Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

- Mark Twain

I am waiting on a bus, on the day after Father’s Day (which happened to be the Solstice).

Sitting on the bench is a guy with a cap that reads USS Bon Homme Richard (CV/CVA-31), which is the name of an aircraft carrier on which my Father served during the Korean War.

I approach the guy, then engage him in conversation about the ship.

He was an electronics technician who worked on the flight deck. He would fix instruments on the ship and in the planes.

I asked him if that is what he wanted to do or had done before enlisting.

“No”, he said, “I wanted to be a photographer. Thought that would be a good job in the Service, then I could open up a studio afterwards. The Recruiter said that it would be easier for me to get in if I did something else”.

Peter & his wife ran a business in California, then here in New York. He is retired, has kids & Grandkids.

I asked him if he ever became a photographer.

“No”, he said, “I have cataracts and don’t see so good. My wife is the one who takes photos when the Family gets together”.

Here’s to Peter and dreams unrealized.

And to my Father. Wishing I had known him better. That we had both been able to break through the walls of anger & alcohol to have a connexion….Wishing  I had the same types of conversation with him that I had with a total stranger on a bus bench, waiting for the ride to work….