At Citizens Bank Park during a recent Phillies game, the ennui left plenty of time for eavesdropping. Two 20-somethings behind me were discussing their baseball memories. One was thunderstruck to learn that there used to be two major-league teams in the city and that both played in North Philadelphia.
"No way," he repeated several times. "That's got to be BS."
It seems to me, a few weeks shy of a 66th birthday, that life works something like this: You spend decades accumulating knowledge, heroes, and memories until, either forgotten by you or devalued by others, it all begins to melt away.