Samples of My Work
The Bus I Missed
People are forever talking about life-changing moments as though they arrive with a brass band and a parade permit. In my experience, they usually show up looking like an inconvenience.
The moment that changed my life was a bus I missed in the spring of 1968.
At the time I was twenty-one years old, working odd photography jobs, and carrying around the sort of confidence that exists mostly in the imagination of young men. I knew exactly where my life was headed, which is to say I had absolutely no idea.
The bus was supposed to leave at 5:15. I got there at 5:17.
Today I couldn't tell you why I was late. Maybe traffic. Maybe I stopped for coffee. Maybe I was simply being myself.
Whatever the reason, I arrived just in time to watch the bus disappear down Euclid Avenue.
I remember standing there muttering a few words that would have disappointed my mother.
The next bus wasn't for another forty minutes.
There was a small diner across the street, the kind of place that specialized in coffee strong enough to remove paint. I went inside to wait.
At the counter sat a young woman reading a paperback novel. I don't remember the title. If memory has taught me anything, it's that the details people remember are rarely the important ones.
What I do remember is that she looked up, caught me staring, and said, "If you're trying to figure out how the book ends, you're wasting your time."
That was Susan.
We talked for almost an hour.
When my bus finally arrived, I didn't get on it.
Looking back, it seems impossible that an entire life could hinge on something so small. But that's how life works. We imagine destiny as a highway. More often it's a missed bus and a conversation with a stranger over bad coffee.
Susan and I were married two years later. We've been proving each other wrong ever since.
Fragments
Thinking about my dad this Father's Day. He passed away when I was ten, so most of what I have left are fragments — little pieces I still try to fit together into a picture of the man he was. Time has a way of stretching people out of proportion, turning them into legends. I try not to do that; I only want to remember what was real.
The little things stick. He didn't smoke, but he always chewed Wrigley's Spearmint gum. On Saturday mornings, I'd sometimes tag along to work with him. The obligatory first stop was the vending machine — a pack of gum for him, and a roll of chocolate-mint Lifesavers for me. Sometimes he'd take his coworkers to lunch at some cool, darkened restaurant. The adults would order cocktails, and I'd get a Roy Rogers (never a Shirley Temple). Dad didn't drink alcohol; he'd have a soda.
Sunday mornings were ours. Just the two of us for breakfast, sometimes at Nate & Al's in Beverly Hills, where he had a favorite waitress. I remember going fishing a couple of times, too. Once, he rented a boat to take his employees deep sea fishing and took my brother and me along. I was maybe eight. Sometimes we'd go to a ballgame at Dodger Stadium.
But mostly, what I remember about my dad is that he worked. He left the house at four in the morning and didn't get home until after seven at night. Vacations made him restless, and my mother always had to talk him into taking them.
I never really knew his politics, his philosophy, or what he thought about the big questions in life. What I knew was that he worked hard and took care of us. After all these years, that's still the clearest picture I have of him. I wish I'd gotten to know him better.