I wasn’t traveling the full 1.21 jigga-watt speed required to jettison me Back to the Future, but fast enough to lose a season.
Florida was warm and sunny, in full-foliage springtime bloom when I left. I landed in Boston ‘s cold, bleak and leafless-tree winter. However, I grasped the future in my arms, picking up my newborn grandson, his script yet to be written.
I focused on my grown daughter Abby, a new Mom, beaming with love at her first baby. Thirty years replayed in my mind; the entire generation gone at mach speed.
In the movie, Back to the Future, Michael J. Fox ‘s character arrives in the past, surrounded by people wearing vintage clothing; retro hair styles, eating 50’s food and speaking outdated slang.
Mimi finds herself befuddled by new and improved objects-at least those for baby care: musical vibrating bassinets, diaper genies, crib video monitors and car seats that cleverly snap into strollers . There must be twenty styles of binkies and bottles.
Luckily, infants remain unchanged. They still need midnight and three A.M. feedings, stacks of diapers, doll-sized outfits and baby shampoo, the kind that smells powdery sweet. But, oh my, nothing beats the bliss of cuddling a new babe.
Forget sending me back to the future, blast me forward. I’d like to stick around (in good health) to see my grandchildren grow.
Little Jonah, welcome to your world. May you wander through life under sunny, non-turbulent skies, at whatever travel speed you desire.
