About a month ago, I reported for jury duty at the Kings County Supreme Court building in downtown Brooklyn. Unlike many in the jurors' hall that morning, I was glad to be there. The truth is that I had been looking for something to do.
Before I retired, I published, on the average, about four items a year - books, journal articles, chapters, and reviews - related to my field of expertise. After I retired, I worked on projects such as an account of my journey around the world by surface transportation and a description of a 19th-century celebrity's world lecture tour. My last post-retirement project, however, a history of twin disasters that befell New York City in the first half of the nineteenth century, fizzled. Although I had spent more years than I like to admit hunched over microfilm readers, ancient newspapers, and dusty folders, I had written an unsatisfactory book. But by then I was either unable or unwilling to rewrite my manuscript. It remains unfinished and I had found nothing to take its place.
So I was looking for a meaningful occupation, preferably another book project. But according to the author of Ecclesiastes, "there is no end to the making of books," and by now who needs more? It's a failure of imagination, I guess, that I haven't found another direction, another occupation, or even another topic about which to write, but I seem to have dried up. So I welcomed the call to jury duty and hoped I'd be empaneled for a case that lasts at least a month.
As I sat all morning waiting to be summoned to a panel, I imagined myself pondering the reliability of a witness. I pictured myself as Henry Fonda in "Twelve Angry Men," convincing my colleagues one by one that the defendant is not guilty. When we were dismissed for lunch, I still had not been called. But after lunch, a court clerk announced that since there were very few cases on the docket, we were all discharged, our duty completed, free to return to our normal pursuits. We would not be summoned again for at least eight years. We could expect a check in the mail for $40. It arrived last week. In the meantime, I had returned to my normal pursuit of looking for something to do.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Monday, June 28, 2010
Siblings
What happens when brothers and sisters get together long after their parents have died and their family home has been sold? Do they revert to their childhood roles with one another? Here’s one case.
When my brother and sister-in-law were visiting my wife and me a few weeks ago, the four of us went out to dinner. On our way home, we stopped to buy some bananas for the next day’s breakfast. When three of us left the store, we noticed that my brother was missing. Where had he gone? He wasn’t in the store nor could we see him on the street. He didn’t have his cell phone with him so we couldn’t call him. I was upset, more so than his wife, in fact. While we pondered what to do, my brother emerged from the open back of a fire truck that was parked near the store. A young fireman had invited him to inspect the truck’s interior and to learn about its equipment, an invitation that my brother, long interested in fire engines, accepted with pleasure.
Why was I so upset by his temporary disappearance? I’m four years older than he is and six years older than my sister. By the time I was nine, our mother began to suffer from fatigue. She would sometimes ask me take my siblings to the park, about a half mile away. I dutifully wheeled them there in a double stroller, helped them on the swings and seesaws, watched them while they ran around, and then wheeled them home, thus giving our mother a few hours of peace and quiet. I was responsible for them then and I guess I took my responsibility pretty seriously. So seriously, in fact, that it seems that I’ve never gotten over it. Seventy years later, when my brother and I are together, I still feel responsible for him. Never mind that my brother is perfectly able to take care of himself and that my children now do their best to supervise me.
When my brother and sister-in-law were visiting my wife and me a few weeks ago, the four of us went out to dinner. On our way home, we stopped to buy some bananas for the next day’s breakfast. When three of us left the store, we noticed that my brother was missing. Where had he gone? He wasn’t in the store nor could we see him on the street. He didn’t have his cell phone with him so we couldn’t call him. I was upset, more so than his wife, in fact. While we pondered what to do, my brother emerged from the open back of a fire truck that was parked near the store. A young fireman had invited him to inspect the truck’s interior and to learn about its equipment, an invitation that my brother, long interested in fire engines, accepted with pleasure.
