Old Picture of The Captain

An old friend sent The Captain a facebook message recently with the message, "What's this?" He opened it, and it took him a few moments to figure out what it was. He saw himself in the picture, but didn't recognize himself. Eventually it clicked though: that was, in fact, The Captain- just a vintage version of himself. He had to take his mental picture of himself, subtract a few pounds, a few wrinkles, and a lot of gray hair to reconcile that image with the image of the cocky, young Captain smirking back at him.


At the time, The Captain was a member of a group called DeMolay- which, for those of you who don't know, is like a junior version of the Masons. The girls were in their version of DeMolay, which was called Rainbow. So where did The Captain fit into this? The Captain was about to become the "Rainbow Beau." I know, that's silly. It even seemed silly then. But whatever, it was a chance to hang out with girls.

You might think from looking at this picture that The Captain was a little bit cocky, a little bit stuck on himself back in those days. But you would be wrong. The Captain was a lot cocky, a lot stuck on himself back in those days. He can't even tell you how much so. But he doesn't need to- you can tell just by looking at that smirk.

Those were good times for The Captain though, happy times.

Oddly enough, the old friend that sent this picture to The Captain was actually an old girlfriend. It was never official- he never asked her, "Will you go with me?" But they spent a lot of time together and had a lot of fun. It seems safe to say girlfriend, he thinks. The Captain has many, many fond memories of her. He'll never forget those long, lush, blonde curls, sitting next to her in German class, or that one night at The Cliff.

Also, he doesn't know if he ever told her so, but he thought (and still thinks) that she was quite possibly the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. He can't even tell you how beautiful he thought she was- there just aren't words...

So, old (girl)friend, if you're reading this, know that The Captain thanks you for the picture. And know that he often thinks fondly of you and of the times you and he had together. Thank you for those times.