Of scrapbook, wine, and philosophical musings

Two years ago on the Labour Day long weekend, Denis, Cheryl and Allison and I all headed down to Winthrop WA for a few days of mountain biking and general carousing. (For the record, Ally and I sent Denis and Cheryl off on their own, to do their version of mountain biking - a vastly different and infinitely more strenuous version than ours!) After riding, we would meet up at the end of each day at our cabin and start pulling corks out of bottles of wine. Then off to Heenan's Burnt Finger Barbeque for some of the best home cooking and restaurant atmosphere anywhere. And, surprise, surprise, more wine!

The 4 of us were on the restaurant patio overlooking the Methow River, some 30 feet directly below, listening to a cowboy crooning and playing the guitar. Ally and Cheryl had slipped into some sensible conversation (because they were sober enough to) and Denis and I got into a semi-philosophical conversation (because we were drunk enough to). Denis started off on his usual rant about how great this all was. Wasn't this place cool! Wasn't the food great! Weren't those trails today great! Isn't this wine fabulous! (and can I have some more?) Isn't the river gorgeous! Classic Denis: demonstrating his outsize capacity for joy with huge enthusiasm and that ever-present, irrepressable grin. Which got us onto the topic of living life right. Between sips we concluded that to live life right you needed to start by imagining yourself old and infirm, in a wheelchair somewhere in a home, and all you have are your memories. We came up with the analogy of turning the pages of your mental scrapbook. And the purpose of life was to live it in such a way as to fill your mental scrapbook with the most brightly coloured, amazing memories possible. And we decided that what we were doing right there, at that moment, and throughout that long weekend was "pure scrapbook". Since that day, "scrapbook" became a regular part of our vocabulary.

I really love and admire Denis. In his life, even though it was cut far too short, he built a better scrapbook than anyone I know.