I wouldn't want to go back permanently, but a weekend during spring break 1991 would be nice. Ok, maybe a whole week.

My roommates and friends were certainly a huge blessing. Beau Duarte was a Naval Flight Officer and after 1992 went on a separate training track. Erik, Chris, and I remained roommates for all three years of flight school.We waited 15 months for the Navy to start training us, from June of 1990 to November of 1991. It was like being retired (with pay) at the age of 22-23. I recall worrying that I'd lost the ability to study when we began our training, but I hadn't. Flight school was a mostly stress free experience, always feeling like I was getting away with something being paid to fly.

I met Rob "Woody" Wood working temporary duty at the Museum of Naval Aviation in the fall of 1990. Woody came through the Naval Academy, loved flying as much as I did, and also looked forward to a bright future. Unfortunately it wasn't in the cards. He died in a Navy helo crash in 1996 at the age of 29.

Chris and I started learning to play guitar together in the fall of 1990, and by the next spring, were sitting-in and playing sets at the Florabama. Singer/Songwriter Ken Lambert was gracious enough to give us the stage for "on the job training". We sucked in the beginning, sucked less as time went on, and eventually weren't half bad.