It’s my least favorite day of the year, but I learned a few months ago when my father bought the camera he taught me to shoot on – June 13, 1967, while he was stationed in Vietnam. That makes this 50 mm 50 now.

His Pentax Spotmatic is tucked away in a closet, every now and then I pull it out just to trip the shutter and hear the springs and gears do their thing. There’s a comfort in its mechanicalness, still.

I was fifteen and a half when he passed 31 years ago today. He was a math teacher in my youth and my kid headed off to start his college adventure this past week, an intended math major. No genes involved, but still kind of cool to me.