“They may like you, they may even love you,
but they are young and it is the business of the young to push the old off the
planet.” Teacher Man by Frank McCourt 2005.
I‘ve been working on this opus in stops and starts for well over a year now. Authors of first books I am told, are always haunted by the fear that no one will ever read their novel, and for me, wondering whether even my children or my grandchildren will ever read this biography certainly tends to slow me down So why am I doing it? I enjoy writing and I find it therapeutic to delve back into my past to recall pleasant memories that have been at the back of my brain for years. Someone once said that nostalgia was like a grammar lesson: you find the present tense and the past perfect.
Getting old is not
as bad as its reputation. Fortunately
it comes on gradually so you have time to learn to live with it and adapt to
the changes. Friends and acquaintances
that are at a similar stage of life are all behaving the same way including,
among other things, writing their memoirs. We cannot do some of the activities
we used to do so we find other things that we can; things than might not be as
exciting but things within our capability. Surprisingly, you find interesting
aspects in all of them. Walking
outdoors which used to be one of my favourite forms of exercise and meditation
becomes more difficult. So we go to shopping malls and walk indoors in a more
leisurely manner. When print becomes too small you get large print and audio
books. When vision for night driving becomes marginal you take your wife out
for lunch instead of dinner and use the evenings for watching TV or using the
computer. Eventually extensive travel
becomes too strenuous and this is difficult to adjust to. They say getting there is half the fun but
when it becomes twice the strain and effort you think three times before you
plan a trip. But retirement and aging yield benefits as well. When you get up in the morning you look
forward to your day, a day that you can plan for yourself, one
that you can modify at your whim to allow for weather changes or to fit your
feelings of the day.
With my mathematical bent I have always been somewhat of a
perfectionist, thinking that if I did something right the first time that it
would last forever. I soon learned that
time and space were dynamic and nothing was forever. Old age makes you face the reality of mortality and your attitude
to many things changes. In my younger years I felt that the world around me
would go on forever just as it always has. We are told by one philosopher that
the more things change the more they remain the same. But we find out mercifully as we grow older that the world about
us does not remain the same. It does
change. The world about us changes and
if you don’t change with it you’re left behind. The puzzling part is that for individuals that I have known who
make up that world Voltaire’s saying is more apt. As a person ages he as a
personality does remain the same; not only does he remain the same but he becomes even
more so; the faults and the virtues he had when he was young become even more
pronounced as he grows older. We don’t change our stripes.
In our old age Freda and I are fortunate that our marriage has evolved to a level of love and respect that is above and beyond the love of youthful sexual passion, (not to minimize the pleasures of sexual intercourse that I still remember longingly). Our relationship has become a symbiotic one; we need each other. Health problems when you’re over 80 are not uncommon and we’ve been fortunate to suffer through only a limited number. They’ve tested our relationship and made it stronger. When you get older you lose siblings and friends and your world shrinks. I have lost my sister; Freda lost a brother and a sister. I’ve lost Regina friends, Winnipeg friends, Air Force friends, and now Toronto friends. Aside from Freda and the Old Boys at the Faculty Club, my conversations these days are largely with myself.
Over the years I have been the chief handyman around the house; I would fix the things that needed fixing. This is our third house and we’ve lived in it for 40 years. In our first two houses I pretty well finished off the recreation rooms by myself; in our present house I was less ambitious, hiring a carpenter to do a recreation room, a gardener to cut the grass and hedge, and a snow removal service. Now in my older years I have a handyman to wash the windows, remove and replace the storms, fix things around the house and do other odd jobs. I miss being able to do these things now; they were therapeutic hobbies for which I no longer have the energy. I used to take a two-kilometre walk several times a week around the neighbourhood; now a one-kilometre return trip to the shopping centre feels like it’s uphill both ways.
A prostate cancer diagnosis with its constant threat of metastases has been like a sword of Damocles hanging over me for more than a dozen years. Every time I had a back pain, a leg pain, a chest pain, whatever, there was that nagging anxiety until the pain went away. After a few years you become stoical. The radiation therapy at the beginning did not come without its eventual side effects. Erection Dysfunction developed slowly but persistently, increasing steadily over the years and “quality of life” began to deteriorate. The frustrating part was that the libido remained high and decreased at a slower rate than the E.D. I will probably die of prostate cancer unless something else gets me first.
A mild hearing loss problem became noticeable by me and by others around me when I was in my early seventies. In my mid‑eighties it was quite severe and I had to wear two hearing aids during all my waking hours or miss a lot. In a social group where more than one person is speaking (the cocktail party syndrome), participating in conversation is very difficult. Digital technology does help somewhat to cut down the interference but there is little doubt the impairment is not just a physiological handicap but also a social one. In 2003 Freda and I were in a 4‑vehicle highway accident while on a tour bus with no seat belts. I received a severe head blow that among other things exacerbated my hearing loss and caused a compression fracture of a vertebra or two. To compound my hearing problem my ophthalmologist tells me that I’m developing AMD (Age-related Macular Degeneration”. That explains why I’m writing this in 16-point font. Age takes its toll one way or another.
