So here I sit, sifting through random bits of footage, trying to find the gem that seals the deal on a sequence. And there's a folder on my hard drive. It's just sitting there. It was there yesterday and the day before but for whatever reason, I hadn't noticed it. "Mellowfest." Sure, I thought. Whatever. I'll look at it. None of the clips in it have names - they're all labeled by their date and time. Back in the old days of analogue tape, you had reel numbers and time code. Now, it's all dates and minutes and other bullshit. Well, I get to the last file - the last clip - in this folder. It's label is "clip-2010-08-06 20;22;13." That means it was recorded on August 6th, 2010 at about 8:30pm.
8:30pm on August 6th. I know exactly where I was. That was the night that we all woke up.
58 degrees, dark as February, and 600 people sat on Main Campus at Camp Dudley. We were all there and each one of us took something different from the man on the stage. He had three words for us, followed by three songs. But it wasn't until "Love," that it all fell apart at the seams.
You see, we spent the summer running around, playing sports, dancing for our friends. We laughed off cruelties and dished out support like it was the free wind around us. We were boys and our kingdom was Camp Dudley.
But at 8:30pm on August 6th, the man on stage reminded us all: The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.
Love you, Mayo.
