Wandering home from the bank, I saw these twisted tree trunks and thought (obviously), "Those might make a picture," and stepped off the sidewalk to line them up. They're against a low concrete wall that separated one apartment lot from another. I was standing on a very narrow walkway that led to one of the buildings. An older gentleman had been coming toward me on the sidewalk and I'd thought that my detour would get me out of his way as he didn't look too steady. Of course, he had been headed toward the very walkway I was now blocking. Dang.

Well, he asked me if I was doing photography, and I said I was, and he remarked on what a good hobby that was, and how he used to cart around an entire suitcase (Haliburton, perhaps?) of lenses and camera bodies. So, we got talking about the miracle of the digital age, and how tiny cameras, like the dinky LX-5 I had in my hands, could do pretty much what that old suitcase full of gear of his did. And we went on talking about boxes of slides, and all the paraphernalia the film days required. He was probably in his early/mid-eighties. I'm 58, soon to be 59, so not that much younger than him. To make that obvious, I've got shoulder-length white hair (and the saggy facial characteristics that go with my incredible chronological advancement), so imagine my surprise when, as we were wrapping up our nostalgic conversation, he said to me, "Well, you're growing up in an amazing age, so enjoy it". "Growing up"?!? Made my day.