A favorite passage from the First Book of Kings, written some 2,600 years ago, has set me thinking. It depicts the prophet Elijah in a moment of depression. He sits in the desert beneath a broom tree and moans about being no good.

He feels himself to be largely a failure in carrying God’s word to those in power. Despite his efforts to change them, these rulers have continued in their despotic ways. Confronted with failure, the prophet would prefer to die rather than to continue life on these terms.

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On a day in early July, Edward Downes and his wife Joan lay down on adjoining beds, drank a lethal cocktail of barbiturates, and died peacefully soon afterward.

As John Burns reported in the New York Times, the couple had flown from London to Zurich where a Swiss clinic, Dignitas, had arranged for them to end their lives in this way.

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Who would have expected most older Americans to be so devoted to prayer?

Some three out of four people over age 65, it turns out, pray every day. Of those over age 75, fully 80 percent do so. And each day they spend more than an hour praying.

These findings come from a major survey, published last month by the Pew Research Center. Entitled “Growing Old in America: Expectations vs. Reality,” this study offers a bonanza of information. It focuses mainly on those of us in later life, but also details some of younger people’s attitudes toward us.

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Given the choice, how long do you want to live? At what age would you want to die?

When asked, people opt for an average age of 89. For what it’s worth, when the same question was posed in 2002, people responded with 92.

Does that mean living longer has become less attractive over a seven-year period? I doubt it, but the drop does make one think. And it invites us to speculate on reasons people might have for wanting to live somewhat shorter lives.

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If your childhood and adolescence were like mine, you saw quite a few movies.
For me, in those days, that meant going out to a theater, a place like the old Paramount at Newton Corner where I remember seeing Mickey Rooney as an irrepressible teenager in one of his 13 Andy Hardy films. in I saw at least one other film, now forgotten, in the long-demolished Watertown Square theater known by local kids as the Flea House.

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The name Myron Taylor will surely not ring bells in the memory of most Americans. But I remember him as the man Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed in 1939 as his personal representative at the Vatican.

FDR knew better than to propose Taylor as ambassador. That nomination would have stirred up widespread anti-Catholic feeling in this country. And it would not have gained the necessary approval from the U.S. Senate.

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Shortly before my 75th birthday, five years ago, I renewed my driver’s license. On that occasion, I did so without leaving my desk.

All I needed to do was go online to the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles, fill out some basic information, arrange a credit card payment, and send in the application electronically.

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