Why was I so upset by his temporary disappearance? I’m four years older than he is and six years older than my sister. By the time I was nine, our mother began to suffer from fatigue. She would sometimes ask me take my siblings to the park, about a half mile away. I dutifully wheeled them there in a double stroller, helped them on the swings and seesaws, watched them while they ran around, and then wheeled them home, thus giving our mother a few hours of peace and quiet. I was responsible for them then and I guess I took my responsibility pretty seriously. So seriously, in fact, that it seems that I’ve never gotten over it. Seventy years later, when my brother and I are together, I still feel responsible for him. Never mind that my brother is perfectly able to take care of himself and that my children now do their best to supervise me.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
The Wrong Song
When I was in my twenties, still single and a bit wild, two friends and I visited a supper club in which Mabel Mercer was singing. She was perhaps the greatest cabaret singer of her generation, a superlative interpreter of the American songbook. Her diction was impeccable and her phrasing so masterful that it influenced other singers, including Frank Sinatra, who attended many of her performances. I was among the legion of her admirers, and it was I who suggested we go to hear her.
We had had a few drinks before we arrived and, after another drink at the club, I was pretty high. I went to the john and, much to my surprise, when I returned I found one of my friends talking to her. He introduced me to her as one of her most devoted fans. She invited me to join her for a drink.
Among the many things she told me was that whenever a person asks her to sing one of the songs for which she is known, she says to herself, “oh no, not again,” but that after she begins to sing it, she once again understands its appeal. Soon it was time for her set. Before excusing herself, she asked me what song I would like her to sing. I asked for Cole Porter's "It's All Right with Me," one of the songs for which she was best known. She sighed.
It was the fourth song she sang and just before she began it she nodded to me as I stood at the bar. She was a queen acknowledging the homage of a subject. I was thrilled. But the next day, when I awoke stone cold sober, I realized what I had done. I had acted as if I hadn't heard what she had told me. To this day, I’ve regretted it. I can see her now, seated regally on a high stool next to the piano, her back straight, her hands quiet in her lap, singing of love and betrayal. In my small way, I had betrayed her. But my guess is that it affected me more than it did her.
Ever since that evening, more than 50 years ago, I experience a pang whenever that incident comes to mind. But recently I’ve noticed an additional feeling, a tender fondness for that young man. He meant no harm and, after all, that was the song he wanted to hear.
We had had a few drinks before we arrived and, after another drink at the club, I was pretty high. I went to the john and, much to my surprise, when I returned I found one of my friends talking to her. He introduced me to her as one of her most devoted fans. She invited me to join her for a drink.
Among the many things she told me was that whenever a person asks her to sing one of the songs for which she is known, she says to herself, “oh no, not again,” but that after she begins to sing it, she once again understands its appeal. Soon it was time for her set. Before excusing herself, she asked me what song I would like her to sing. I asked for Cole Porter's "It's All Right with Me," one of the songs for which she was best known. She sighed.
It was the fourth song she sang and just before she began it she nodded to me as I stood at the bar. She was a queen acknowledging the homage of a subject. I was thrilled. But the next day, when I awoke stone cold sober, I realized what I had done. I had acted as if I hadn't heard what she had told me. To this day, I’ve regretted it. I can see her now, seated regally on a high stool next to the piano, her back straight, her hands quiet in her lap, singing of love and betrayal. In my small way, I had betrayed her. But my guess is that it affected me more than it did her.
Ever since that evening, more than 50 years ago, I experience a pang whenever that incident comes to mind. But recently I’ve noticed an additional feeling, a tender fondness for that young man. He meant no harm and, after all, that was the song he wanted to hear.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Adventures
Last week, Reid Stowe, a 58-year-old American, sailed his homemade 70-foot schooner into New York harbor after 1, 152 days at sea, a world record. It was his first glimpse of land after more than three years. When I read that item in the Times, I felt admiration for Mr. Stowe. But I also felt sad.
