Gripping stranger #3: Beatnik Dad

You are so cool. You are a living example of what it means to age awesomely. Salt and pepper hair and slip-on sneakers that are making no attempts to be trendy or gauche, just comfortable and smart and easy for running to the bus stop with your nine-year-old daughter, who follows in your footsteps and reads precocious paperback novels while wearing a beret, violin tucked between her kilted knees. She is beautiful and smart and alive and sure of herself in a way that young girls rarely are, and I am proud of her for you. I think you guys are friends. This makes me happy.