As William Maxwell approached 90 years of age, his interior life changed. “These days, it’s more that I’m rowing around on an ocean of experience,” he said, “and the ocean is memory. Sometimes I lie awake at night thinking about the past, and it’s as if I’ve put on the record player, and there’s no way stop it. It’s a form of reliving, and I can’t stop reliving it.”

Maxwell’s words appear in the book, My Mentor, published this year by his much younger friend, Alec Wilkinson. This modest volume celebrates the life of a man who was famous in New York’s literary world, enough so that his obit made the front page of the New York Times. Novelist, essayist, and editor, William Maxwell worked for much of his career at the New Yorker magazine where he was highly regarded as a judge of good writing.

My Mentor emerges as a combination of short biography – – Boswellian in rich anecdote and sayings of the master –  –   and the record of an unusual friendship. It has a worshipful tone about it that, despite its secular content, reminds me of the life-of-saint literature I used to read in my younger days. What especially interests me about the book, however, is its wealth of gerontological detail . Wilkinson first met his mentor when Maxwell was 68, and remained close to him until his death at age 91, giving him  the opportunity to observe close-up how it was to grow old.

Other people receive some attention in the book too, notably Wilkinson’s father and Maxwell’s wife. The latter, Emily Maxwell, was reputed to be one of the most beautiful of women and retained much of this beauty throughout her long life. The marriage between her and Maxwell was also beautiful, echoed in the statement she wrote on the small box she gave him  on his 90th birthday: “Each day I am as glad to see you as I am to see the sun rise in the morning and the moon cross the sky at night.”

Wilkinson first met Maxwell through his father who was one of the editor’s  best friends. The relationship between Wilkinson and his father lacked the untroubled intimacy that the writer would have liked. Knowing Maxwell as he did, the author found it difficult to understand how his mentor could have found his father so charming and amiable.

In words that evoke something of my feelings about my own father, Wilkinson writes: “What I ended up feeling toward my father is sadness for the relationship I wish we had had. We had failed to make some fundamental connection when we should have, and after that, nothing that should have happened between a father and his child had gone right.”

Back to Maxwell’s late life psyche: “In old age experience is prismatic,” he explained. “It’s as if you’re holding your life in your hands, turning it this way and that, and what you see are the sides of a prism. It’s half recollection and half a visual re-enactment of moments from the past, whereas when you’re younger, you’re simply living the experience.”

Toward the end of his life Maxwell gradually lost his facility for sustained literary effort. One explanation the author gives for this falling off was this: “He seemed to have lost touch with the place where stories and novels come from.”   

To all appearances he accepted his slowing down quite gracefully, and yet some indications suggest otherwise. As Wilkinson remembers it, “He sometimes said that when people asked him what he was writing, even though he knew they only meant to be polite, he wanted to pick up something and throw it at them.”

But Maxwell did consistently exhibit the kind of benevolence that characterizes the later life of many people. Both he and his wife took pains to serve the needs of other people even when things could not have been so easy for themselves. Of this charming couple Wilkinson observes: “What was so admirable to me about the manner in which they conducted their lives –  – the courtesy to others, the care for other people’s difficulties, and their belief that we should do what we can to help each other.”

Maxwell did not profess any religious faith but had a spiritual view of the world. About his view of death, Wilkinson writes: “He said you never lose people you love when they die, because you incorporate parts of their personalities into your own as a means of keeping them alive.” But somewhat in contradiction he also said about two old literary friends who had passed on: “I will never again love an old man. They die on you.”

Wilkinson spent much time with his mentor during Maxwell’s own final days. What he writes about Maxwell serves as a kind of eulogy: “His great dignity, so natural and unforced, so courageous, never faltering when his death was near. His being so present in his mind. His compassion. His sympathy. His great capacity for friendship.”

Richard Griffin

“You just go from day to day; you wake up and you’re still here.” This is how Janet Irving describes the view from 100.

This resident of Manchester-by-the Sea enjoys remarkable vitality, highlighted by the gifts of good hearing and eyesight. On a hot summer day she graciously received this visitor and regaled me with good humor and rich memories.

“I just keep on going,” she adds about her current life. If she has a secret formula, it’s probably this: “You must keep on working at something that interests you; otherwise you become dull.”

No one would ever accuse Janet Irving of being dull. She sparkles with feisty and sometimes acerbic wit as she talks about her career and the fascinating people in her long life.