My 88th birthday is sneaking up and I realize that I am no longer considered an elder statesman but more likely referred to as an old geezer or a cranky old man. Many elderly people find solace and comfort in religion; I have a need for faith but rationally, if rationality can be mentioned in the same sentence as faith, I accept the existence of God in the sense of a comprehensive force and I am humble before Him. I come from a humble background and my religion is a form of humility that’s not to be confused with modesty. I did not get to be a professor without receiving a good windfall from the genetic lottery, or without the assistance of family, spouse, friends, mentors and colleagues. None of us can claim complete credit for what he is today, be it good or bad. We do what we do to control our lives as best we can but many things outside of our control affect us. Extraneous happenings created by nature, or events manipulated by our fellow man can determine our destiny. Is this God’s subtle hand? My daily thank-you to God each morning consists of kissing my wife before breakfast; that’s my morning prayer. I wouldn’t call myself a secularist but it’s certainly a secular type of religion; I hold in high regard the 5000 years of Jewish tradition and philosophy handed down in the Torah and the Talmud and I regret that I have not studied them more. All religions preach kindness, love and compassion. In Judaism being kind, loving and compassionate is simply being a mensch.
In retirement sociability is important in helping us keep our perspective so we try hard to continue the social contacts we have and to make more, which isn’t easy at our age. Freda and I are neither socially aggressive nor are we socially ambitious. We are not what’s called ‘people‑people’. We enjoy mingling and conversing with those with whom we’re compatible. I admire people with good rhetorical skills who can use words as tools in a self-serving way to spin any incident they choose into one that is favourable to them but I’m not made that way. They may be charming but their sincerity is suspect. They are such compulsive talkers that many times they forget to whom they’ve spun their stories, and the next time you see them you hear the same stories again. Older people doing this are accused of dementia.
I’ve always been more of a print than a vocal person so nothing bores me more than being trapped in a social group by a compulsive talker who monopolizes the conversation. There are different kinds of over‑talkers but some are better at it than others. Most dangerous are the self-centred deceitful ones who are trying to impress you with their importance. They border on being charlatans, highfalutin charlatans pretending to be something they’re not. Then there are the Pollyannas who always project a rosy happy air: nothing bad ever happens to them. Their bread always falls butter side up. Their children are wonderful and their grandchildren are genii; on vacations the sun always shines on them and their flights are always on time. They are the ones who send you those beautiful Christmas letters each year. The anti‑Pollyannas are a third kind and they are the unduly gloomy ones. Their bread always falls butter side down. They exaggerate the negative. All three types can be annoying but they all have good intentions. They are more comfortable with talk than with silence. I may sound like a misanthrope, but I’m not. I would describe myself as an optimist, a sceptical optimist. I like people in general and even when I’m in the company of charlatans or Pollyannas or anti‑Pollyannas, as the saying goes I suffer them gladly. I just am not sufficiently tolerant to put up with their foibles for long. We all talk too much at times because we find that talk is more manageable than silence in a social environment.
Freda has a good quality of always meaning what she says, well nearly always. She’s feisty but not deceitful. She is almost guileless and this can be dangerous for her in that she expects other people to behave the same way. Charm and sincerity are generally conflicting qualities with a charm score of nine usually going with a sincerity score of one and vice versa. This high score might be due to good diplomacy or good psychology on their part and frequently it serves them well. Some people do have balanced 5‑5 scores but they are hard to find. Seldom in politicians or lawyers, but you may find it in a rare politician who has risen to the level of senior statesman. Myself I would rate on the low side for charm and high on sincerity to the point of being so blunt as to say the Emperor has no clothes. My scientific background has made me lean toward objectivity and socially it can be a problem.
Now in our older years Freda and I find we get pleasure out of doing together the simpler things in life: getting the household chores done, pursuing our hobbies, watching good TV when it’s good and bad TV when it’s not, and going to a movie if we can find a good one that’s aimed at a general audience. We are neither obsessed with the latest tech toy nor do we have to eat at the latest trendy restaurant. We don’t suffer from status anxiety. I do not have to have the latest gadget but I am an addict when it comes to the computer and certain electronic devices like the digital camera. We read the odd book, preferably in large print for me, and occasionally we go to a Casino so Freda can get her kicks playing the slot machines and winning the odd jackpot. Fortunately or unfortunately, I never caught the gambling bug. Occasionally we go out for dinner with our kids or with what friends we have left, and not infrequently our children invite us to their place for dinner; all four of them are excellent cooks.
I remember seeing a play in New York many years ago that must have made an impression on me; it was Stop The World I Want To Get Off. There were scenes throughout the play when the son enters his father-in-law’s office. Near the beginning of the play the set had an oversized office door with the doorknob so high that the young son had to stretch up to reach it. The set was changed for each scene as time went on and as they both grew older the door shrunk so the doorknob got lower and lower, implying of course that the son grew in stature and importance and the older man shrank. Status changes like this come on slowly and they can be subtle. One-day my son and daughter are identified as my children but after they get married and establish their own family units I am identified as their father. I think of this often now because at this stage of my life our children and their spouses try to be good to us but they want to get on with their own lives, and so they should. Their children are now more important to them than their parents are, and so they should be. When children are young parents are a necessity, when children are adolescents parents are assets, but when children are grown up and independent parents become baggage, more a liability than an asset. They try to be good to us, they try to be kind to us, but sometimes it’s hard to tell whether it’s love or simply moral obligation. I described myself earlier as being a sceptical optimist. Maybe I should have said cynical optimist. A generation ago neither Freda nor I appreciated the difficulties our parents were encountering when they were growing old. Today we get naches from our kids but they do not understand their parents any better than we understood ours. And in turn, in their twilight years, their children will not be any more understanding. A significant number of entries in our calendar these days consist of doctors’ and dentist appointments plus the occasional funeral or unveiling. I hope I’m not coming through as being unduly lugubrious. We work hard at filling in the remaining days on our calendar with happy events.
[Note: This autobiography was written over a leisurely two years so some referrals to dates and ages may seem a bit puzzling; the context should give a clue to when that portion was written.]