I too had an adventure at about his age, although nothing so breathtakingly grand or so dangerous. Almost 20 years ago, when I retired at the age of 60, I traveled around the world by surface transportation, moving ever westward by automobiles, trains, ferries, and freighters but never by plane. I had long wanted to make such a trip, and during the four and half months of my traveling, I felt wonderfully elated. Walter Mitty’s dreams of glory were coming as true for me as they ever would.
I was sad when I read about Mr. Stowe’s feat, not because my own appeared so puny in comparison – after all, my odyssey was the best I could do - but because I realized, with a sinking feeling, that my opportunities for heroic traveling have gone forever. I will never cross the Sahara in a camel caravan or bike from Alaska to Patagonia or walk from Capetown to Cairo. These journeys must remain fantasies, not only because my health has become too fragile to consider carrying them out, but also because I don’t want to be separated from my wife for a long time. Months spent apart now would be regretted later, when the time comes for us to part forever.
There are, in any case, other adventures available to us than those found in travel by land and by sea. In fact, both of us have already embarked on a dangerous voyage, the journey through old age. This passage may not be as heroic as Mr. Stowe’s, but it will require every bit of courage, intelligence, and humor we can muster, as well as good luck, if we are to complete it with dignity and a modicum of grace.
I too had an adventure at about his age, although nothing so breathtakingly grand or so dangerous. Almost 20 years ago, when I retired at the age of 60, I traveled around the world by surface transportation, moving ever westward by automobiles, trains, ferries, and freighters but never by plane. I had long wanted to make such a trip, and during the four and half months of my traveling, I felt wonderfully elated. Walter Mitty’s dreams of glory were coming as true for me as they ever would.
I was sad when I read about Mr. Stowe’s feat, not because my own appeared so puny in comparison – after all, my odyssey was the best I could do - but because I realized, with a sinking feeling, that my opportunities for heroic traveling have gone forever. I will never cross the Sahara in a camel caravan or bike from Alaska to Patagonia or walk from Capetown to Cairo. These journeys must remain fantasies, not only because my health has become too fragile to consider carrying them out, but also because I don’t want to be separated from my wife for a long time. Months spent apart now would be regretted later, when the time comes for us to part forever.
There are, in any case, other adventures available to us than those found in travel by land and by sea. In fact, both of us have already embarked on a dangerous voyage, the journey through old age. This passage may not be as heroic as Mr. Stowe’s, but it will require every bit of courage, intelligence, and humor we can muster, as well as good luck, if we are to complete it with dignity and a modicum of grace.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Role Reversal
“Why are you wearing long sleeves on such a hot day? my daughter asked me a few weeks ago when we met by chance on the street. “To protect the public,” I answered, rolling up a sleeve to show her the unsightly discolorations on my arm, the extensive bruises resulting from a daily dose of blood thinner. “Never mind the public,” she said. “Be comfortable.” This was sensible advice, since the only person offended by my unsightly arms is me. If anyone else notices them, they don’t much care.
But my daughter is not content with implying that vanity has no place in the life of a man so old. She has other pieces of advice too. She tells me not to walk so fast, that a broken hip is no joke at my age. If I had listened to her, I might not have fallen a few weeks ago. But now that I’ve returned to walking in Prospect Park, I hear her all the time when I’m there: “slow down, Dad, slow down,” and I do. She also encourages me to indulge myself in sweets occasionally. The other day, when I told her I avoid fatty foods because I don’t want to gain weight, she said “you’ve already lived a long time. Loosen up!” Perhaps she’s right.
Like Aeneas, who fled flaming Troy, carrying his father on his back, we all carry our fathers around and our mothers too, come to think of it, even when they’ve been dead for decades. My father whispers “stop fooling around and get to work.” My mother tells me to watch what I say. Even though I often ignore them, I’m used to hearing their directives. But I’m not used to this third person on my back, my daughter. I’m pleased that she cares enough about me to worry, but how many back-seat drivers can a man tolerate? I guess I’ll find out.