Among these people, Mary Garden looms large. In the first half of the 20th century, to those who knew anything about opera , hers was a household name. After her debut in 1900 at the Opéra-Comique, this Scottish-American soprano enjoyed a smashing career, and had the distinction of pioneering roles in Charpentier’s Louise and Debussey’s  Pelleas et Melisande.

Janet Irving became a close friend of this diva, after first meeting her in 1937. She even sang for Mary Garden, a woman who could be intimidating in her bluntness. After hearing Janet perform, Mary told her: “I hate that song; you need more work.”

Thanks to Janet Irving, this interviewer had the pleasure of handling the rhinestone bracelet that Mary Garden wore when she performed Tosca. For a confirmed opera fan like me, it was stirring to touch a famous diva’s jewelry. Her friend Janet plans to give it to a charitable group hoping this piece of memorabilia will fetch a good price.

After considerable voice training in France and Italy, Janet Irving had the opportunity for a career as a singer but opted instead to join her husband, James Irving, in South Africa. She then decided to become a teacher of singing instead of a performer. This teaching career she continued for 40 years, most of it at the Longy School in Cambridge where she is legend.

Born in New York City on June 22, 1902, Janet Irving takes no great pleasure in having people know her current age. “I wouldn’t mind being 99 or 101,” she says. She did, however, much enjoy the party given her by friends to celebrate her most recent birthday.

Asked if other members of her family were long-lived, she cites her great-aunt Sarah Curtis Hepburn who lived to 101. She once inquired of this venerable relative if she had ever seen President Lincoln. Her aunt’s disappointing answer: “I was never allowed to walk alone in the streets of Washington.”

That memory prompted my asking what Janet Irving remembered of World War I. “We were too far away,” she responded. “It was something that happened way over there; it was something very remote.”

World War II was another story, however. She spent most of it in Capetown, South Africa where she had gone to be with her husband. The latter was a physician and a professor of physiology who taught in South Africa until 1960. But getting to that country in 1939 involved for Janet an interminable  zigzag voyage on a ship fearful of encountering the German battleship Graf Spee.

Turning back to of her childhood memories, Mrs. Irving  recalls  the unconventional debut she made at the Metropolitan Opera at age eight “when I screamed the place down.” It was a performance of Hansel and Gretel which she and five of her friends viewed from a box given by the manager to her father. When the witch was being put in the oven, Janet was horrified and screamed “You can’t burn the witch!” Thereupon an usher came to the box and “lifted me out to the corridor, where you could still hear me screaming.”

Mrs. Irving has many other anecdotes about opera and its often temperamental stars. About my boyhood favorite tenor, Jussi Bjoerling, she recalls his visit to South Africa and his fondness for parties there. She loved hearing the pair of Wagnerian singers, Kirsten Flagstad and Lauritz Melchior, at the Met and recalls the former’s advice about how best to handle long demanding Wagnerian roles: “Buy a comfortable pair of shoes!”

But music has provided Janet Irving with much more than entertaining anecdotes.  “I’m lucky to have music,” she says. “It’s something you give out to people; it doesn’t pull you in.”  

No one has a surefire formula for living to 100. Although good genes and wise lifestyle habits can prove invaluable, much depends on luck. The philosophy expressed by Janet Irving, however, would seem to serve longevity well.

The passion she feels for what she loves evidently impels her forward. From all appearances, she relishes the persons, places, and things that have loomed large in her life and seems to find in them abundant reasons for continuing to cherish the world.

Richard Griffin

Last weekend at a church coffee hour I introduced a visitor to a couple of my good friends. Unfortunately, however, I could not at that moment remember the last name of either friend, despite having frequent association with them. So I mumbled their first names while trying desperately to summon up their last ones.

Many would call this a “senior moment.” For reasons explained in another column I would never use such a negative term to typify the inner experience of growing older. Instead, I think of it as a memory lapse that happens at every age, though admittedly it occurs more often in later years.

Memory lapses of this sort I take as signs of our having done a lot of living. As the son of New York Times health columnist Jane Brody told her: “What do you expect? With all you've stuffed into your head all these years, something is bound to fall out.”

And some inability to remember is positively a blessing. Recently I heard tell of a man who could not forget anything; his slightest actions and his every thought engraved itself on his memory. This can only be thought of as a disease, a terrible affliction.

However, not being able to remember facts is undeniably worrisome to most older people. Often it makes us fear something may be radically wrong with us. All too readily we jump to the conclusion that we are “losing it.”

When such instances of memory loss multiply, many older people become convinced they have started on the downward path to Alzheimer’s disease. Such an assumption is often rash and without foundation but causes suffering nonetheless.

