He turned his head slowly and looked at me. "Actually, I don't know how to put it," he said, "I'm not sure I know the right words."

"Try using the ones you do know," I said, "man this ice tea is delicious."

"Estrangement is what's on my mind," he said to me, "contagious estrangement. expanding estrangement. Emotional, spiritual, physical, even political estrangement... it's like there's no stopping it. It's like once it starts it never seems to stop. Like there are two snowflakes that fall on the top of a mountain," he says, looking back into that middle distance, "and they lie there next to each other for a season, they know each other's contours, they are continuously discovering new facets of each other." He was holding half of his tuna fish sub in the air in front of him. "And then, one day, something happens and one snowflake rolls down one side of the mountain and the other goes down the other side. And there's just nothing they can do."

I just sat there looking at him, waiting.

"I haven't spoken to my father in eight years," he said to me, "did you know that? And he hasn't spoken to me. It just doesn't come up. We're just not in each other's lives." He shook his head. "I don't even know how it happened -- it wasn't a fight, it wasn't a disagreement.." his voice trailed off and he took another bite of tuna. "For all I know he might be dead...and for all he knows..."

He shook his head. "And politically it's the same thing. I keep hearing about free and open debate, what a joke, there's no debate. First of all, to me a debate presumes that the arguments are intended to be persuasive. It seems to me like everyone has their minds made up these days, they play on the blue team or the red team. They're all -- ok, almost all -- adherents," he practically spit the word out, "And we're not really talking to each other about anything... When was the last time you were at a party where there were people from more than one side of any given issue -- who would admit it? We don't talk to each other anymore, we.. turn our backs and walk away. And that hurts all of us." He gestured around the room with the remains of his sandwich. "And sometimes it seems to me like we're those snowflakes, rolled up inside giant snowballs in separate valleys, with a gigantic mountain between us, and no way to get back together, to really reach each other."

"Sam," I said, "believe me, you know the right words." I finished my burger.

We sat there quietly for a couple minutes, Sam chewing his tuna fish in it's soft doughy roll.

"Call me a fool, Sam, but I think that there's a summer coming and the snow is going to melt. And then it will run down in streams, and the streams are going to run together into rivers... and then all the rivers will run down to the sea. All together one day."

I gathered up the stuff from my lunch and put it on my tray and Sam did the same. We stood up. "Good talking to you," he said, "I'm glad you came over to talk."