Destination: Old Point Tavern

5:30 p.m.

Midway between Lockerbie and the city's center, the Old Point Tavern caters to a mixed clientele. The hipsters come out at night -- lunchtime and happy hour are populated largely by young professionals. The sun is shining, the breeze is blowing and the patio is filling up fast.

6 p.m.

Lindsay and Steve Larson are puzzled when I ask to sit with them, but they listen to my spiel and are amenable to my plan. That plan is for me to get to know them and write about them in INtake.

These good-looking Larsons share a name by blood, not marriage. Lindsay, 25, is the elder, and Steve, 22, the kid brother. Baby bro Larson is spending the summer in Indy before his last year at Purdue University. He and big sis aren't regulars at the Old Point, but "I've been here more than anywhere else," he said.

Lindsay Larson performs pharmaceutical research, looking for possible treatments for alcoholism. I look at her pint glass and then at her. Her brother points out that his sister gave him his first drink of alcohol when he was 15. "I wanted to be there," she said.

"She was trying to be cool," he said. "I think she tried to make me dance with her friends."

"You did that all on your own," she said.

6:13 p.m.

Large paintings of Richard Pryor, Sam Kinison, Lucille Ball and The Three Stooges hang above the bar and windows. Vaulted ceilings and picture windows make this triangular pub a cozy fishbowl in cold weather.

The patio doubles the bar's capacity, and open doors on the north and south sides of the building create a pleasant cross-breeze.

Just as I get up to ask a guy across the room why he's watching TV (which is on mute) by himself and inside a bar on one of the prettiest days of 2007, an old acquaintance saunters in.

6:25 p.m.

Ken Rehm didn't like me 10 years ago. He really didn't like me. I didn't like him, either. We can't remember exactly why we didn't like each other. We've discussed bits and pieces of verbal altercations and snide remarks made in passing, but we recently admitted that we were both jerks and left it at that.

Rehm, 29, is sitting with a reed-thin man named Larry Endicott. Both are freelance photographers. "I work as an assistant more than I work as a photographer," Rehm said. "But, hey, I carry s- - -, and I learn a lot about photography." Rehm has worked with Endicott on numerous occasions over the last few years.

I ask Endicott how old he is, and he asks me to guess. I throw out numbers too high and too low until I find one that's just right. Forty. Larry Endicott is 40.

"You have to work for it," Endicott said.

"That's what she said," I reply.

Rehm rolls his eyes and moans at the tasteful and timeless punch line.

Endicott has a background in fine art and has played the part of globetrotting documentarian but now his work is commercial. "When I am lucky I shoot pictures of pretty girls, the rest of the time I shoot advertising," he said.

The wind picks up, blowing menus and napkins across the patio. A middle-aged woman in floral print pants walks by our table and draws amused glances from Endicott and Rehm. "Do you remember those tapestry pants from the '80s?" Endicott asks Rehm. "I hope that s- - - doesn't come back."