At first the most remarkable thing about the old man who was walking by, slightly hunched over but moving at a comfortable pace, were his long white whiskers (not beard, definitely whiskers), and his stained-blond mustache. But just as he passed by, I noticed the glasses taped to his head. The lenses and the front of the frames were intact, but there were two strips of blue masking tape stretched between his temples and the outer edges of the lenses.
A pack of twelve or fifteen kids, probably all under ten years old, were running around in the stairs that lead down through Pike Place Market. A couple of the kids stopped to look down at the daycare’s colorful playground. “Hey guys, look!” The rest of the kids came running back to admire the slide for a minute. A couple of adults eventually regained control and began herding the group further along toward their destination, and a passerby stopped to make small talk with a woman who was coaxing the last few stragglers along.
He said, “That’s quite a crew! Is it a school group?”
“No. It’s a Christian school,” the woman answered.