A man’s thinks about his children, his work, death, and pain. His mother (one of the Old Folks, a degrading terms that the narrator looks down on for their old age and unwillingness to change) wants to see her grandchildren. He thinks about his mother, noting he has only visited her once since his wedding and that visiting her causes him pain. He knows it's good for a grandparent to see their grandchildren, but he has been sending her photos of the grandchildren since they were babies. His mother is an alcoholic, and she wants him to move back home. He thinks about his work at university and how she wants him to come to be a superintendent for the schools where he grew up. He thinks about his parents becoming Old Folks, how his father was bitter and a bad person. He thinks about his mother’s drinking and why she drank and how she acted as she gave into drinking. He thinks about how he became his mother as he got older, and while his children are nothing like him, he is exactly like his parents who he hates. He thinks it’s a miracle that he managed to teach at a university and do something different, but then he remembers his father was a school superintendent. He thinks about his going home, and how he realized his parents do not sleep in the same bed. He thinks about how they are decaying and how he is now an Old Folk too. He remembers the last love of his mother, the man who sold his family bread when he was young, and then he thinks about how the world goes in a full circle.