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March 23, 2007
A whole lot of water under a whole lot of bridges.
Here’s a lively fellow:
A newspaper delivery boy of Missouri in the USofA, taken in 1910. So by now he will have lived his life, maybe he’s still living it, but I doubt it, he’s what: eight or nine here? which would make him 105.
What did he do with his life? Did he meet a nice girl, get married, work as a sub-editor on the newspaper and grow prize vegetables in his spare time? Did he die in the muddy trenches of the First World War? Or did he run away to sea with a broken heart and join a jazz band in Paris?
In this fraction of a second, snatched from his life, everything is waiting for him. He doesn’t know what his life will amount to, but he looks like he’s enjoying it so far. And now it’s past, he has lived his life. All the minutes of all those days of all the years. And what’s left? A photograph of a cheeky boy on a website.
It doesn’t do to dwell on things too much at this point. So on a lighter note, is it just coincidence or was he the inspiration for MAD comic’s front man Alfred E. Neuman?
Posted by john at March 23, 2007 01:41 AM