The First Time In What? Thirty-Five Years?

Parks Masterson and I hadn't seen one another in about thirty-five years. He'd been Googling names from the old days, and I soon had an email from him. I replied, we talked on the phone, and decided to get together. His hair wasn't white all those years ago, he was a bit thinner then, and I didn't sport a beard at the time. We both still have plenty of hair, though!

We met at his marine supply store, Hopkins Carter Marine, near the Miami River, and sat upstairs and chatted. There was a lot of catching up to do.

He still has the Leica III-f camera with the Leicavit trigger baseplate that he'd bought from me years ago. I promised to find Manfred's phone number so he could get the camera overhauled by one of the few old time camera techs left. I found it, and I called him with the number a few days later.

There was a cat in the office who seemed quite intrigued that there was a newcomer in there. She sniffed my pants legs a few times. I guess they smelled like Claudia's dogs. I'd been at her house earlier that morning. She even rubbed against my legs, but wouldn't let me pick her up. I kept trying to get the cat in a picture but my efforts were futile.

I got the grand tour of the store and bought a new pair of Sperry Topsiders as we talked fishing and photography and discussed what we'd been doing for all of those years. He's greatly expanded the fishing tackle section of the store and we're planning on doing some fishing together. It turns out that he enjoys the same type of inshore fishing that I do.