Many causes other than dementia can be at work making us lose the ability to come up with the right name or fact. Depression, inadequate nourishment, side effects of medication –  –  these can be hidden thieves of memory. Regrettably, too many people do not get skilled medical treatment directed at finding the reason for memory loss.

Many scientists are studying the human brain intensively and can provide some answers. For a summary of current knowledge on this subject, I recommend a brochure published by the AARP Andrus Foundation and The Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives.

Entitled “Memory Loss and Aging,” it is part of a series called “Staying Sharp: Current Advances in Brain Research.” This brochure is available at AARP, (800) 424-3410.

(You can also request three other brochures in the Staying Sharp series. To make sure of their availability free of charge, I have called the number myself.)

“Memory is not a single process,” say the authors of the brochure, and they distinguish two different kinds of memory. The first focuses on daily facts such as the names of friends. The second contains skills and procedures, such as how to kick a soccer ball or cook a chicken.

These two kinds of memory depend on different structures inside the brain so a person, for example, might remember how to drive a car but not how to find the way back to his own neighborhood.

Researchers believe we can keep memory sharp by cultivating certain skills. The brochure mentioned above lists eight pieces of advice: relax, concentrate, focus, slow down, organize, write it down, repeat it, visualize it.

Besides those already mentioned, some other activities may also help keep brains vigorous. Physical exercise surely does; so does good nutrition. I love doing crossword puzzles anyway but I also believe they rev up my brain power.

The brochure also offers helpful information about the current state of research into Alzheimer’s disease. Hopes for delaying, preventing, or reversing this illness depend on future research breakthroughs. But currently three new medications have been “modestly successful” in providing some help to people in the early stages of the disease.

However, researchers freely admit being unable to answer many questions of crucial importance to older people. If, for instance, they could pinpoint the differences between garden variety memory loss and the kind that leads toward devastating illness, we would all breathe easier.

Jane Brody, the columnist mentioned above, recently alerted her readers to some of the rackets connected with this issue that flourish in the land. “Memory pills,” for example, are on the market but no one can attest to their value. The Center for Science in the Public Interest has reviewed the alleged research behind such medication and found the claims worthless, except for those behind one very expensive product “Don’t waste your money,” Brody advises readers, advice that I endorse.

Incidentally, about the last names of my two dear friends: I thought of hers as I woke up at dawn the next day; his came to me halfway through the morning. Something mysterious must be at work in the recesses of my memory dredging up the forgotten, often taking its own sweet time to do it.

Richard Griffin

I hate the term “senior moment” and have taken a private vow never to use it the way others do. Why employ a phrase that fixes on something negative as characteristic of later life? Doing so seems a surefire way of lowering morale by calling attention to a deficit rather than an asset in one’s mature years.

To be sure, the phrase enjoys widespread popularity. Every time a person of a certain age hesitates and gropes in memory for a word or name, then you are likely to hear that person offer the excuse “I’m undergoing a ‘senior moment.’” Often this excuse comes with a nervous laugh, perhaps indicating a mixture of embarrassment and fear.

Instead of taking a merely negative stance toward the expression “senior moment,” however, let me suggest salvaging the term and making another use of it instead. Besides the largely negative experience of forgetting, later life features the positive recalling of people and events from our earlier life that carry rich meaning for us.

I will not soon forget hearing a speech by the prominent American artist Ellsworth Kelly when the new federal courthouse on Boston’s waterfront was dedicated. Then 75, Kelly recalled how he had been a student at the Museum School in Boston back in 1946. He used to bike down to the harborside area where the courthouse now stands. There he bought his canvas and other art supplies.

As he recalled this early experience and contrasted it with where he had eventually arrived as an artist, Kelly choked up and had to pause for a few seconds. Others may not have noticed, but I recognized in this moment an experience that I myself have often felt.  Kelly had suddenly felt the events of his earlier life to have taken on a new stature, meaning, and poignancy that surprised him. Surely this merited the description “senior moment.”

There are times when I feel myself to be acting the way my father did. I recognize in myself traits learned long ago from him and I thus become aware of his presence. It’s uncanny the way I feel myself to be talking like him, though he died almost 50 years ago. That, too, seems to me to merit the name “senior moment” since usually it does not occur until later life.

