The Mountain House...

I feel like such a turd every time I tell people, "We're going to our "Mountain House" this weekend, yeah, it's located in the Smokeys, it's our family's house." But that's what it is. My grandfather is a legend and when looking up the phrase "American Dream", his picture sits next to it.

Born in Tuberculosis Era Sweden, he lived through a lot of shit. His dad died of T.B, leaving his mom to raise he and his brother. 8th grade education, yadda yadda yadda, immigrated to Canada, then to Florida, eventually to North Carolina, he stepped into so much shit along the way and always smelled like a rose.

Thusly, this house is his legacy and testament to a lot of who he is and was. It's located on a lake, next to a couple of ponds, and I've been going there since I was four. Oh could I bore you with sentimental stories of learning how to fish, crashing my bike while humming the "A-Team" theme song while careening down a mountain road...

But what I find even more compelling is that I have gotten to be part of something so special all of my life. I get to sit there and pretentiously say things like, "Oh we'd so like to get to our mountain house more, but it's just such a far drive"...and inside I laugh about how absurd that sounds, and how I'm not meaning to be absurd at all. It's like a big guard saying, "There is something bigger to this, the smoke and mirrors of saying, "Mountain House" is just to distract you from the bigger picture of what this place is." It's the part of me that never grew up, or old, it just grew along with me. Everytime we go, I get giddy for all of the nothing we actually get to do. The smell of the woods floods my mind with magic nostalgia and all of the things in my mind's eye blurs with color and pleasure.

It's the shenanigans my dad and I have pulled, "Feats of Strength, Who can Knock Down the Dead Rotted Tree"..."My dad's black eye from drinking too much and hitting his eye on the deck railing" (how do you do that?)...my Grandfather giving me life lessons through our daily walks...taking my wife and sharing such a special place in my heart...it has been my Walden Pond...and as I pack our bags for our trip this weekend, the colors start to blur, and the smell of goodness starts to fill the air.