OYSTERS

The folks down the block were having a garage sale and I walked by and had a little look at the goods on display.  He, God bless his efforts and keep him safe, is some kind of Missionary that goes and lives in Israel and Africa and stuff, and, unfortunately, comes off to me as a kind of arrogant intellectual snob.   Anyway. . .

One of his daughters was helping out and I was chatting with her and said something about how many redheads, which both she and I were gloriously blessed examples of, lived in our subdivision, and how I thought it was a little strange,  and he commented that he never noticed. Fuck that, right? Who doesn't notice redheads? And his daughter was on the verge of being extraordinarily beautiful and I said, "The world is her oyster." And he said, "What does that mean?" Probably that phrase doesn't appear in the Bible.

 Anyway, she is older, more lithe, and the father figure has been replaced, hopefully by someone whose reading tastes are a little bit less esoteric. So I was fiddling around with the photo file today, nervous wreck that I am. and I was taken aback by this photo.

That lithe and gorgeous girl in the blue dress is not the neighbor.  It is/was me.  So here is the deal.  The world was my oyster and, you know how they say wisdom comes with age?  I wish to hell someone had said those words to me.