When I returned last week to my high school for the 55th anniversary of my graduation, memories of my school days flooded over me. As it happened, I was the only member of my class to show up for the celebration. Standing as sole representative of the 21 who graduated in 1947, I felt myself to be what the poet Oliver Wendell Holmes called “the last leaf.” Again, an event worthy of being dubbed a “senior moment.”

On the day when I first wrote these words, I heard a Harvard Square church bell tolling at noontime the ancient prayer called the Angelus. Listening to it, I was swept back to the time when I used to say this prayer every day and my life took its direction from church tradition. Yet another senior moment.

My friend Frederick Buechner has written: “Every person we have ever known, every place we have ever seen, everything that has ever happened to us – it all lives and breathes deep within us somewhere whether we like it or not, and sometimes it doesn’t take much to bring it back to the surface in bits and pieces.”

Senior moments I value flow from memories of the people, places, and events that have figured in my life. My parents, grandmother, aunts and uncles, friends, and associates who have taken leave of this earth play a large part in my psychic life. I think frequently of them, much more so than I did when younger.

So, too, the places where I have lived – Peabody, Cambridge, Belmont, Watertown, Lenox, in Massachusetts; St. Asaph in Wales; Paris, Brussels on the European continent – all of them continue to provide me with senior moments in my sense of the word. The physical features of these places often flood me with memories, some of them downbeat, but most resonant with beauty and depth.

And events – millions of them, it seems – that have enriched my life or, at least, provided reason for reflection. Falling in love, the birth of my daughter, the death of my father, stand out among many that have shaped my life in ways that I still mine for meaning. The imaginative replay of these events truly deserves to be enshrined under senior moments.

So much of growing older is psychic and dramatic in ways that others cannot see. The senior moments in which I recall the richness of my world and my life are what make later life so precious. These moments live on with us and enrich our spirit, turning growing older into an inner adventure.

Richard Griffin

Near Thiepval, France, visitors see looming up before them the largest British military monument in the world. It is dedicated to “The Missing of the Somme,” those who died in the most disastrous battle of what used to be called The Great War. On a single day, November 16, 1916, some 60 thousand British soldiers were killed or wounded in frontal attacks on entrenched German positions and gained no significant territory from them.

“Their Name Liveth For Evermore” says the inscription on the towering memorial to the lost battalions who went over the top in what quickly became a hopeless assault against defenders using artillery and machine guns to mow them down. However, the names of some were in fact lost, along with their bodies.

Some people continue to commemorate those who lost their lives. A red wreath from Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception Church in Liverpool, recently laid at the tall monument, says: “The Parish remembers (12 names are listed) who gave their lives for their country in the Great War 1914 – 18, and are commemorated among the missing of Thiepval.”

For me, a tourist born ten years after that war ended, the horror and waste of it all dominates my feelings. Why did the countries of Europe ever allow themselves to enter a conflict of such monumental foolishness? How could they tolerate millions of their young men being cut down in such a dubious cause?

In expressing such sentiments I am, of course, echoing the feelings of the British war poets such as Wilfred Owen and Rupert Brooke. With bitter irony, Owen titled one of his poems “Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori” (It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country), calling the dictum “that ancient lie.” Visiting the battlefields of northeastern France, one relives the horror of the mass slaughters resulting from decisions by heads of government and their uninspired generals.

Now, almost 100 years later, the fields where savage battles were fought are now beautiful, lush with green. But one still sees the traces of trenches dug into the soil to provide cover for the troops. Of course, they were most often miserable living in them, plunged into mud and sometimes bitter cold and snow. The destruction of the environment accompanied the destruction of human life, as the ground was plundered by heavy artillery and machines.

At the same site, I saw a cemetery with row upon row of stone slabs and crosses. Some of them say “A Soldier of the Great War, Cheshire Regiment, Known Unto God.” Others carry only the single French word “Inconnu” (Unknown).

Michael, a friend who accompanied me on the battlefield visit, said of the experience: “I didn’t lose anybody here, but there’s something about it that stirs me very much.” Along with my own sadness about such waste I also felt stirred by the heroism of the men who gave their lives. Despite abiding cynicism about those who make war, I had to admire others who responded generously to their country’s call.

Often they were naïve young men who had no idea what awaited them after they signed up for military duty. They soon experienced at first hand the horrors of modern warfare. They must have been thoroughly bewildered to find themselves in such miserable conditions and ready to become cannon fodder along with so many others.

Hardly a man is now alive who fought in that war. The ranks of World War I veterans have declined to a precious few. They have to have reached age 100, at the very least, to remember at first hand combat in the fields of Europe in that era. But they are better positioned than we to appreciate the current unity among nations which fought one another so bitterly then.

