For a lifetime, language has been important to me. I remember, in adolescence, trying to figure out what could be my life’s work. At one stage, I used to draft articles and submit them to my father for inspection and evaluation.

In the guise of a sportswriter, I wrote an account of a Red Sox game. I judged it a good piece of work but my father, a newspaperman of some eminence, after perusing that effort pointed out that I had not mentioned the final score.

That piece did not suggest I would become a second Red Smith or Roger Angell.

On another occasion, I wrote a review of a play I had seen. That, too, proved flawed, as my father had to point out. It did not look as if I would follow in the steps of Elliot Norton, the outstanding drama critic who wrote then for the Boston Post, as did my father.

Despite these adolescent fumbles, I continued to cultivate a taste for language. It was important for me to use words correctly and to write clearly and effectively. Becoming editor of The Walrus, my high school newspaper, sharpened my taste for words. So did my work on The Arrow, our yearbook, although my copy of this latter publication reveals clichés galore.

A current preoccupation of mine is the use of language by members of our federal government. I have been amazed and often distressed by the way words are manipulated to achieve dubious political results. To make matters worse, the American public seems altogether too little aware of this twisting of language designed to cover up reality.

The well known journalist Katrina Vanden Heuvel showed herself both eloquent and passionate about this subject in a talk I heard her give this spring. She began by saying of the current leadership in Washington: “This administration has reached, not just for its guns, but its dictionary.”

Notice, for example, the way advocates for radical changes in Social Security stopped speaking of “private accounts.” The new name, and one that shortly became politically correct, at least for the advocates, is “personal accounts.” The change may seem small enough to be inconsequential but it made the privatization of the system seem much more acceptable.

Another term applied to the same radical plan to change Social Security is “ownership society.” Again, it serves as a euphemism for “privatization,” a word that more honestly describes what is being proposed. But privatization must be avoided under threat of older Americans and others rising up in protest against the mangling of Social Security.

The White House has also used the term “compassion agenda” for a set of themes that justify pulling back on federal assistance to elder citizens. Describing these themes political scientist Robert Binstock writes: “Elders should be productive, assume individual responsibility, and become part of the ‘ownership society’ rather than relay on government programs.”

And what could be more humanistic than the phrase for an educational program that features testing? “No child left behind” sounds like an ideal that every American would wish to embrace. Let’s be inclusive and give all our children the advantages of a fine education.

A program to allow the cutting of trees in the nation’s forest carries the slogan “Clean skies, healthy forests.” This phrase has provoked critical wags to propose an alternative title: “No tree left behind.”

The Patriot Act is another specious title that makes it look as if the invasion of the privacy of American citizens is altogether justified by the virtue of patriotism.

Then, to justify a war that is dubious at best, the public has been served from a whole menu of evasive terms. “Regime change” sounds a whole lot better than “invasion.” And “collateral civilian casualties” goes down much more smoothly than “killing innocent people.” “Prisoners” have become “detainees.”

As to forms of torture, “sleep adjustment” becomes the substitute for sleep deprivation, whereby prisoners are kept awake by force, the better to wring information out of them.

The latest twist in language comes, not from the adminstration itself, but from the commander at Guantanamo, Rear Admiral Harry Harris. He has called the suicide of three prisoners an act of “asymmetric warfare waged against us.”

Besides driving me to my dictionary, the admiral has won my admiration for bravado. It takes chutzpah to imagine that people who have been imprisoned for four years under grueling conditions, without being charged with any crime, are actually perpetrating an act of aggression against us by hanging themselves.

The British author George Orwell sounded the alert about this kind of language. He pointed out what a threat it mounts to democratic freedoms. “But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought,” he once wrote.

The corruption of language, Orwell believed, leads to the loss of liberty. When words are twisted like pretzels into meaning what manipulators want them to mean, then we are all in trouble.

Richard Griffin

Eerily, wordlessly, Eve moved toward me across the auditorium at Lasell College. As she got closer, I feared that she would run into my midsection. Her double, Lucy, was at the back of the hall; at least I would have to deal with only one of them.

Perhaps I could stop Eve by speaking to her. I suggested this to the young woman who was with her. No, the woman explained, this humanoid robot had been programmed to respond to her voice alone.

Eve and Lucy measure some five feet high and have metal skin with pieces bolted to one another. They were visiting from the state of Georgia. The people who drove them to the conference had disassembled them before leaving and then, on arriving, had carefully put them back together.

