One of my son’s friends was working the register when I stopped to buy gas station sushi and a six-pack of Molson.

Last time I saw him, in fall of 2019, I took him and my son to Tyler, the Creator at the Masonic Temple, so I didn’t recognize him now with his curly black mullet and matching mustache.

I’m sure plenty of his friends’ parents stroll through his line, but I wondered how many of them had taken him to a concert in Detroit when he was 15, and if I was the first on a Saturday night, buying beer and sushi in a Dusty Rhodes t-shirt?

I paid and stepped outside as a woman whipped down the street on an ATV with a toddler on back—no shoes, no helmet, no baby seat, just a toddler holding on for dear life.

And they were fucking glorious.