The narrator of this story was sitting in a Manhattan bus one day when he noticed an old fellow getting on with difficulty. The man walked haltingly and his arms shook as if he had Parkinson’s. The story teller felt immediate concern about the fellow finding a seat.

Not to worry, the seat next to the story teller became free and the fellow struggled over to it. But he did not stay long; after a few stops he got up, went to the front of the bus, and promptly got off. The story teller noticed that the fellow now walked much more confidently and without any signs of the disabilities that had been so evident a few minutes before.

Then the narrator suddenly remembered something. For a few moments, the fellow’s left arm had disappeared from sight.  This memory prompted the narrator to feel for his back pocket. It was then he discovered that this pocket was now empty.

This urban tale appeared a few weeks ago in “Metropolitan Diary,” one of my favorite sections in Monday’s edition of The New York Times. Since that time, I have moved beyond the humor of the story to ponder its significance.

The story carries punch because of the stereotypes that almost everyone has about elderly people. If it had been a young man who pulled off the scam, no one of us would have been surprised. In fact, there would have been no story.

But no one expects an old man to do anything criminal. We think such a person inoffensive by reason of age. Even though you do not have to be rippling with strong muscles to commit a crime, still we assume that people of advanced years will never rip us off.

In fact, we may go beyond and assume that older people never do anything  wrong. It’s as if the aged have lost the capability of sinning because they are too debilitated for committing acts of immorality.

This view, though it at first seems favorable to older people, in fact robs them of something basically human. The capability to do evil marks our humanity to the very end of our days. So much so that, if we cannot do evil, then we cannot do good either.

Virtue remains a choice for us up through age 100 and beyond. We are not forced to be good; the invitation merely remains open.

Some older people remain remarkably nasty, perhaps the way they were earlier in life. They are not pleasant to be with because they are so filled with harsh emotions. I remember a woman who used to call City Hall when I worked there. Nothing ever pleased her; she would harass city officials like me as her daily recreation. She seemed thoroughly estranged from virtue.

It does not serve older people to sentimentalize them, to make of them children below the age of reason who are incapable of sin. One of the great dramas of age is to see what will become of us morally. I like to quote Jesse Jackson who is fond of saying “God is not through with me yet.”

Like everyone else, we elders must struggle against temptation. No matter how debilitated we might be, we cannot take a vacation from the moral battle. Most of the sins, at least, that were available to us earlier in life are still at hand. And some new ones have come along as well.

The new ones tend to be much more subtle than pick pocketing or shoplifting. One of the most insidious is selling ourselves short. A morose conviction that we aren’t worth much any more is a temptation that assails not a few elders. We are seduced into internalizing what we take to be society’s view of us, that we are has-beens, mere relics of usefulness.

This is a kind of desperation, I suppose, that in our secret heart drives us down in-to low spirits. We lack the power to make a moral statement of our own value. For us, it would be an act of virtue to assert both within ourselves and to the world at large that we continue to count for something.

How the mischievous fellow on the bus felt about himself, I have no idea. Perhaps he went home feeling that he had struck a blow for age. More likely, he was content to splurge using the ill-gotten cash from the unlucky man’s wallet.

But, whatever he did with the loot, he proved to himself and, thanks to “Metropolitan Diary” the world, that he is still a moral agent or, in this instance, an immoral one. There may, after all, be something better about such a condition than there is in despair at one’s ability to do anything meaningful at all.

Richard Griffin

Joe Hardman, in retirement, works as a volunteer guide at the Wright Brothers national park in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. There, before large groups of visitors, he explains how Orville and Wilbur Wright in 1903 became the first persons to take flight in a motor-driven, heavier-than-air flying machine.

The subject is fascinating in itself: two Ohio bicycle-shop mechanics who dreamed of human flight managing to pull it off and achieving undying reputation. But Joe makes it all the more compelling as he shares with people of all ages this typically American story. Standing in front of two life-size replicas of the original airplanes, Joe explains in expert detail the engineering behind the Wrights’ great feat and also the human drama.

As a tourist myself last week, I listened to Joe with fascination. Afterward I asked this 70-year-old  how he had acquired such knowledge. “They gave me a five-foot shelf of books,” he explained. In others words, his was no canned speech repeated over and over; rather, he had studied his subject and mastered it enough to talk about a wide variety of materials and to answer a wide range of  questions.

In his earlier career, Joe told me, he had been a foreign service officer for the United States and then a manager of the Fulbright program in the federal education department. So he brings much experience and sophistication to his volunteer position in Kitty Hawk. No wonder he carries off his teaching role with such aplomb.

Joe Hardman, though outstanding for his competence, was only one of several elder citizens whom my wife and I encountered on this vacation trip. At Antietam, the Civil War battle site, we found a similarly well-qualified guide in Gary Delphey. This gentleman told me that he is a retired bank officer who now contributes his time to public service.

From a position on a porch looking out over the fields where the Union and Confederate armies clashed repeatedly in 1862, this seasoned guide explained the ebb and flow of the battle. Inevitably the other listeners and I visualized the strategy of Robert E. Lee and the countermoves of Union General McClellan. Even though my sympathies were with the North, I thrilled to the crucial intervention of General A. P. Hill, who force-marched his troops from Harpers Ferry,  and  saved the day for the Rebels.