The spokesman for the company that has developed these pseudo-people believes they will become standard issue in the homes of the future. R. Martin Spencer, CEO of GeckoSystems, Inc., claims that “mobile service robots” will perform many functions and revolutionize elder care. In Japan some nine companies are already developing eldercare robots; in the United States at least four.

Adopting Spencer’s vision, let me predict that a frequent 80th birthday present, 30 years from now, will be an Eve like the one I encountered at the conference. Family members will want their elders to have this electronic helper at hand to assist with medical reminders and household tasks.

Further, I fantasize that cousins of Eve and Lucy will appear in the bridal registries of the future. These creatures will be programmed for such routine duties as housecleaning and serving drinks and meals. In the more distant future, I expect these mechanical servants to become as common at home as computers are nowadays.

Spencer was one of several presenters at a Lasell conference entitled “Growing With The Times: Future Trends in Aging & Technology.” Keynote speaker Joseph Coughlin, founder of the AgeLab at MIT, feels strongly that the potential of the technology already at hand goes far beyond our actual use of it. “Although the technological invention is ready,” he has written, “the business model translating invention into innovation is not.”

It is not enough to focus on telemedicine devices that put us in touch with doctors and other health care providers at a distance, Coughlin maintains. Technology can enrich the lives of older people in many other ways, helping them to develop healthy and fulfilling lifestyles.

Today’s older generation would probably welcome such help; those in the rapidly aging boomer generation will insist on it. These boomers want more opportunities for learning, study, and travel, activities that can be facilitated and enhanced by technology.

Coughlin looks to technology that will make for “a seamless quality of life, regardless of age.” For him, microwaves and garage-door openers are examples of devices that have successfully improved daily life for many people. For those looking toward the future, he emphasizes keeping track of trends and changes in behavior so that technology can respond.

Pierre Larochelle, a professor of mechanical engineering at the Florida Institute of Technology, outlined the recent careers of robots. The first successful one was sold in 1966. It could pick up only 400 pounds, tops. Nowadays, robots only one-fourth the size of the earlier ones can pick up loads weighing tons.

Only recently have robots been directed to consumers, rather than to industrial use. They can now mow lawns, serve as vacuum cleaners, and check on medication-taking. Others, often very small, are now used in surgery and, by a factor of two, have been found to reduce recovery time and blood loss.

A robotic wheelchair developed by Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway, can go up and down stairs. I have seen it function and admire what it can do for people unable to walk.

“The future is extremely bright,” says Larochelle, who expects great leaps forward in the five years.  

Part of that future is already with us. I have just now discovered how one prominent institution uses innovative technology. Massachusetts General Hospital has had a robot on its staff for the last seven years.

A four-foot mobile service robot named DOC (Delivery on Call) is charged with taking X-ray results from one floor to another, riding the elevator like a real person. It moves on wheels and works from 8 to 4, taking time off at lunch, not for nutritional need but for hospital scheduling.

DOC maneuvers through sensors placed within its skin and uses a computerized map to find his (or her) way. The robot is recharged every night in order to be ready for work the next day. The MGH employee who manages the robot expresses satisfaction with DOC’s performance and speaks of his metal colleague without any suggestion of awe.

Richard Griffin

What sense does it make to attend a memorial service for someone you hardly know? I found out for myself a few weeks ago when I went to a liturgy for a woman named Nancy.

Nancy’s husband, Bob, was a college classmate of mine, itself a good reason for my presence in the church. He died long ago ─ in 1972 ─but I still recall him as a fellow student with whom I had much in common.

Dorothy, the minister, began the service by recalling the telephone call she had received from Nancy a few weeks before her death. It led to a close relationship that Dorothy now treasures.

“To be in her presence was an enormous gift,” says the minister; “We became friends for life, no matter how short.” And she added, “What struck me about Nancy was her grit and her grace.”

In the year of her husband’s death, Nancy was only 41 and had three children to bring up. For a time, she planned to enter law school, but ultimately decided against beginning a career that might interfere with the care she wanted to give the children.

Instead, she earned a master’s degree in education and later caught on in the world of business. This led to a long and satisfying career in human resources within a large corporation.

Her own upbringing in Newton had featured close friendships. Nancy was one of four neighborhood girls who were pals. One of them, Barbara, shared fond memories of youthful adventures and good times together.

