Wishing a Good Friend Happy Trails
Wishing a Good Friend Happy Trails
“A True Canadian”, Photos Courtesy of Times Media
Roy Rogers and Dale Evans summed it all up with their 1952 signature song “Happy Trails,” a song about getting together and sadly departing and meeting up again. A song covered by not only country and western singers, but rock artists like Van Halen and even Jimi Hendrix supposedly he closed Woodstock with it!
Life is about movement, about comings and goings, meetings and departures. As humans we give life and life has to run its course like a river, usually down a path of less resistance, until an obstacle makes it change direction. There is no stopping life because it’s a relay, not a sprint, nor even a marathon. We pass life on like a baton - death may be an obstacle but it’s not the finish line!
Adventure is the definition of life. Nothing is for certain, maybe predictable, but not definite. Adventures creates memories and memories live forever. Even when they are forgotten, they still prevail somewhere in space and time. A modern-day analogy could be your computer’s hard drive: if it gets erased there is someone out there that can retrieve it. When memories are forgotten and seemingly erased, they are simply resurrected and reinvented unknowingly by someone else. We have all experienced it - a phenomenon called déjà vu!
Adventure is everyone’s occupation, and memories are the form of currency paid out. The more you accumulate, the wealthier you become. You deposit them in the Bank called Experience. However well you do your job, exceptionally or poorly, you’ll never be fired or promoted, you’ll have no choice but to accumulate memories. Sometimes these memories include others and get compounded; this is called Interest. The Interest will get compounded again and again as your memories are shared, utilized and passed on. Your Bank of Experience will constantly be accumulating wealth, wealth that can be positive or negative in nature, but there is no such thing as a negative balance in your account.
Your occupation starts at day one. You’ll be an apprentice for a time, never to be fired, until you can actually start forming your own memories. Yes, you’ll have to learn to remember! Your initial years are sometimes difficult to remember but rest assured others will remember them for you, and sometimes you’ll wish that wasn’t the case! As you get older you’ll reach a point when your hard earned memories will start disappearing from your account. This is called the cost of living and it’s steeper for some than others, but we’ll all feel the bite sooner or later. Before this happens, we must create a will to pass our memories unto as many people as possible. Your will can be backed up on a computer hard drive, in a book or in an album so that your wealth can be disbursed to worthy beneficiaries.
The people that will inherit our wealth will be thankful for it as it will contribute to their own, giving them important lessons, guidance and foresight into doing their own job and hopefully helpings others do theirs as well. Sometimes a very wealthy individual will pass on so much that a whole community will benefit from, and this is called an endowment. If the endowment is significant it is called a legacy - the pinnacle of doing your job well.
Our community has been endowed many times over and everyone that is still banking memories appreciates the wealth that has been left behind compounding our own interest. Our Bank of Experience has to be shared so it can’t be robbed. That’s all the security it needs and none other. The more we share the safer are memorizes will be, so as a community of shareholders, we must protect one another, just as we protect our own.
The Brown family from Ellicottville has been responsible for the accumulation of substantial wealth in my personal Bank of Experience. The memories that were directly connected with the Browns date back close to a half a century. Since then, I have compounded that interest many times over so that I now create many similar memories for others. Ken Brown, who passed away 12 years ago, left a legacy that to this day influences everything I do.
With great sadness, his son Moose (Christopher) passed away Thursday, Sept 5, 2024. Many of you know Moose and his wife Vicky as the owners of the Depot Restaurant in Ellicottville. Moose wasn’t just a restaurateur, he was a true adventurer. It was Moose’s dad Ken that got me started in taking expeditions to the Canadian Arctic, a place of awe-inspiring tranquility, the top of the world and a land full of life and beauty! Moose and Vicky have been there as well, and as with my wealth it was also the foundation of their wealth, passed onto them by Ken and his many adventures there!
Many Happy Trails to Moose and all of the Browns! May we someday cross paths on the Tundra again!
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Indrek Kongats is an artist, traveler, outdoorsman, and business owner residing in Ellicottville. He operates River Dog Art Gallery in Houghton, NY, and his Breakaway Classic Adventures specializes in adventure travel destinations. Learn more about him at breakawayclassicadventures.com.