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.