If hope springs eternal, rejuvenation may reside in repetition.

Said another way (at the risk of repeating myself): Children love repetition, and by repeating certain activities, we too can once again feel we are wee ones.

Examples of this phenomenon abounded in recent days, beginning with a return to the RiverWalk in Astoria. On both sides of the trail, silver sunlight glinted – across the Columbia and across the Lewis and Clark Explorer Train. Cormorants perched on pilings, and bees buzzed amid the blossoms of honeysuckle and foxglove.

Ahead, to the exasperated laughter of the adults with him, a little boy sang chorus after chorus of “The Ants Go Marching On.” Another kid threw stone after stone into the water behind an embankment waiting to hear, rather than see, the satisfying splash.

We followed the stroll with soft serve cones from Custard King. I had mine dipped in chocolate. We sat on a bench and licked the sticky sweetness from our fingers in the afternoon sun.

Such experiences take me back to times in the past, but also exhilarate me as gifts unfolding in the present. That’s why I jumped for joy, literally, a few days later when friends at a backyard barbecue welcomed guests to try their trampoline.

Tumbling and bounding up and down again and again on a canvas sheet serves as a superior springboard for fun. As soon as I took off my boots and vaulted onto that surface – and into the sky – my heart hopped, and my mind took a quantum leap into childhood.

Maybe this was an example of muscle memory, with the simple act of bouncing on a trampoline jump-starting a series of recollections and a giddy thrill as resilient as the canvas under my socks.

My family did not own a trampoline. They were more dangerous back then, when the springs and the metal frame were not covered. The design left treacherous gaps along the entire perimeter; get a little too close to the side, and you ran the risk of running body parts toward the ground or the iron frame at high velocity. Even if you only watched from the side, you had to be wary of the pinching, hair-pulling springs as they contracted.

As if they needed more persuasion, my parents met a neck doctor who said most injuries he saw sprang from trampolines.

Still, if I promised I would be careful, they allowed me to go on the trampolines of friends and neighbors.

These devices appeared and disappeared with wear and tear over the years. But I leapt at every invitation. Once in awhile we even camped on a tramp, our sleeping bags on those giant cots, watching the stars.

I was by no means alone bouncing amid such recollections. Our trampoline troupe ranged from a girl of 7 (who, loving repetition, insisted on jumping twice as much as anyone), to a man in his late 40s who demonstrated stunning agility with knee flips.

Several of us cracked up recalling a game known as “crack the egg,” in which you clutch your hands around your knees, tuck your head, and try with all your willpower to resist the impulse to flail and scramble as another person jounces you high and low and to and fro. One friend related how he used to jump from the roof of his tree house onto a trampoline, pushing the limits of gravity – and, if his folks ever discovered it, parental sanity.

We laughed with recognition when he heard our hostess issue what must be a cry among trampoline-owning mothers spanning generations and nations: “One at a time, please.”

We took reassurance that a doctor was in our company, among those offering physical balance as well as emotional support and encouragement to each other as we each mustered our courage to assault aerial somersaults.

The activity offered a wonderful way to flip your lid, knock yourself out and bounce back. Admittedly, my brain might have taken one jolt too many by the end, when I was acting like an uber-goofball, transforming my elongated strides and arm movements into a mock slow motion fistfight sequence.

But most of all, I just bounced, again and again. Like a little kid, I couldn’t get enough. If it weren’t for the fact that I would repeatedly tumble into furniture and hit my head on the ceiling, I would get a trampoline for the apartment.

Instead, I’ll just have to remember that hope springs eternal – and if someone invites me again to try out a trampoline, I’ll jump at the chance.

While not wanting to trample on any theories about fountains of youth, Brad Bolchunos denies trampolines always add resiliency to our mortal coils. But he does find lately there is an extra spring in his step.