Yep, Still Alive ...

Marc's (Aurora, Ohio), 30 January 2017

Yesterday, after supper, Joyce and I drove over to the Marc's store in Aurora (about a half-dozen miles away), a place I go because they carry organic white flour from Bob's Red Mill (a lot of you know: I'm a Baker Boy). While we were there, I ran into a dear student from decades ago. We talked for a while, then posed for a photo that Joyce took. Later, I posted it on Facebook, and, I have to say, I've been swept away by some of the kind remarks from some of my other former students.

But then ... there was this comment: Omg! He is still alive!!

I've kind of wondered about that myself, actually. Being still alive. As a matter of fact, when I looked at the picture Joyce took last night and saw that Old Dude with enough white hair to rival S. Claus, I couldn't believe that I was, you know, looking at me. A living me. But certainly not the me that I carry around in my head all day. (Perhaps this is why I avoid mirrors? Like a vacuous vampire, you know?)

I've never really much liked pictures of myself--not from my earliest school days when School Picture Day was a grim trial of fortitude. Show me your pictures, Danny! was an imperative I never really much cared for because my pictures always seemed to catch me in a most cruel way. And this went on for years. I mean, how is a kid supposed to recover from the laughter caused by his school pictures?!

Perhaps my favorite instance of my bad-picture-self is an image that appeared in Cleveland Magazine back in the 1990s. (See below.) I look as if I just murdered someone--or were contemplating doing so--or had just eaten someone's puppy, and then their kitty, and then their cute parakeet, and then their new little baby. And my beard is a bit too long to convince anyone I'm sane.

Oh well. We have what we have. And what I have now is a snow-white (not Snow White!) beard and mustache.

And when I look at the picture at the top of this page, all I can think is: Omg! He is still alive!