Yesterday, Sister Fi (no relation to Semper) was nice enough to send me this adorable little pic of the two of us taken a good 30 years ago (ouch). Sans big white numbers, natch. It was great to see the little kid she was, the super-hot micro-stud I was, and relive the warm fuzzies, but what really got me were all the memories attached to the incidentals. And that's where the big white numbers come in.

1) Quizzical look, with just a hint of "You may very well be full of shit, but I'm withholding judgment for now." This look has persisted since the last days of the Ford administration.

2) I call this look the "Clueless Smartass." This dates back to the late Nixon era, and I still use it daily.

3) Spider-Man shirt, given as a present by Rose Marie, the kindergarten girlfriend. I was big pimpin' at age 5. Little did I know I was about to hit a 15-year dry spell.

4) The radiator. In those days, we called it "bench seating for the boys." In the winter, that thing was freaking hot. Eddie and I took to hoarding telephone books in the warm summer months so we'd have some butt protection once it got cold and the heat came on, so we looked about 17 feet tall sitting at the table.

5) Random pictures thumbtacked to the shelf above said radiator. Also art projects, greeting cards, and anything mildly related to my mother's children. The heat rising from the Scalder of Cormac's Ass™ curled them into celluloid cannoli, but there they hung, flicking up against the faces of the two 17 foot tall kids sitting on stacks of phone books all dinner long.

6) The busted-up breadbox with the drawer front ripped off. This was a good thing, as trying to pry the thing open to get the Archway Date-Filled Oatmeal Cookies was the only exercise I got some years.