But my daughter is not content with implying that vanity has no place in the life of a man so old. She has other pieces of advice too. She tells me not to walk so fast, that a broken hip is no joke at my age. If I had listened to her, I might not have fallen a few weeks ago. But now that I’ve returned to walking in Prospect Park, I hear her all the time when I’m there: “slow down, Dad, slow down,” and I do. She also encourages me to indulge myself in sweets occasionally. The other day, when I told her I avoid fatty foods because I don’t want to gain weight, she said “you’ve already lived a long time. Loosen up!” Perhaps she’s right.
Like Aeneas, who fled flaming Troy, carrying his father on his back, we all carry our fathers around and our mothers too, come to think of it, even when they’ve been dead for decades. My father whispers “stop fooling around and get to work.” My mother tells me to watch what I say. Even though I often ignore them, I’m used to hearing their directives. But I’m not used to this third person on my back, my daughter. I’m pleased that she cares enough about me to worry, but how many back-seat drivers can a man tolerate? I guess I’ll find out.
Friday, June 18, 2010
9 4.7 FM
The other day, an elderly woman stopped me on the street and, after asking me to sign a petition, which I did, told me to listen to 94.7 FM. I understood from what she said that it is a Christian station.
So after lunch that day, while washing the dishes, I tuned into 94.7 FM. It was playing pleasant songs whose melodies were soothing, much like the warm water with which I was rinsing the dishes. Since I’m a bit deaf, it was easy not to pay much attention to the words. But then the music stopped and a man spoke about parents who had been starved of parental love, and, not having had the experience of being loved by their parents, starved their own children of love. The only one who could break this vicious cycle, he said, was Jesus.
At this point, my wife came into the kitchen. “How long are you going to listen to this?” she asked me. So I turned off the radio and never learned how Jesus would help those who had never known parental love. But I didn’t need to listen any further to be pretty sure that the Christian faith of the old lady who had stopped me that morning was helping her bear the vicissitudes of life. And perhaps it would also help her face death calmly, if she also believed she was eligible for a place in heaven. On the other hand, if she dreaded eternal punishment, the prospect of death would be terrifying. As I finished the dishes, I wondered what is better - to believe in eternal life, when one is uncertain as to one’s ultimate reward or punishment, or to believe that there is nothing after death, that this life, in all its pleasures and pains, is all there is.
So after lunch that day, while washing the dishes, I tuned into 94.7 FM. It was playing pleasant songs whose melodies were soothing, much like the warm water with which I was rinsing the dishes. Since I’m a bit deaf, it was easy not to pay much attention to the words. But then the music stopped and a man spoke about parents who had been starved of parental love, and, not having had the experience of being loved by their parents, starved their own children of love. The only one who could break this vicious cycle, he said, was Jesus.
At this point, my wife came into the kitchen. “How long are you going to listen to this?” she asked me. So I turned off the radio and never learned how Jesus would help those who had never known parental love. But I didn’t need to listen any further to be pretty sure that the Christian faith of the old lady who had stopped me that morning was helping her bear the vicissitudes of life. And perhaps it would also help her face death calmly, if she also believed she was eligible for a place in heaven. On the other hand, if she dreaded eternal punishment, the prospect of death would be terrifying. As I finished the dishes, I wondered what is better - to believe in eternal life, when one is uncertain as to one’s ultimate reward or punishment, or to believe that there is nothing after death, that this life, in all its pleasures and pains, is all there is.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
The Company of the Old
While my knee was healing after a bad fall, I had to descend and ascend the subway stairs one step at a time. On the way down, I would lower the injured leg onto a step and then bring the good leg down to meet it. On the way up, I would reverse the procedure, raising the good leg first and then dragging the injured one up after it. One day, while I was painfully laboring up the stairs, an elderly African American woman was slowly descending, also one foot at a time. She said to me as she drew nearer, “It’s a long way up!”
