Image: the author

This week, MishMash visited our hometown, Santa Cruz, for Thanksgiving. While walking downtown on Black Friday amid clusters of laid-back shoppers, we passed two middle-aged men with sun-wrinkled skin and loose, greying ponytails. One of them hugged the other one and said...

"You glowed, you just totally glowed, man! Nobody loves the water like you, man." 

Then they went inside ChefWorks, the local gourmet kitchen goods store.