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.