After my knee had healed, another elderly African American woman addressed me in a public place. I was walking down the street when she stopped me. After ascertaining that I’m a registered Democrat, she asked me to sign a petition for the party. After I had done so, she said, “Listen to 94.7 FM.” When I asked her what it broadcast, she leaned toward me, widened her eyes, and said “Bible!” She was canvassing for the Democrats as a volunteer, she explained, but otherwise she handed out tracts. She didn’t think she should do both at once, she added, to which I agreed. “94.7 FM,” she repeated. “Do you think you can remember that?” I laughed and said that this was a good question. Then she laughed. “Yes,” she said, “I’m also beginning to forget things. And my eyes are starting to go too.”
These two women differ from me in gender, race, and religion, and, probably, judging from the way they were dressed, in economic circumstances as well. Yet I felt a kinship with both of them, and I think that each of them felt the same about me. All three of us are members of an exclusive club, the community of the aged. Close to 60 years ago, when I graduated from college, my class was welcomed “into the company of educated men.” I wasn’t sure I deserved that status then, but I’m positive that my membership today in the company of the old has been earned fair and square.
After my knee had healed, another elderly African American woman addressed me in a public place. I was walking down the street when she stopped me. After ascertaining that I’m a registered Democrat, she asked me to sign a petition for the party. After I had done so, she said, “Listen to 94.7 FM.” When I asked her what it broadcast, she leaned toward me, widened her eyes, and said “Bible!” She was canvassing for the Democrats as a volunteer, she explained, but otherwise she handed out tracts. She didn’t think she should do both at once, she added, to which I agreed. “94.7 FM,” she repeated. “Do you think you can remember that?” I laughed and said that this was a good question. Then she laughed. “Yes,” she said, “I’m also beginning to forget things. And my eyes are starting to go too.”
These two women differ from me in gender, race, and religion, and, probably, judging from the way they were dressed, in economic circumstances as well. Yet I felt a kinship with both of them, and I think that each of them felt the same about me. All three of us are members of an exclusive club, the community of the aged. Close to 60 years ago, when I graduated from college, my class was welcomed “into the company of educated men.” I wasn’t sure I deserved that status then, but I’m positive that my membership today in the company of the old has been earned fair and square.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Height
“How tall did you used to be?” A doctor asked a friend of ours that question a few years ago. I know what the doctor meant, since I’m now two inches shorter than I used to be. Like everyone else who grows older, the disks between the bones in my back have slowly become compressed, and osteoporosis has done its part too.
None of this really matters – it’s too late to compete in a Mister America contest – except that I think of myself as taller than I am. When an upper cabinet door in our kitchen is open, I automatically duck when I walk under it, even though, if I stood as straight as possible, my head would not touch it at all. I suppose the same mechanism is at work when I surprise the old man I find in the mirror.
In these reactions, I’m like the blue penguins of New Zealand, the smallest penguins in the world. We watched them one evening, years ago, when they returned from a day’s hunting at sea. They straggled across the beach and up a steep bank and waited until they had formed a critical mass, before racing over the open space to their nesting burrows in the rocky hill above. Their massing together and their subsequent dash would protect them from the eagle that once preyed on them, but today that behavior is of no use at all. The eagle has long been extinct.
Just as the penguins never noticed that the eagle had gone away, .I paid no attention as those two inches slowly disappeared. So I duck when I can stand straight and think I’m young until I pass a mirror.
None of this really matters – it’s too late to compete in a Mister America contest – except that I think of myself as taller than I am. When an upper cabinet door in our kitchen is open, I automatically duck when I walk under it, even though, if I stood as straight as possible, my head would not touch it at all. I suppose the same mechanism is at work when I surprise the old man I find in the mirror.
