At a distance I would not have recognized Jon had I passed him on the street, nor he I; forty plus years changes a body! But as I got closer, and the small talk proceeded, I began to notice bits of body language that hadn’t changed. As the memories of that time begat one story and another and another, suddenly there was a thing that touched me: an unmistakable Santa Klaus glint in his eye, a window into the humor and joy that is at the heart of the man; always has been, always will.
A nap can be the highlight of a good day. Tired from exercise or chores, cool sheets, and the fuzz of a favorite stuffed bear, or two, is just the thing. No more words required. We all love a good nap.
Talk about a mystery. Where does a Tibetan kid in remote Litang get a set of wax vampire fangs? I mean, I had these things 60 years ago in West Virginia. Watching him play vampire to a couple of rarely seen Westerners brought back my childhood. I can remember what the teeth tasted like after I chewed them into a ball of wax. Fun is universal, it crosses culture and time.
“You don’t fu….. care about me!” It came from a young woman sitting in a car beside Turtle. “You don’t treat me like you did before. You don’t treat me the same fu….. way you did before we got married.” A young man, stood tall beside her window, hands at his sides, outer calm mirrored in his desert camouflage uniform, defending himself in an even tone. “It’s not me. It’s you,” he said.