Friday morning, the weather was spectacular: stark clean light, a cornflower blue sky hosting pristine clouds billowing overhead, and a steady light breeze. I wasn’t the only one who thought so because there were numerous humans out and about observed with amusement, no doubt, by the birds and animals who make the lakefront their home.

There was an old guy (my age) sitting on a bench beneath one of the willow trees that line the edge of the lake. His back was at a 45 degree angle from his butt to his shoulders, with his weight leaning on elbows slung over the back of the bench. He stared straight ahead at the watery horizon. I turned my head to the right to see what, if anything, he was looking at and got smacked in the face by a low hanging willow branch.

Next, a few hundred yards past the old guy was a young woman. She........

© Finger Lakes Times