Before Google, there were stamps, pay phones… and at least eight letters to a popular college basketball player who never wrote back.

A teenage cleaning job. A small-town library. And the kind of lesson you only learn when adults choose not to say a word.

click. click. click.

The sound of Uncle David’s Nikon blended with carnival music as our ferris wheel seat rocked high above Main Street. At seven years old, I gripped the loose guardrail for dear life, caught between fear of falling and the thrill of being photographed like a star.

In 1985, at just seventeen, I found myself swirling a glass of chardonnay in a downtown Sioux City restaurant—my first taste of upscale dining.

It started with driving lessons around Remsen, Iowa, and ended with quiet moments that said everything. Grandpa Gib wasn’t just teaching me the rules of the road—he was showing me the road of life.

On graduation day in 1985, I ran two miles through my hometown chasing a future I couldn’t yet imagine. Forty years later, I’m still running—but now I see the value in everything I once left behind.

I pulled my watch off its charger and onto my wrist in sleepy grogginess. Barely awake, I realized I was lying in a bed in Paris. And then I noticed the time.

“Oh, my God! Garrett, it’s 9:05!”

Our beloved piano was on the auction block.

Soon up for bid as an auction item at my grandparents’ estate sale was our family piano.

This piano had a long and loving history with my family. It began at my grandparents’ home in the 1950s after being handpicked by my Grandpa’s sister, Sister Aidan.

I could hear my classmates outside, squealing in downhill delight while I sat alone by a warm fireplace.

It was March of 1985, and this senior trip was our last outing as a close-knit class of forty-four. The majority vote landed on an outdoor winter fun day at a nearby ski hill that offered skiing or tubing. I chose neither.