Last night, a buddy of mine sent me some photos from the good old days when we worked together at Movies 9, a.k.a. the Niner, a.k.a. the Shithole, i.e., the multiplex movie theater that looms inordinately large in my memories of my late teens and early twenties. The image above is my favorite of the batch, one I don’t remember ever seeing before. That’s me, of course, sitting behind the wheel of my beloved Cruising Vessel, the 1963 Ford Galaxie that also loomed inordinately large over my youth. The stories I could tell involving that machine… nah, probably better not. Have to protect the innocent, you know. Or the not-so-innocent for whom the statue of limitations still applies.

Anyhow, I have this notion, based on no solid evidence whatsoever, that everyone has a moment in their lives when they are most authentically the person they’re meant to be. For most folks, I imagine, this moment comes when they’re relatively young, before the compromises and disappointments of grown-up life begin to weigh them down too much. What you see in that photo there, taken sometime around 1991 or ’92, was my moment. I knew exactly who I was and who I was going to be, there was still time for everything I wanted to do in life, and I even still had most of my hair! This is the guy I still expect to see when I look in the mirror, and I am always slightly wounded when I don’t…