I want to remember everything. Want to remember what they ordered for dinner. Linda had the chicken quesadillas as an appetizer, then had crab enchiladas as her entrée. She had a glass of red wine (Cabernet) and decaffeinated coffee with cream after dinner. When the waiter asked her if she wanted milk or cream with it, she asked him how strong it was and upon hearing that it was Starbucks, gasped, her hand at her chest in a manner which was to say, strong enough to knock *me* down, and requested cream. Guion had the most difficult time making up his mind about what he wanted to have for dinner. As Linda and I ordered (I, taking my cue from Linda about what would be okay in terms of price range, requested the clam chowder as an appetizer—I was delighted to find it delivered to me in a bread bowl—and shrimp risotto as the main course and hot tea with lemon), Guion went over the menu one last time, finally settling on a spinach salad and the same delectable shrimp risotto that I was having. He also had cranberry juice—two cups over the course of the dinner. It came in a wine-ish looking glass with a little lemon wedge over the edge of it. After dinner, I asked for another pot of tea to be delivered with Linda's coffee. We had no room for dessert. All three of us had boxes of food to take with us.

I enjoyed listening to Guion talk. The manner of it. Which was old and familiar. He spoke of people with nicknames like Butch and Chappy. I believe Guion, himself, had once been referred to as Bunny. I missed hanging out with older black people. With older people in general, I supposed, although the people that I was accustomed to hanging out with in this way were older black Philadelphians. I guess that's the subset in particular I miss. With their particular ways of speaking and of telling stories and of referring to people by peculiar nicknames that lasted their whole lives, replacing their given names somewhere along the line.

I thought of different generations and things that were lost as the generations turned over—ways of speaking and ways of doing things and thinking of things and describing things, particular kinds of humor and irascibility. I know so few people who are still alive that have these qualities I remember from when I was young and had all of these older black Philadelphians around me.

I missed Pop-Pop and Mom-Mom (and her family) and Miss Emily, Mr. Leap hart, Aunt Armenia, Miss Fredonia, Grandpa. Hanging out with Guion and Linda reminded me so much of hanging out with my grandmother and grandfather when they were younger. When I was younger. Guion is sixty, which is how old my grandfather was when I would stay in New Jersey with him and my grandmother when I was younger. Grandmama was older than he, but still very similar to Linda, in certain ways. Smart and wry. Pleasant. With a face she spend time on every morning. With the powders and the creams and the pencils. Linda was the same shape as my grandmother. Not particular tall, but stout and curvy. She let Guion run on the way Grandmama would have allowed Grandpa to run on were they in a similar situation. Linda and Guion had been married for decades now. About four decades, I guess.

Guion kept saying that the Blufords were not centered on their families (meaning, I suppose, their root families—their parents and siblings and whatnot—but I suppose it applied to their children as well) but were very attached to their wives. That was a repeated theme. Every time he'd say it, the part about Blufords being attached to their wives, I'd look at Linda, almost for some sort of confirmation. They spoke of Eugene and Bobbye, who (Linda was surprised to recount) have been married for thirty years now (their wedding was the last occasion upon which they had all been together). Guion said it was the same way with his father. My grandfather. Very attached to his wife.

Guion's father. My father's father. My grandfather. A mechanical/chemical engineer. Who, I am told, loved his work. Got very excited about it. When Guion was about seven (he was the oldest of the three, seven years older than my father), my grandfather (it feels like a luxury to call him that, since I never knew him, or he me) had an epileptic episode. It shocked my grandmother (another luxury, there), who did not know that he was epileptic. I am unclear about whether my grandfather knew. Guion tells me that some people came to the house and put him in a straight jacket and took him away to a mental institution and that thereafter, for the rest of his life, the man was in and out of mental institutions. My father, who was a baby at the time, never knew that his father before that point. Never knew him any other way.