May and November

Last Sunday's Times covered a reunion of Norman Rockwell's models in Arlington, Vermont, the artist's home until 1953. Painted likenesses of his models - neighbors and other citizens of the town - appeared on greeting cards and most famously on covers of The Saturday Evening Post. The only Rockwell models from Arlington who are alive today were youngsters when they posed for him.

As a lead-in to the story, the Times published three images of James A. Edgerton, Sr., who, as a young man, lived next door to Rockwell. In the center is Rockwell's portrait of Edgerton wearing a scout uniform, in the artist's "Growth of a Leader" cover. Two photographs flank it. On the left is the young Mr. Edgerton in his scout uniform. On the right is Mr. Edgerton holding the same pose, as he appeared at the reunion. Mr. Edgerton was a handsome young man and now, in old age, he remains good-looking. In fact he has aged remarkably well, and in my opinion he's even more handsome now than he was as a youth. "That's a man who's lived well," I said to myself, "a man who's worked hard, raised a family, and is respected by all who know him." My response was inane, of course, since who can read a man's life merely from his face, especially when all we see is a photograph? After all, it's not the portrait of Dorian Grey. Okay, okay, but Mr. Edgerton looks as if he's lived a good life, and, in any event, he's earned his wrinkles and his white hair.

As I looked at these before and after photographs, I was struck by how different my reaction was almost 20 years ago, when I compared the photograph of a young man with the old man he had become. This occurred at the beginning of my friendship with an elderly couple - now dead, alas - whom I first met on a freighter voyage from Suva to Hong Kong. The man had retired a few years before as an associate justice of his state's highest court. Before the onset of that distinguished career, when he was still a young man, he volunteered for the RAF and became a fighter pilot. He flew many missions, the last of which ended in a crash landing that put him in the hospital for a year. He was among the fortunate 10% of his group of volunteers who survived the war.

During our voyage together,he showed me an old photograph of himself in uniform, standing between two RAF comrades, in front of a Spitfire. When I asked him what became of his buddies, he replied, "They got the chop," an expression new to me but painfully clear. The tallest of the three, he appeared handsome and slim, his face unlined, his back straight, whereas the man standing next to me was stooped and wrinkled, still slim, still fine-looking but nothing like the matinee idol he had once been. The comparison of my friend's current appearance with his youthful image made me feel sad. But why? And why did I feel quite the opposite on Sunday, when comparing the two photographs of Norman Rockwell's model, Mr. Edgerton? My friend the judge was no less handsome as an old man than Mr. Edgerton is today.

But in the interval, I've changed. When I first met the judge, I was only 60. And although I was then at the outermost edge of middle age, I was unable to imagine myself no longer strong and vigorous. I looked at old age as I would obesity, as an unfortunate condition that it was polite to ignore. So comparing the youthful pilot with the elderly judge was for me a bit like comparing the image of a slender person with a later obese incarnation. What a shame that slim person could not have have remained slim! What a pity that pilot could not have remained beautiful! True, he had not remained perpetually young, like those figures on Keats's Grecian urn, but he had remained beautiful. It was only in retrospect, however, that I recognized this fact.

Now that I'm even older than the judge was at the time that I first met him, I no longer view old age as an unfortunate condition, even if it's accompanied by disabilities. I view it as a triumph. "Look!" I tell the world in effect, "I'm still here!" In a world that values youth and disparages age, my attitude may seem bizarre, but I don't care. As far as I'm concerned, my bent posture, wrinkles, baldness, and slower gait are battle scars, badges of honor, markers of a full life. I hope there will be time to accumulate even more.