We met Stanley at the Bellarmine...retired psychologist most probably somewhere in his 70s. Enjoys HS games and follows the teams in the Bay Area. We somehow got on history and found out he has a relative who ran with Billy the Kid...he asked about colleges and said we would never know his--but Williams is more than familiar to me...we talked about Valley Forge and then more on Virginia, the confederacy and Civil War history...landing on a Watergate figure and reverend in a Lexington church. Turns out in his family lineage is the name Lyons as well. The game started and then ended. We said our good-byes.
I love the Stanleys in the world. He's our type of person. Vibrant, alive, genuine, true. There are no real 'good-byes' for the Stanleys, just a constant 'hello'. That is how the Stanleys live their lives--in living those moments with others--"passing time" a foreign idea.
The Bells lost...but Steve and I won a story for a lifetime. Royce and Marilyn, the photographer at Ruaidhri's wedding, Nova on the train to Bergen, Gotham in India, the ice cream guy from Turkey in Stuttgart, Mabel the artist in Singapore and others...a few hours spent with another but carried with you for a lifetime.