Nancy’s college years meant much to her, providing value for the rest of her life. Habits instilled in her by study and learning would prove lasting, as would the friendships that she first formed in college.

The greatest sustaining force in her life, according to the minister, was “her awareness that her children and grandchildren loved her unconditionally.” Receiving them at her summer house in New Hampshire gave her special pleasure.

Of her role as grandmother, one of her children, Beth, drew laughter by saying of Nancy: “She fancied herself Mary Poppins and Dr. Spock rolled into one.” Grandmother, she added, would interfere only when matters of health and education were at issue. However, her daughter recalled that the latter two subjects “were never discovered to have any limits.”

At age 69, Nancy moved from a suburban Connecticut setting into Manhattan. There she engaged in volunteer activities and enjoyed the arts. A classmate named Ruth remembers that Nancy “could not stand the current government in Washington.”

More positively, when she was terminally ill, Nancy wrote of wanting “a better life for the world’s unfortunate people.”

These notes about one woman’s life and death have taken shape from the intermittent jottings of this journalist. Their obvious incompleteness fails to indicate the full scope of that life with its accomplishments and its trials.

Looked at from one angle, this record suggests a woman who had it all. However, that did not happen all at once. As one friend of Nancy observed about her and some other women of the era, “We were the lucky generation; we could have it all, but sequentially.”

Nancy’s legacy to her family and friends stands out boldly. Her love for them, her enthusiasm for life, her appreciation for beauty ─ these are gifts that they treasured in her and will continue to value.

Even without knowing her, I felt moved by hearing about the many facets of a life eagerly lived. In fact, at various points in the service I was stirred by the varied revelations of Nancy’s character. Her daughter Beth has learned from her mother’s example that “life’s circumstances define us only up to a point.”

In accepting full responsibility for a still young family after her husband’s untimely death, this woman showed strength of heart and soul. It was reported that she chose not to marry again because she wanted her children to be formed by herself without the perhaps problematic influence of a stepfather.

It’s hard to grasp the meaning of a life before its end. Only from the perspective of the complete span of years can one appreciate the shape of that life.

The cultural anthropologist, Mary Catherine Bateson, speaks of the need many modern women have discovered for “composing a life.” In a book that takes this phrase as title, she writes of working “by improvisation, discovering the shape of our creation along the way, rather than pursuing a vision already defined.”

Elsewhere Bateson suggests that “personal life no longer proceeds by straight lines but requires adjustment and exploration.” This voyage of discovery is what I came to see in Nancy’s life as she faced a series of challenges.

Obviously, a memorial service is not sufficiently long or detailed to convey a  person’s life in its totality. However, it delivered enough for me and others to appreciate the beauty of one woman’s life lived ardently and fruitfully.

Richard Griffin

To my mind, the decisive test of a memorial service is whether you come away from it feeling that you know the departed person better . In services like the one I most recently attended, when I had never met the deceased, the same test applies except that I was then learning about the person for the first time.

The memorial service referred to here was beautifully planned and shaped. The setting was an old New England church, the string quartet and organ music was classic and skillfully played, the two favorite hymns were sung with gusto, and the comments of family members and friends seemed to resound in the hearts of all present.

What I always love about the sentiments expressed in this setting is the way the person’s faults and foibles are turned into loveable traits. After the person has gone, we learn to appreciate these characteristics in the context of an entire life. Things that seemed less than admirable when the person was alive, now are seen to be points that make that person’s life career more interesting. They also do not block our acceptance of him in openhearted love.

Yes, this can verge on  mere sentimentality, as if character defects and even sins are turned into harmless oddities. But I consider this approach rather like that of God as presented in the great religious traditions of the world, one who is merciful and ready to overlook almost anything in favor of the one thing necessary – love.

In this instance, the man lived 94 years of vibrant human life. He was a mover and shaker in high finance and performed large deeds for the fine arts. His espousal of great institutions for the arts furthered the life of a great city and, in fact, of the nation. As one of his sons said, “he believed in the power of the rational mind,” a credo that enabled him to accomplish much in service to the public.

In private life, he was also unusually creative. His two daughters showed the congregation some of the fine photos he had taken of things in nature. One of them was of sea shells he had recovered from the beach and revealed in all their subtle beauty. Another was of a rabbit who had shown ingenuity in finding ways into his garden in order to eat the carefully tended lettuce. To take this latter photo, the man clearly must have lain prone on the ground eyeballing Peter, the wily predator.

