"And then I saw you. You'd taken shelter under the balcony of the Old State House. You were wearing a teal ball gown..."

"... which appeared to me both regal and ridiculous. Your brown hair was matted to the right side of your face, and a galaxy of freckles dusted your shoulders. I'd never seen anything so beautiful.... We sat at the counter of that five and dime and talked like old friends.... After an hour or so, I excused myself to use the restroom. I remember consulting my reflection in the mirror. Wondering if I should kiss you, if I should tell you what I'd done from the cockpit of that bomber a week before, if I should return to the Smith & Wesson that waited for me. I decided, ultimately, that I was unworthy of the resuscitation this stranger in the teal ball gown had given me, and to turn my back on such sweet serendipity would be the real disgrace. On the way back to the counter, my heart thumped in my chest like an angry judge's gavel, and a future -- our future -- flickered in my mind. But when I reached the stools, you were gone. No phone number. No note. Nothing.... I'm an old man now, and only recently did I recount this story to someone for the first time, a friend from the VFW. He suggested I look for you on Facebook. I told him I didn't know anything about Facebook, and all I knew about you was your first name and that you had lived in Boston once...."

From a lovely piece in Craigslist's "Missed Connections," about a missed connection that happened way back in 1972 (via Jaltcoh).

It called to mind the little speech by an old man in "Citizen Kane," explaining what old men remember:

One day, back in 1896, I was crossing over to Jersey on a ferry and as we pulled out, there was another ferry pulling in... and on it, there was a girl waiting to get off. A white dress she had on - and she was carrying a white parasol - and I only saw her for one second and she didn't see me at all - but I'll bet a month hasn't gone by since that I haven't thought of that girl.

I think a lot of old men read my blog. Sometimes I blog about what women are wearing and they crowd into the comments to say that it would never occur to them to think about what dress a woman had on....