My web friend Jedrzej has a superb picture on his blog, Venividi of two old men on a park bench in Munich.

It instantly reminded of Simon and Garfunkel’s song from the early seventies ; Bookends

As it just illustrates it so well I asked him if I could reproduce it here with the words-(these were harder to get than I thought, eventually I had to transcribe from You Tube)

Old friends
Old friends
Sat on their park bench like bookends
Newspaper blown through the grass
Falls on the round toes
Of the high shoes
Of the old friends

Old friends
Winter companions
The old men
Lost in their overcoats
Waiting for the sun

The sounds of the City
Siftng through trees
Settles like dust on the shoulders
Of the old friends

Can you imagine us years from today
Sharing a Park bench quietly
How terribly strange to seventy

Old friends
Memory brushes the same years
Silently sharing the same fears

Time it was and what a time it was, it was,
A time of innocence a time of confidences.

Long ago it must be,
I have a photograph
Preserve your memories,
They’re all thats left you