This is my dad. He’s an introspective person. I get my voracious reading habit from him, as well as my inclination to tinker with words. He was a grade-school teacher, and an excellent one at that. For years I ran into adults who, upon learning my name, would ask if my father had been the teacher at their grade school. When I confirmed it, they would get a distant nostalgic look on their faces and speak fondly of what an impression he made on them. I took this photo during my trip up there in September. The linearity (yes, that is a word) was striking. All these lines moving in different directions seemed to capture the essence of my father: organized, complex, analytical.

“The Thinker” / 2005