A stone tablet set in the pavement outside the great medieval cathedral of Rheims remains fixed in my memory from this recent visit to France. It commemorates the day in 1964 when Charles de Gaulle, president of France, came together with Konrad Adenauer, chancellor of West Germany, at a Mass and celebrated lasting peace between their countries. That peace has been ratified by many events in succeeding years – – the European community, free trade, the Euro – – and has in fact brought a spirit of unity unprecedented in history.

The new Europe thus puts World War I into a different context. The Great War stands as a horrifying example of what can happen when peace breaks down. Because it led to the even greater catastrophe of World War II it has affected the lives of all of us who experienced this latter conflict. Seeing the fields where the battle of the Somme was fought has solidified my own hatred of war and made me grateful for the now solid peace among the former warring nations of Europe.

Richard Griffin

Augustin Roques, now 69, remembers vividly the day in 1944 when American soldiers marched by his part of Paris. As they came by, they threw packages of gum to the people, along with cigarettes. He recalls the sweet smell of the Camels, the brand of smokes favored by the troops.

I met Augustin, his wife Raymonde, and their dog Rocky at the approaches to the Arenes de Lutece, an ancient Roman ruin located behind my hotel in the 5th arrondisement of Paris. Raymonde was sitting in a wheelchair because of the lower body paralysis she has suffered over the past five years. Each day brings her pain, a difficult burden for which she looks to God for relief.

For his part, Augustin seems happy as he provides care for his wife and takes her on outings in the vicinity of their home. “Moi, je suis tranquille,” he tells me, attesting to his own inner peace.

In search of spiritual help, this couple has been to Lourdes, there to pray for a restoration of Raymonde’s health. In inadequate French, I suggested spiritual healing as a benefit more likely to come from such a pilgrimage, a distinction with which they seemed to agree.

Retired now, Augustin used to work as a locksmith and was a skilled maker of keys. Using my notebook, he drew for me pictures of some locks and keys that were his stock in trade. As a professional, he branded my house key as worthless, not worthy of his manufacture.

This genial Frenchman obviously took pleasure in out conversation, as did I. Only his wife’s appointment with a visiting nurse brought our exchange to an end. However, I promised to send him this column and thus continue the dialogue at long range.

Monsieur and Madame Roques were only two of the many age peers I took note of during a recent two-week vacation in France. Among them was a 76-year-old gentleman with whom I sat on a park bench next to St. Julien le Pauvre, the city’s oldest church. Conversation with him proved more difficult because he remained fixated on the dangers posed by local pickpockets.

“Attention!” (Watch out) he warned me several times, concerned that the roving robbers would find this tourist easy pickings. “The old do not have the strength to defend themselves,” he observed as he fingered his cane, a likely weapon of self defense for him.

After a while this man broke off conversation, got up from our bench, and walked out the gate. He left me with the impression that, just maybe, he felt this strange guy, so interested in conversation and so nosy, might himself be a suspicious person up to no good.

Near the river Seine, I stopped at a quirky English-language landmark. “Shakespeare and Company” is a famous bookstore, eccentric but breathing the aura of literature lovers. There I talked with the proprietor, 90-year-old George Whitman, who happily presides over the place.

Though he expects soon to relinquish some of his duties to his daughter, George takes as a model Frances Steloff, a friend who worked in a similar trade in New York City. “She was the owner of the Gotham Book Mark,” he told me, “and, when she was 100 years old, she was still helping out.”

At Mont-Saint-Michel in Brittany, I ran into other age peers, these not French, but American tourists full of spirit. Caroline Coopersmith from Minneapolis, a game 80, had just climbed to the top of the great hill with only two stops for resting. She reported everything smooth on her trip except, she said with a laugh, at the airport “I set off all the bells; I have two hip replacements.”

Al Berman, a 75-year-old gentleman from the Philadelphia area, and I felt immediate rapport. He had just read the novel “Empire Falls” with much relish, as had I. In semi-retirement from the toy business, Al takes history courses at Penn and also takes a lively interest in his grandchildren and baseball.

Later, I observed a couple of parish priests of advanced years. One of them, the celebrant at Sunday Mass in the magnificent 13th century Gothic cathedral in Rheims sang nobly in a voice weakened by age. But his homily showed spirit and vision as he spoke about the mystical bonds united by God’s love.