One of the other sons described his father as “an austere authoritative man..” “Schmoozing was not his style,” he added.

But one of the best features of the family commentary was that the adult children dared give appraisals of their father that, to some extent, clashed. One of his daughters said of him, by contrast, “He had a tender soul underneath that imperious exterior.”

She supported her appraisal by reading some of her father’s observations of the world. The latter showed sharp insights and warm sympathy with nature. The daughter said, “He believed in a religious connectedness with all living things.”

Showing the power of his imagination, she quoted him writing, “I tried to think like a duck” as he figured out how that bird would land on nearby water. Of an old tree, terribly gnarled and grown in upon itself, he wrote about it “gaining strength by growing around its problems.”

As the minister said in the final prayer before the tolling of the church bell, “Creator, he loved the world almost as much as You do.”

And as one of his age peers and neighbors said of his death, “He died a peaceful and supremely happy man.”

My point in all of these details is to convey something of the response made by other people to the fullness of a life lived long and ardently. Though not knowing the man myself, I came away from the memorial service buoyed up and inspired by life’s possibilities. My view of the world as beautiful and human life as meaningful was strengthened by this encounter with the spirit of a man who has now left us. The way he lived his life I do not take as a model for myself but I do feel awe at the sweep of his years.

At the reception and lunch afterward, talk continued about the family patriarch. The memorial service had made him present to us and fueled further discussion. Those of us who did not know him now felt as if we had. And we were taking away much material for reflection about what it is to be human and what makes for a good life.

Living long was revealed once again as a precious gift with all of its hazards. It gives you  time and world enough to continue growing and serving beyond where you thought possible.

Richard Griffin

“A meal’s not done until you have dessert.” Now that’s a rule of thumb which strikes me as thoroughly sound and worthy of adoption.

It comes from Frances Johnson, an African-American woman resident of Maryland now 101 years old. Besides her embrace of dessert, she also offers a lot of other wisdom that makes sense to me.

Her photo and that of four other centenarians appears in the current issue of Real Simple. This is not a magazine that I am normally given to reading since it’s aimed at women in search of up-market austerity and, to my mind, sometimes deserves its title.

In this instance, however, I was attracted by the opportunity to encounter brief bios of five long-lived women who are not real simple. As writer Susan Orenstein presents them, these women have lived lives marked by bold adventures and serious challenges. Their stories are well worth reading, and so are the nuggets of wisdom offered by each of them.

Frances Johnson has had a fascinating life, not without its hardships. One of the great pluses in that career was her marriage to Elijah Johnson who played in the Negro Baseball League. Known as “Buck,” he does not show up in computerized searches, suggesting that he did not achieve the fame of Satchel Paige or the other greats of this league; but we can well imagine that he was an accomplished player.

Mrs. Johnson’s advice about life ─ above and beyond the necessity of dessert ─ includes the following: “If it’s not terminal, why worry? And, if it is, you can’t do anything about it.”

Edna Anderson lives in Arizona and engages in aerobics, stretching, and weight-bearing classes. From her list of lessons about life come these two: “Volunteering gets you away from your own worries” and “There are still happy times ahead after loss.”

The oldest of the five ladies selected by the magazine, Mary Mirabito, has reached 106. This New York City native was one of 12 children born to immigrants from Sicily. Not wanting to have a large family herself, she underwent two illegal abortions. After her first husband died, at age 69 she married Tom, a family friend who had loved her for decades.

One bit of advice she offers to women seems to apply to this latter match: “Marry a man who’s more in love with you than you are with him.” And she has some theological counsel to offer: “If there’s a God, he’s one God for all of us.” After reading that she loves opera, a passion that I share, I hoped for some wisdom from the stage of the Met, but no quotes from arias made Mary’s list.

Melva Radcliffe, now 105, did not marry until she reached 68. “I was having such a good time,” says this former elementary school teacher. Travel was her main pleasure, and she ultimately visited 40 countries.

For advice she offers: “Think twice before plastic surgery ─ you might look prettier without it.” And: “Don’t go abroad and eat at a chain restaurant. Eating at a foreign place is part of the trip.”

Finally, Evelyn Yeager shares her wisdom at age 102. Known as “Tootie,” this Pennsylvanian is a longtime Phillies fan. However, she had never been to any of their games until last year when she attended one and downed a hot dog and beer.

