.Leo Patimkin looks back longingly at one night he spent with a woman while a solider; Ron cannot forget the joy of his college days; and Neil himself, simply by virtue of telling his story, reveals his inability to forget the summer he spent with Brenda. Even when he digresses from the story at hand, Neil betrays his fascination with the past. While Brenda shops for a bridesmaid dress in New York City, Neil drives into the Orange Mountains and watches children feed deer. He directs the greatest part of his attention, though, to their mothers, "a few of whom I recognized as high school mates of mine." He then ponders their lives, wondering where time will take them and how they will pass the years between marriage and retirement. In this passage, and others, Neil seems terribly sad knowing that time will pass and that he, like the mothers he watches, will grow old.