In that same lively city of Rheims, an old lady entering the church of St. Jacques caught my eye. As she tried to navigate the raised threshold, she received a helping arm from a young man who formed a striking contrast with her. He sported a Mohawk haircut, had rings hanging from his ears, and wore black leather. The lady took his arm and they happily disappeared together within the church.

All in all, the “third age” in France appears to be giving a good account of itself. Like their juniors, elders there seem to take delight in their language, their food, their ancient monuments, their Euros, and, above all, the peace that now reigns among former enemies in the new Europe.

Richard Griffin

“Joe Kennedy was one of the ablest undergraduates Harvard ever had.” So says Ken Galbraith of the oldest of the Kennedy brothers who was killed in World War II.

Galbraith, now in his 94th year, was a Harvard tutor when he first got acquainted with Joe and his brother Jack. Of the latter, he observes: “He was intelligent, attractive, and not given to an excessive amount of work.”

These are among the memories shared by this celebrated economist with  an enthusiastic crowd of students and others gathered at the Kennedy School of Government. Quite deaf now and physically suffering from the effects of various health crises, the almost 6 foot 8 inches tall Galbraith still talks in a booming voice as he recalls personalities and events from a remarkably varied career in academic and public life.

Reacting to an introduction bordering on the fulsome, this giant of a man acknowledges his pleasure with typical wit: “I have to recover from deep delight in the account of my life.” At this stage of his career, he can enjoy without shame hearing himself praised to the rafters.

About the Roosevelts, Franklin and Eleanor, he says, “They looked at all the states as an extension of Hyde Park.” But he distinguishes between the two: Franklin’s concern was human, not ideological; Eleanor was a liberal.”

The latter became one of Ken Galbraith’s closest and best-loved friends over a lifetime of involvement in Democratic politics. In 1960, he helped bring her around to support Jack Kennedy for the presidency, support she had stubbornly withheld up till then.

During his presidency, Kennedy sent Galbraith to India as United States ambassador. While in that often sensitive position, the ambassador felt frustrated in communicating back to Washington through the State Department.

Ultimately, he took to sending messages directly to the president, bypassing normal channels. Often delightfully witty, these now published messages violated normal protocol. In one of them, he told JFK that “trying to communicate through the State Department is like having sexual intercourse through the blanket.”

With a mischievous grin, the speaker, however, acknowledges that the original language in this message may have featured “somewhat rougher” terms.  

Asked to comment on Lyndon Johnson, Galbraith says, “He was in some ways the most misunderstood man we ever had in the White House.” But he goes on to call LBJ “a wonderful companion.” Until the Vietnam War developed, the two were good friends, as a visit by Galbraith to the president’s Texas ranch suggests.

On that occasion LBJ took his visitor out on a shoot. Riding in separate jeeps, the president and Galbraith took aim at the birds that were their targets. The visitor had never previously handled a gun and managed only to fire into the air. “The doves in Texas were never so safe,” he says recalling the adventure.

The break between the two over the Vietnam War was personally painful to Galbraith. Among other things, he especially regretted that “Vietnam covered up LBJ’s commitment to the poor and the working community.”

Galbraith acknowledges not having known personally either Nixon or Reagan. In recent years, however, he discovered that Richard Nixon had been on his staff when he headed the Office of Price Administration in FDR’s presidency.

About Ronald and Nancy Reagan, this confirmed Democrat comments on their one great virtue: “They enjoyed the job much more than they were concerned with policy.” With wry understatement, he adds that he would prefer Ronald Reagan “to the present situation.”

When discussion turned briefly to economic issues, Galbraith recalled the powerful impact exerted on America by the British economist John Maynard Keynes. The Harvard professor admits that after his first book had gone to press in 1937, he read Keynes and realized that the book was wrong. Under the force of Keynes, Galbraith changed his mind and adopted views that went against those prevailing among his colleagues.

At that time, he says with irony, the economists at Harvard fell into two main groups: the first were professors “living in the 19th century and very keen to get back to the 18th.” The second was made up of believers in capital monopolies.

Besides these two groups, there were only a few who espoused positions on the left. Among them, of course, Galbraith would loom large, to the discomfort of many of his colleagues.

Anyone who thinks that old age deserves more respect would have been gratified to be at this session with Galbraith. The young people in attendance were positively worshipful, greeting his entrance with a standing O, and responding to his jokes and witty remarks with much appreciation.

Yes, they were applauding an American icon, the only citizen to have received the Order of Freedom medal twice. But they also seemed to be recognizing the aura that advanced age can bring when it comes with sparkle and grit.

Richard Griffin