Way back in the early 1970s, there was a song by country singer Cal Smith, who sounded a lot like Tom T. Hall to me. Anyway, Cal had a song that began like this:

I just came home to count the memories, that I've been counting in my mind.
I just came home to count the memories, from a better day and time.

Those lyrics were on my mind yesterday, when I visited the sight of the former family cottage at Honey Harbour, Ontario. It's now a pile of rubble, the only identifiable remains being the masonry from the fireplace and chimney. My parents sold the place in the late 1990s, after all three children turned it down. It was the right move, for the area is not what it used to be. The bay, in the 1960s and 1970s, was a haven for young families. And that got me thinking about demographics, and how it explains the rubble that used to be our cottage. Back in 1965, the Baby Boomer generation (of which I'm part) was aged from 0 to 20. They were more than 1/3 of the population in Canada at large. It was a wonderful time to grow up. Now, that same glob of people, who still dominate the economy, are aged 50 to 70. They don't play in the sand anymore with plastic pails and shovels, they don't get up and go fishing at dawn's first light with their grandfathers, they don't try to capture blinking green fireflies at night in jars. That probably explains why the "For Sale" signs around the bay, at numerous bulldozed small family cottages, are almost obscured by tall grass after enticing no one in a decade or more.

As I drove away, for the last time, after taking my pictures, the ending lyrics of Cal's song washed over me:

I just came home to count the memories, that I've been counting in my mind.
I just came home to count the memories, I guess it's time to say goodbye.