Twins In The Year 2009

That's my twin brother and me. I think you can pretty much tell how old we are now just by looking at this ancient photo. If your baby photos are in black and white, you come from era that has been eclipsed and saturated by color. Look at that TV. We were already mesmerized by the talking lightbox at such a young age. Now we stare at computer screens and will only turn our attention like that briefly, for someone with a camera. Well actually truth be told, these days if someone says, "Hey twins, turn around," like my father's cousin did more than a half a century ago, we'd both probably run the other way grumbling with our faces hidden. Well, really, me more so than Michael.

Today those babies are celebrating their 57th birthday. We are both avid birders, gardeners, lovers of nature. We are both progressive, liberal, peacenik, music-lovers. We both enjoy healthy diets full of organic locally grown produce and lots of tofu, rice, and beans. We both dream of perfect futures knowing that such a thing will never really happen in our lifetimes. Do we have hope? Probably not, in the biggest sense. Do we laugh like hyenas on the phone when talking about the current state of affairs? Yes, we actually do. Do we cry the same way over all the inequities in the world? Yes, we do that too. We were born two minutes apart; we live less than a mile apart. We are now gray-haired twins. Still hanging out in the world together.

Hey twins, turn around!