She’s had a hard life, with many different jobs and the burdens of raising four children by herself. She attributes her survival to her ability to laugh. “I really think it is a big reason I’m doing so well,” she explains. She counsels others: “Never feel sorry for yourself.”

All of these women look remarkably well. Their smiling faces show people who have apparently coped with the challenges of long lives with grace and dignity. If our lives are written in our faces, then these ladies have strength of character.

Of the dictums shared with us by the five women, I consider the following two worth pondering the most (besides, of course, the imperative about dessert): “Never feel sorry for yourself” and “Volunteering gets you away from your own worries.”

I value them most because they point us away from an unhealthy focus on the self. This narrowing of attention proves itself the perfect formula for unhappiness. We turn to ourselves only to find dissatisfaction with our lives because they are not ideal.

Volunteering to help others has a proven record of promoting our own happiness. It often proves effective therapy for the soul, and the body too. Whatever ails us can find relief when we turn to others in need.

All of these hardy 100-year-olders have almost surely found it life-enhancing to get away from excessive concentration on themselves. At the same time, they may have found it helpful to cultivate their inner life more positively  through reflection and contemplation.

I would never call this advice real simple. But it surely rates as real valuable.

Richard Griffin

To enthusiastic applause from several hundred people assembled in the church building, Jane Fonda emerges from a side door and takes her place standing on the platform before a microphone. She does so while pulling a thin leash attached to a small white dog. She bows deeply in acknowledgement of this fervent welcome and thanks the audience.

Bewildered by all the noise, the little dog yelps. His mistress reaches down, picks him up, and cradles him in her arms for the rest of her talk.

Now in her 69th year, this stylish, dynamic woman in dark glasses  embodies a compelling ad for her popular fitness videos. She delivers a summary of her time in the world promoting her new-in-paper book, My Life So Far. Her talk, sponsored by my favorite book store, turns out to be thoroughly engaging, as is the question period that follows.

A crucial event was the death in 1982 of her father, the celebrated actor Henry Fonda. “It’s incredible when your parents die,” she recalls, “you can learn from it.” What she learned was not to have regrets, the way her father did. “It’s terrible to have regrets when you can’t do anything about them,” this daughter laments.

She recalls the other landmarks of her life. When she hit 59, Jane realized that the following year would mark a vital turning point. “I decided to face it full bore and to deal with it,” she says of the approach of the sixties. She likes to call this period “my third act.”

She admits being both famous and wealthy. Despite privilege, however, she presents herself as, until age 62, deprived of the human quality most important to her – owning herself. “For the first time in my life, I owned who I was,” she says of this breakthrough. “It meant that I was getting strong and well,” she adds.

Before that, she never had an emotionally intimate relationship, certainly not with her mother and father, nor with any of her three husbands. From the third, Ted Turner, she made a painful break of which she says “I opted for becoming whole.” About this awesome process of becoming a real human being, Jane says: “maybe that’s what God is.”

As a child, she grew up thinking she was “not good enough.” For her father, especially, Jane felt she had to be perfect. It took her 62 years to cure “this misogyny” that afflicts so many girls in American society without their knowing it. You have to get girls to reclaim their voice because they are the agents of change.

Much more of Jane emerges after the talk, when the time comes for questions. In the writing of her memoir, she acknowledges the help of the 22,000 files kept on her by the FBI. Challenged by a questioner for her support of an action of the Israeli government against the Palestinians, she regrets her decision. “I love Israel,” she explains, “but not the occupation.”

For future American elections she feels that citizens need to focus, not so much on the identity of the candidates but rather on building a grass-roots movement to change the nation’s priorities. The Vietnam War would never have ended, she is convinced, unless such a movement had pressured the U.S. government.

Women, especially must make their voices heard. And invoking language I never expected to hear in church, Jane says we all need “balls.”

About her discovery of religion, she discloses that she is now enrolled in theology school in Georgia where she lives. “I was raised an atheist,” she explains, “so I have a lot of catching up to do.” With passion, she regrets the way “the right wing has co-opted Christianity.” “It makes me happy to meet progressive Christians,” she adds.

One of the male questioners asked Jane for a hug. In answer, Jane comes down off the platform and gives the fellow a fervent embrace, an action she later repeats with a young woman.

“You have to be brave,” she advises a woman who asks about growing older. “It’s two years since I made my last picture,” Jane said. “I’m not going to have any Botox or stuff like that.”  

