My father and stepmother dropped in on then-suburban Walnut Creek CA (then a sleepy bedroom community; today an edgy and upscale 'edge city") where I was the houseguest of college sweetheart V's family (they liked me then; liked me less the following year after a classmate's mother took it upon herself to inform them, having gained this information after waterboarding her own child—long story—that I'd been bonking their daughter throughout). Anyway, I'm presently older by several years than anyone in this picture, and the only person on the scene that day still doing business this side of the grass. It is odd to think that the actual memory of that event, formerly shared by six, now resides entirely within the precincts of my skull, in which confines it will presently perish.

transiently,

At seven, I imagined myself grown to man's estate in a black turtleneck sweater with a set of bongo drums and a goatee (trousers probably figured into the image, but I don't think I went to that level of detail). This was probably influenced in general by the image of the beatnik in popular culture, and specifically by Bob Denver's portrayal of Maynard G. Krebs in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. I never did the bongo drums, but I had a black turtleneck at one time, and have kept the fringed chin since 1970.

hirsutely,