Slivers Of Time - Solstice 2008

At any rate, he didn't grow up to be a vegetarian.
We were both pretty young at that point - him at just over a year, and I had just clocked in at the ripe old age of twenty. Can you tell it's 1976? My eyes keep gravitating to the muttonchop sideburns, hah!
I had just begun a job at a local bakery. It still holds the record as my longest gig, ten years; a comfortable place for the guy that I was, accustomed to chaos, smart as hell in the academic sense, not so much when it came to the world and the way of it. I got that way, fast enough, but at the time, we were both babies yet; it was just more obvious (not to mention cuter) with him. My in-laws were amazingly patient and loving with me, in spite of the fact that I wasn't as cute.
Normally I don't give Time much consideration. I've spent a lot of it educating myself in the nature of our little blue marble, so that tends to color my perspective on it. 100,000 years, to me anyway, is a blip, barely worth consideration overall. Why would it be, when the bedrock under me is not just millions, but hundreds of millions of years old? When very little changes but the weather(and just incidentally, us)?
I have occasionally suffered such a thing as skewed perspective, no, really!
Ennyhoo, 20 came, then 30, then 40, and a couple of blinks ago was 50. I've gotten more considerate of time in the last eight years. I suppose it accompanied the passing of my Dad.
Without going into too much detail, the last 9 3/4 years of my time with him were some of the best in my life. His influence on me reeled wildly from one extreme to another early on; his intelligence, his focus, his high standards for himself, and thus, for me; his addiction, which distorted him and the rest of us that were affected; and ultimately, his recovery from that addiction, which began long before mine.
The shot on the right is him with my oldest, just a day or two after his birth. You may see, perhaps, his fashion sense wasn't always switched on. I was hoping that what appears to be the pattern of his trousers is only something covering his lap while he holds his first grandson, but somehow I don't think so...LOL! I've always liked this pic in any case. I've shown it to family and friends and said, "Compare their faces!" Dad ever so slightly in his cups, and Dana, fresh... The tone of their flesh, and their facial expressions are what I focus on. Could be I'm just full of it, too, but who asked ya, anyway?!?
So Time, despite my increased consideration, is not, and probably never will be, especially important to me. I suppose it's because I focus on Today. I've been functioning on a level where I maintain, for the most part, that the Present is the most important; all that has gone by is History, Tomorrow's a Mystery. That doesn't stop me from planning ahead, or having dreams of things I'd like to do, but it does help me focus on the idea that I'd better do a pretty good job on what's right in front of me, right now.
Because all that I do in the Present affects the Mystery ahead.