Month: May 2015

Among the many gifts enjoyed by older people is the number of chances for the familiar to be made fresh.

The Bible reader was an older woman, only slightly taller than the lectern she stood behind. The reading was a story I have heard many times before. Two men on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus, on the third day following the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, were joined on the road by a fellow they didn’t recognize.

This third man inquired about their sadness and then launched into reciting various passages from Hebrew scripture pertaining to the coming of the Messiah. The men were enthralled. Upon reaching Emmaus, the two travelers invited the stranger to have dinner with them. In the course of the meal, they came to believe that they had been journeying with Jesus, miraculously risen from the dead. After their encounter, the two, one of whom remains unnamed, go back to Jerusalem to tell the other believers what they had seen.

The reader spoke slowly, with expression, conveying the melancholy of the two men when we first encounter them. Then we share their curiosity about their travel companion and their urgency at not wanting to part with him at Emmaus. When they see Jesus, we hear their excitement, and as they share their news with the others, their joy is unmistakable in our reader’s voice.

Whether the story is true is a matter of faith and belief.

What was true was that this diminutive woman with her soft voice read the story in a manner that left us feeling like were we hearing it for the first time, and from a witness.

We are nearly through another season of graduations. Counting my own, I imagine that I have attended more than fifty such ceremonies, not unusual for someone in my line of work. At most of the commencements, the students march to the sounds of Edward Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance.”

I can conjure up the tune in my head at will. Any of you who have been around schools can probably do the same. The notes have not changed since Elgar wrote them. Yet every time I hear them played well and clearly, I am moved. Perhaps the reason is that another cohort of students is being honored for their work. In that way, every commencement is a new event.

There is something deeper, too. The majesty of the music makes me stand a little straighter. The students, though a different group than last time or the time before, are connected to every other group so honored in a formal recognition of significant achievement. I feel in the presence of something noble, timeless, worthwhile.

The music is familiar. So is the feeling of freshness.

Some years ago, Judy and I were in Dodger Stadium for The Three Tenors concert. The second encore was “Nessun Dorma,” a familiar piece to people who listen to classical music. When the trio hit the final “Vincere,” that amazingly high climax that then slides into orchestral grandeur, 55,000 people were lifted out of their seats as though a giant magnet were making staying seated impossible.

Not long after that, Judy and I were at a Willie K Christmas Concert. Willie sang old favorites and some less well-known pieces that drew spirited applause from the audience. The last song was “O Holy Night.” We have sung that song countless Christmases and heard many great artists perform it beautifully.

This time, Willie seemed possessed by the lyrics and music, transported to another realm. The crystalline nature of his tenor voice built toward the climactic “oh, night divine” line that requires the artist to reach a very high note, the highest of the song. As Willie hit the note, the sell-out crowd rose to their feet. The Dodger Stadium magnet was at work again. No one could remain seated in the presence of such purity.

In my experience, the familiar becoming fresh more often than not does so in the context of performance. The reader, the actor, the singer, the musician, the photographer, the artist; these are often the vehicles for us to see again for the first time.

Young people can have similar experiences. Somehow, though, the more familiar something is, the greater the impact of startling freshness. And People of a Certain Age have more accumulated encounters with the familiar because they’ve been around a while longer. So, perhaps, we feel the gift of freshness more intensely.

If the teaching of the arts in schools and the support of the arts by communities ever needs a testimonial, I’m there. Who can say where we will find the next Willie K or Luciano Pavarotti or my treasured reader of old stories in a new way? Our lives would be a little less rich if we did not enjoy the moments when the familiar is made fresh for us.

May 27, 2015

Daniel E. White

 

Many people my age and older are keys to a win-win proposition. We have the time to give to groups gathering around common interests that might be uncommon, and those groups are sustained by us, in terms of participation and membership. We are “sub-group sustainers.”

Did you know that the Sarcocaulon Pattersonii, a native plant of South Africa with an inch-and-one-half trunk, prickly spines, and tiny leaves is in the geranium family? Neither did I. But the regulars at any meeting of the Inland Empire Cactus and Succulent Society do. Sculpting the Sarcocaulon Pattersonii into creative bonsai shapes adds to the wonder of particular specimens, making some worth lots of money. And a lot of those folks are in my age cohort.

Did you know that the four parts in a barbershop quartet are bass, baritone, tenor and…lead? I learned that at a rehearsal of the Sandblasters, a barbershop chorus in Palm Springs, California. Most of the singers remember the Truman Administration.

How many Rotary Clubs and similar service organizations have a median membership age around 60?

Bowling Alone, the title of a book by Robert Putnam that was popular a few years back, asserts that participation in political meetings, civic associations and other forms of community-building organizations that add to “social capital” are in decline. He wrote his book before flash mobs and social-media-organized demonstrations. Putnam’s thesis did not go unchallenged even then. The liveliness of the Cactus and Succulent Society and the Sandblasters would refute his thesis, too.

We pledge “one nation, under God, indivisible” but we willingly divide ourselves into myriad groups that focus on countless interests. Thanks heavens for such divisions! They are a strength in our society.

Several years ago, I attended the Annual General Meeting of the Jane Austen Society at Chawton, England, surrounded by those who could recite whole passages of Northanger Abbey and a few who seemed old enough to have known the author personally. One greeted me, “I say. You’re American, aren’t you? I’m Tony Trollope.” (A grandson namesake, I learned, well past his eightieth birthday but Anthony Trollope, for Pete’s sake!)

I’m lucky. I enjoy allowing myself to absorb the mini-culture of sub-groups. Each speaks its own jargon. There are distinct markers of accomplishment (e.g. the gent observing “this is the 12^th AGM I have attended”) that the membership understands. Often, the sub-groups find different ways to be exposed to the wider world. The joy of success, however defined, is common.

The enthusiasm for the cause is contagious. At the end of the Cactus and Succulent Society meeting, I was ready to sign up for a trip to Madagascar to see, in person, the giant euphorbia, some amazing and spectacular in size and shape and all amazing for how they survive in barren terrain, that had been the subject of the speaker’s power point presentation.

After the Sandblaster’s annual concert, “Coney Island Babe” was the worm of a song in my brain.

People of a Certain Age carry an important responsibility at this stage of life. Younger people often suffer the fatigue of fractionation. Hard work does not tire one nearly as much as the challenge of doing so many things that the opportunity to give any one task the time it needs is impaired. Social media and other technology only complicate matters. I applaud those who are not retired yet taking on leadership roles and active participation in societies like the ones I visited.

Before I retired, I met many in this privileged status who spoke of being so busy now that they did not know how they had managed to hold a full-time job. I can relate. My list of engagements might be unique to me but the time demands are the same. My age peers are in interest groups, active in church or service clubs, on somebody’s board, a volunteer at a non-profit, ushering at community art events. Some managed to work in golf and other hobbies. I’m still working on that one.

These people define active retirement. The main difference is that they—we—are engaged in activities they want to pursue, not ones they have to for economic reasons.

Our responsibility is to go, do, mentor, join, attend; in short, those who have the time can take the time to fill in the memberships that sustain the subgroups that are the backbone of our social order and pass along whatever wisdom we might have acquired along the way. There is no age restriction to this privilege.

Daniel E. White

May 12, 2015