Another Time

"I'm not an old-timer. I'm an other-timer," declares a Vietnam-scarred vet who had found safe harbor after the war as a barkeep in a small northern Michigan town.

Now plopped stool-side far from home - having traveled all day on a bus to witness a landmark moment - his outpouring of memories prompts a young bartender to complain, "What's it to me? I wasn't even born then."

Thirty years later, however, remembering the old vet recalling people from his past, the younger man sees himself see him see them, and realizes that all our way-back-when times are just a mirror reflecting a mirror, a fading column of reflected reflections ... of stories.

The old vet had been right when he claimed that, for a bartender, remembering is an occupational hazard. Was it also true that memories can be a way to forget?