marking time

My friend (of the sponge diary) recently wrote to point out that someone born during our freshman year in college is now old enough to be a freshman in college.

That's one way of marking time.

I have a cousin, in fact, who was born during my first college semester, and she is indeed in college now, so my friend's observation was already painfully clear to me.

I have a different friend (the photographer and poet) who I've known since we were 5 years old, although we failed to realize that fact until we were teenagers ...

"Hey, did you used to go to Hoffman's Camp?"
"That was YOU?!"

He and I used to mark the age of our friendship with different milestones. When we were 21, we'd note that our friendship was old enough to drive. When we were 23, our friendship was old enough to vote. And when we were 26 our friendship was finally old enough to drink. And that's it for now. I guess in a few years we'll note that our friendship is old enough to run for President of the United States, and a few years after that our friendship will have its midlife crisis. Then onto retirement, Social Security (ha!) and eventually our friendship will be old enough that all its friends will have passed.

Here's a different way to mark time:

Even the smallest kids in the theater who enjoyed this ...


... are now old enough to be doing this ...