We were here.

This past weekend, we traveled to Cumberland to attend the closing reception for a gallery show called "Fresh Produce." I submitted three works to the show (Sweet 100, Swiss Miss and Strata-licious), and all of them were accepted, while about 25% of entries were cut, which is pretty darned good if you ask me.

Anyway, since we were all the way up there, and since the cheaper hotels were out in Garrett County, and since we just bought a kick-ass new DSLR, we decided it would be a good idea to head out to Swallow Falls State Park on Sunday.

And while the woods and the mountain streams and rivers and waterfalls and fall colors are wonderful and beautiful, the thing that never fails to impress me is the human desire to have existed. I expect to find names carved into dead trees and benches and stairs and railings, but I can't quite figure out how they get their names into the rocks because I am guessing they don't bring lasers or sand blasters with them.

This time, we discovered Bob Maroney, 6-16-19:



I only wonder if Bob was really there on June 16, 1919, or 1819, or even 1719, or whether he was there on like June 16, 1983 and just ran out of time or got tired of carving into the rock, or perhaps an unexpected rush of water swept poor Bob over the edge and down the mountain. Or maybe he was eaten by a bear.

So, believing that Keith and I also deserve to have our names immortalized on the rock, I set out to do just that, only feet away from where Bob Maroney once sat, carve-carve-carving away so that even if he achieved nothing else, all who came to this spot on the edge of Muddy Creek Falls when the water was running low would know that Bob Maroney saw it too--long ago--that life is transient, fleeting, frivolous, while the rocks, the trees, the water--they keep the stories of our sacred selves forever.

Unfortunately I'd left the hydrocutter in the car.