In these reactions, I’m like the blue penguins of New Zealand, the smallest penguins in the world. We watched them one evening, years ago, when they returned from a day’s hunting at sea. They straggled across the beach and up a steep bank and waited until they had formed a critical mass, before racing over the open space to their nesting burrows in the rocky hill above. Their massing together and their subsequent dash would protect them from the eagle that once preyed on them, but today that behavior is of no use at all. The eagle has long been extinct.
Just as the penguins never noticed that the eagle had gone away, .I paid no attention as those two inches slowly disappeared. So I duck when I can stand straight and think I’m young until I pass a mirror.
Friday, June 11, 2010
A Subway Ride
Jauntily clad in blue blazer, chino trousers, and a blue cotton hat with a red band, and feeling terrific, I left home with my wife the other day to go into Manhattan. In the subway car there were no empty seats next to each other, so we sat apart. At the next stop, after the place next to my wife had been vacated, I got up and started to walk to it just as a young man was about to sit there. He quickly understood that I wanted his seat, however, and came over to me, put one hand on my shoulders and placed the other one under my arm and solicitously walked me over to the seat he had abandoned and carefully set me down on it.
I have traveled from Beijing to Moscow on the Trans-Siberian Railroad and have spent weeks in the Ethiopian back country, where I forded creeks in a Land Rover and slept in missionary stations, and now I’m seen as a frail old man.
I have traveled from Beijing to Moscow on the Trans-Siberian Railroad and have spent weeks in the Ethiopian back country, where I forded creeks in a Land Rover and slept in missionary stations, and now I’m seen as a frail old man.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
A Fall
The other day, while walking home from Prospect Park, striding along briskly and feeling like Superman, I stumbled. My momentum was so great that I pitched forward and staggered for a couple of steps, trying to right myself, before landing on my face, hands, and knees near two workmen seated on a bench eating their lunch. They grabbed me under the arms, pulled me up, and set me down on another bench. Alarmed by my bleeding, they asked if they should call an ambulance. I declined the offer with thanks and, after sitting a few moments to collect myself, slowly walked the rest of the way home.
We were expecting guests that night for dinner, including a friend whom we hadn’t seen in about twenty years and in whose honor I had gotten a haircut that morning so that I would look my best. When she saw me, though, she was horrified by my appearance. “Oh, it’s nothing, really,” I told her, “just a fall,” but during dinner, after I began to sweat profusely and to feel dizzy and nauseous, everyone at the table insisted I go to an emergency room.
An MRI of my head showed no internal bleeding, fortunately, but I was told to expect headaches for several days. Just before I left the ER, the nurse told me she would sum up the three-page report of my condition. “It says, ‘don't do it again.’”
That morning I had walked fast in Prospect Park, enjoying the shade of the great trees and catching glimpses of dogs catching frisbies on the Long Meadow, but I guess that’s all over now. At 78 I finally have to be more careful. The elderly Clark Kent has been forced to walk cautiously and to look out for obstacles in his course instead of admiring the trees and flowers all around him. Superman’s been grounded for good.
We were expecting guests that night for dinner, including a friend whom we hadn’t seen in about twenty years and in whose honor I had gotten a haircut that morning so that I would look my best. When she saw me, though, she was horrified by my appearance. “Oh, it’s nothing, really,” I told her, “just a fall,” but during dinner, after I began to sweat profusely and to feel dizzy and nauseous, everyone at the table insisted I go to an emergency room.
An MRI of my head showed no internal bleeding, fortunately, but I was told to expect headaches for several days. Just before I left the ER, the nurse told me she would sum up the three-page report of my condition. “It says, ‘don't do it again.’”
That morning I had walked fast in Prospect Park, enjoying the shade of the great trees and catching glimpses of dogs catching frisbies on the Long Meadow, but I guess that’s all over now. At 78 I finally have to be more careful. The elderly Clark Kent has been forced to walk cautiously and to look out for obstacles in his course instead of admiring the trees and flowers all around him. Superman’s been grounded for good.
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