One of the lovely things about aging (and not so gracefully many a day) is that you get to both keep friends around for decades as well as make new ones as you travel.

One of those of long acquaintance  I was able to bail out of the train station yesterday and bring home looking a bit like a sheep dog for shaggy white hair and beard. One picture is here but that does not truly reflect the hair, beard and eyebrows which are rapidly growing out of control reminiscent of  weeds thriving after a good rainfall.

Getting to retire from the military can do strange things to your appearance and wardrobe. Perhaps it is more noticeable in the men since women have long been able to change clothes, change hairdos and disappear without a ripple into the civilian stream of travelers.

After an evening of chat last night, today we set out to run errands. A trip to Nachrichten Kasern was bittersweet – almost all of the clinics which had been consolidated a few months ago are now closed. I am able to pick up my trifocals and visit with one of the few remaining docs. Brad and I stop by the lab, but anyone he might have known from his years here in the early 1990s as the pathologist have long since returned to the states or found employment elsewhere prior to the closure.

Is it worth mentioning that once again I forgot the post office on PHV doesn’t open till 1100?

Otherwise we headed downtown, dropped off books at Neugasse Bookshelf, bought Gummis for Maus and the College Guy, stopped through Wolfskin, had lunch at Red, and wandered back home through the Weststadt. His feet held out so he can visit friends Friday and head back to the US without me turning him into a cripple.

Even with white hair anyone who is younger than me simply is not old!