Days gone by

My father calls this building "The Casino." It's old now, and it hasn't been kept up, but it's still standing at the edge of a lakefront resort in the mountains. When my father looks at the building, he can still picture those evenings in the 1950s, when the guests at the resort would dress up in their evening finery and come out to the casino to drink and dance and flirt. My father was a musician who worked at the resort, playing every evening, and then hanging out with the rest of the staff in the early hours of the morning.

Every year in the fall, I drive with my parents to the mountains, and we visit my father's old haunts. We hike along trails that edge mountain lakes, wander through resorts, some of which have long since closed, and visit the little mountain towns where he spent so much time in the summer as a young man. We'll stay at an old mountain inn, a cosy place with a big fireplace and cups of mulled cider for all who enter. We'll drive through winding roads lined with bright foliage and dark pines on this fall pilgrimage to the mountains.