This month, on the campus where I teach English, we're studying "living sources." Fieldwork, et cetera. Today I asked students to write for 10 minutes in a notebook about something or someone you've overheard in the past 24 hours. "Give your topic a face," Bruce Ballenger urges his curious and not-so-curious researchers. Here's what I got down.

North Portland. November 9, 2016. Corner bakery, big windows. 

The man sitting down the bench from me is on his phone. I can't make out the caller....