Comfortable in their skin: city / country

Top: You can hop the NYC subway and ride from the midtown towers and canyons to the thrumming Atlantic Ocean. Then get off the D-train at Coney Island and walk east along the herring-boned wooden boardwalk past the twirly rides and the roller coaster. A mile or so along the shore you'll come to the Russian neighborhood of Brighton Beach. There, as soon as the sun grows warm, old timers claim the sea-facing benches to brown and bask.

Below: Country fairs still dot New England summer weekends. The carney rides, livestock shows, and deep fried food draw neighbors for a day away from farms and jobs and regular duties.

Here and above, impervious to the shame that the old and the fat are supposed to feel about their imperfect flesh, friends enjoy life's pleasures—which are as much theirs as the sleek entitlements the young and lean take for eternal granted.