This guy is just chilin’ photo by Royal Hopper

Youth and Age in the City of Sin

By Royal Hopper

You see two friends sitting across a table from each other at a café in the City of Sin. Now and then one of them starts to speak and then stops as if he already knows what the other is going to say. It has all been said many times. . . Eventually they finish and as you leave you hear on of them say or mumble .. . . “your right . . Damn it.” The other doesn’t even ask about what .. . . . He just shakes his head finishes off his steak and eggs and suppresses the smile that is forming on his face. After all these years there is no point in gloating.

For a brief second I thought this was actually and election poster for Mr Jumper Cables _ Royal Hopper

Later you see four men playing catch in a parking lot with a softball. You get a good look as you drive past the parking lot they play in and surprisingly they are not children or even teenagers. They are grown men playing softball catch in the parking of a business in the City of Sin just blocks from a half dozen billion dollar casinos.

Youth doesn’t think. It does . . .

Four young men paying catch on a country road in Utah ..is a lazy spring day. Four grown men playing catch in the parking lot of a business in the City of Sin is _ a little weird and kind of sad.

This guy is just chilin’ photo by Royal Hopper

Perhaps it is a way of powering through their lunch break of their dead end jobs _ perhaps they just don’t have the money to actually eat lunch or perhaps they are engaging in that older than Sin practice of preserving a youthful mindset _ long after it has ceased to be helpful or even makes any sense.

It is something the paunchy middle aged man in his cargo shorts and flowered Hawaiian shirt can probably relate to playing Frisbee with his Ray-Ban wearing rebel without a clause (think about it) spiked flat top 40 something lawyer friend im a spot of grass between casino can likely relate too.

guy walking in the City of Sin _ Royal Hopper

One of the myths the City of Sin is built on is the false sense of eternal youth that it wraps its visitors in. People step off the plane in Vegas and sometimes undergo a transformation. The hair goes ponytail, those bell bottoms that have been locked in the closet for decades come out and that light purple OP shirt you once thought you looked cool in pops its ugly head out of the suitcase and somehow hops onto your shoulder.

out for a stroll in the City of Sin _ Photo by Royal Hopper

Make no mistake properly dressed people have second teens again too they can just afford to do it indoors where no one can see them or film them and put it on Facebook.

If you mental calculations start with If the little voice in your head tells you Yes I can still ..then you probably really cant ..

The city of Sin and Breakfast by Royal Hopper

Its not a fairy tale or a bad trip or a second childhood. It is just life in the City of Sin.

Love You Sinners