As a last bit of wisdom, Jane Fonda makes this affirmation: “People need their narrative heard. Move with your heart and listen with love. The great ones ─ Mandela, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, and the others ─  they had it right.”

Jane’s theme of the Third Act strikes me as a useful idea for one’s later years. A bit self-dramatizing, perhaps, for those of us never in show biz like her. But it’s the part of a play where you get to see what it’s all about. The drama’s full meaning finally emerges.

In real life, too, the last act may turn out to be the most meaningful. At least, staying open to that possibility seems worth the risk.    

Richard Griffin

I first visited Jamaica in the early 1970s. In those far-away days, many Americans associated the island with films like Dr. No, in which James Bond, Ian Fleming's macho, womanizing hero, performed impossible exploits in a colorful, exotic and unfailingly elegant atmosphere.

My own introduction to the island was somewhat more sober.  At that time, I was a Jesuit; and the island, to my puzzlement and delight, was (and still is) part of the New England province of the Society of Jesus. My hosts worked in simple surroundings on tasks that had nothing to do with the world of James Bond; but I still felt myself to be in one of the most enchanting places on earth.

Last week, some 35 years later, I returned, along with my family, to visit old friends who live in Kingston, the capital of Jamaica. We were there, not for sea and surf, but rather for renewing the pleasures of a decades-long friendship. Among the gifts of life, the hospitality of valued friends must be accounted one of the best.

Our week was full of talk and laughter-with our friends most of all, but also with their extended family and their friends, and with total strangers. There may be laconic Jamaicans, but I have yet to meet one.

The voices I heard seemed more musical to me than our nasal Yankee twang, and the vocabulary more inventive. Conversation is a pleasure, and the slower pace of life allows people time to enjoy it.

I have been told that Jamaicans relish a good speech. We had the opportunity to hear one on television last week, as Portia Simpson Miller became the first woman to take over as Prime Minister since Jamaica became an independent nation in 1962.  Her inaugural address was forceful and eloquent, full of hope and of a kind of religious intensity that is rare in American politics.

Many of the people we encountered during our visit showed themselves enthusiastic about this charming new PM who promises a new attack on the country's problems.

But they feel that she faces a daunting task. If she succeeds, she will deserve more admiration than James Bond everdid. Jamaica's geographical area is less than half the size of Massachusetts, and, with two and a half million people, it has about half the number of inhabitants. The country has a rich history and culture, of which it is justly proud. At the same time, it suffers from inadequate investment and a very high rate of unemployment.

Our hosts and their friends feel especially troubled about the failure of the school system to train children to be productive citizens. The failure rate of students at the end of primary school exceeds 75 percent. Despite obvious intelligence and ingenuity, many never learn to read and write and remain badly equipped for the jobs that are available. Illegal drug dealing and violent crime offer an alternative that too many seize.

The national government lacks the funds to remedy this sorry situation. While visiting the north coast, we saw huge freighters coming into Discovery Bay and leaving with their cargo of bauxite. It was an impressive spectacle, but Jamaica needs many more sources of work and revenue.

Because of these problems, many people have left Jamaica in the past 30 years or so; but many also choose to stay or to return. One can understand why. In the economically driven culture of American cities, people do not always take the time to be polite. In our contacts with people in various parts of Jamaica, we found them to be uncommonly gracious.

For me, when I visit other countries, the opportunity to establish contact with the local church invariably serves as a heartwarming experience. At the Discovery Bay parish, we found a vibrant community of all races and ages who made us feel welcome as we joined in worship.

When the liturgy called for the kiss of peace, we received more spirited greetings than we usually do at home.

Back in the capital city, we renewed old memories over a leisurely lunch with the archbishop of Kingston, a former colleague from the New England Jesuits.  He was one of the first Jamaicans I ever met, more than 50 years ago. Now approaching retirement, Lawrence Burke retains much of the same attractive spirit that I remember him having in his twenties.

When I left Jamaica after my first visit, I remember sitting in an airplane on the tarmac in Kingston. Harry Belafonte's voice was singing “Jamaica Farewell,” a then familiar calypso piece full of rhythm and haunting charm.

On this occasion, by contrast, there was security galore but no music. However, my family and I left filled with our experiences of this beloved island and relishing the company we had enjoyed with our supremely hospitable friends.

Richard Griffin