new generation

I am my father.

I got a picture in the mail the other day. It's a blown-up black-n-white image of my dad and myself at the beach when I was very small. I'm not sure how old the Me in the picture is -- old enough to stand, with support -- but probably eight to ten months, or right around Dylan's age now.

This picture is a wonderful thing to have, but what's especially fantastical about it is how I saw myself in the photo when I slipped it out of its envelope. I knew what to expect. I knew who were in the picture and how it was composed. But first laying eyes on it I saw myself not in the little boy, but in the man holding the little boy steady on a sandy beach in front of a large driftwood log.

I've never looked like my father before, but I'm not the only one who was thrown by the image. When I layed it out on the pool table for Cheryl's folks to see, they looked at it and asked if it was from our recent vacation. I look so much (now) like my father did (then) that we're being mistaken for one another by people who have a damn good idea of what I look like.

Wow.

Dad