Unlikely memories keep coming back to me. Like when I was on a plane out of Vegas, maybe ten years ago, maybe twenty. That sad flight when you’ve probably lost more money than you should, and there’s a part of you that wishes you could stay longer and lose some more. In that state of mind I was struck by a conversation in the row behind me. Two young men were talking—friends or maybe cousins who’d been in Vegas together for a family reunion or bachelor party or something. One was cheerily talking about his dad, how they’d left him at the bar sipping Johnny Walker Blue, and that he knew he’d be perfectly happy there while everyone younger went gambling and clubbing. He sounded proud of his dad—proud that he was there, proud of what he drank, proud of what he did and didn’t do. The happy family scene he depicted, of the patriarch indulging his brood, maybe living vicariously through them, was annoying and poignant in equal measure, somehow.