How to See

I came across this line in an Arthur Miller short story today. A boy is looking out of a train window on a hot afternoon :

He passed above a block where men were standing in driveways watering their cars as though they were hot elephants.

Isn't that just fantastic? Simple, vivid. Ooh, I wish I'd written that. How many times have I seen people - yes, usually men - washing their cars and thought nothing of it. But Miller saw this. Even in the most mundane of settings there is gold. It just needs someone to see it and to write it down ...