I hook up with Gordon after work, taking the Blue Line to King Street then walking to meet him at Dave’s comic shop. We then head down to the Holiday Inn, where we meet up with Babs and Ally at the dog happy hour that they have every Tuesday and Thursday. Yup. People, dogs, and booze.
We go over to Books A Million. Ranan isn’t there, but an old Crownee is name of Connie. Gordon had asked me if I remembered him, and I couldn’t place anybody. But then I immediately remembered him when I saw him. In the back room they have pictures of the employees up on a display on one wall, each one like on a sort of bookmark like tag. Everybody’s has their start date. Ranan’s has 1983, with an additional note, something like, “Yes, 1983” for those who can’t quite believe it. He’s probably got co-workers who weren’t even born before 1983.
We stop and go through McDonalds drive-thru for Ally, then take her food with us to Hard Times. I’m amazed, but seems like they’re pretty used to serving adults while the kids eat something else.
Back at Chez Scott we look at old photo albums. I help Ally with some origami. Babs serves tasty cherries. Gordon pops in a VHS tape of us playing charades at a New Year’s party sometime in the late eighties. Gordon notes that he still had a beautiful head of hair back then. I have a pony tail, and I mug shamelessly for the camera.
Gordy was the only other person I knew who shared my photo album mania. I don’t take many pictures anymore, and when I do, it’s usually on vacation. We keep those special photo albums in the living room. The other 50 volumes are languishing in boxes in a storage locker. My wife hopes that I’ll do something with them someday, but just the thought of any sort of conversion project is exhausting.
Since I don’t have any kids I do sometimes wonder what’s the point of having those old photo albums, anyway.