At Gettysburg, veteran guides abounded. Though our tour around miles of battlefield took place in our own car, before setting out we noted the human resources available. I remember asking one man of mature years who was dressed in a National Park Service uniform if he was a volunteer. His one-word answer amused me: “Almost.”

At Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s magnificent home near Charlottesville, Virginia, our guide was Bess Kane, a woman who possessed detailed knowledge both about the house and about its owner. The range and sophistication of her lore impressed me. Only last year I had read American Sphinx, the biography of Jefferson written by the Mount Holyoke College professor Joseph Ellis, so I was well-positioned to recognize a skilled presentation.

What a welcome change all of these superb talks represent! They strike a brilliant contrast with the spiels of the past, parroted by guides who knew precious little about their subject. But I suspect there may be more to it than that.

It seems to me that the guides we encountered on the vacation tour are people who love their country’s history and wish to pass it on to others, young and old. They have imbued themselves with the events of America’s past and have come  to value what we as a nation have experienced on our way through history.

Though they approach their official duties seriously, they seem to go beyond mere duty and take pleasure in sharing with others the knowledge they have acquired through study and reflection. In doing so, they have assumed a role in society that befits older people. Not only do they hand on a tradition vital to our common life but they also offer some evaluation of that history, letting us know what is important and why.

In doing so on a large public stage before huge numbers of people who come from all over this country and, indeed, the world, these guides help us lay more secure hold of our traditions. They help bring to vivid life the pages of history books that previously may have remained dry documents for us.

These veteran guides also help us flesh out the folktales that we learned long ago, correct them, and give them a local habitation and a name. And they seem to relish what they are doing. Gary Delphey, the Antietam guide, told me of his pleasure: “I enjoy it. It’s the least I can do for those fellows who sacrificed so much so long ago.”

Richard Griffin

Two of us older guys, he my elder by at least several years, arguing strenuously about their space. This scene at the pool where I swim every day must have fascinated those who witnessed it.

He was swimming down the center of a wide lane reserved for people with handicaps. I was prepared to climb in myself and, in accordance with universal custom at the pool, share the lane with him.

As I started toward the ladder, however, the other fellow explained to me in no uncertain terms that he was doing backstrokes and could not guarantee my safety. I told him in reply that I was coming in anyway and would take it upon myself to stay out of his way.

That declaration threw him into a rage. As I climbed down the ladder, he stormed up edging me out of the way. Then I began swimming down the lane taking care to stay on the left side so that, if he wanted to reenter, he would have plenty of space.

But instead of getting back in, he walked down the side of the pool almost foaming at the mouth with anger as I swam, bitterly accosting me with profanity, using in particular one word that I cannot print here.

By contrast with him, I remained calm throughout but resolutely determined to exercise my right to one-half the lane. I found it easy to refrain from abusive language myself but was not above a couple of subtle verbal jabs.

My best line, admittedly the title of a recent book written by a colleague, was “Thank you for being such a pain.” Stunned by this rapier-like thrust, he could only reply by lamely throwing the same words back to me.

The fellow soon gave up, left me be, and went – – presumably to do his backstroke – – to another lane. But all during the rest of my swim, I had visions of him coming back and, in renewed fury, beating me about the head with a blunt object.

How should one evaluate this short but intense conflict between two older men? For me it raises issues that are different from those that would arise from such an encounter between two young guys.

That we could engage in such a duel breaks a certain stereotype of older people. As one writer, the psychologist Mary Pipher, observes: “The old are admired for not being a burden, for being chronically cheerful. They are expected to be interested in others, bland in their opinions, optimistic, and emotionally generous.”

Such a stereotype certainly fits neither me nor my antagonist. On that afternoon, at least, there was nothing bland about either of us, cheerful, nor, I fear, emotionally generous. We were acting with abandon, free from the expectations society has for people of a certain age.

For feeling free to enter the lists of conflict, I am thus tempted to award both of us points. Advancing age has not dulled in us the fires of irascible emotions. When provoked, each of us can rise to the occasion in ardent defense of what we see as our rights.

On sober reflection, however, the event appears more complicated. If age remains indeed free for the expression of emotion, still we elders are supposed to have grown enough in grace and wisdom to have established control over our feelings, especially our irascible ones.

No matter how we justify the exchange of nasty words, there remains something disedifying about seeing two people of mature years engaging in such a conflict. People who heard us going at it could reasonably feel let down by this spectacle.  In some way we seem to have damaged society by resorting to violence, if only in words.

Haven’t we learned by now that disputes can be settled by peaceful means?  Should we not, at least have been able to discuss the merits of our case without resorting to personal abuse?

As I left the pool that day I felt mixed: though I had said something unkind, I never resorted to abusive language.  Throughout the fray I had remained completely calm. And I successfully claimed what I saw as my right.

But I recognized some failure too. I had violated my own code of personal ethics. I could not credibly claim to have loved my neighbor as myself. And there I was, supposedly a champion for the cause of older people, giving offense to one older than myself.

Like most other human experiences, this encounter was a mixed reality. It embodied both good and bad together. If I should happen to meet this unknown fellow again, preferably with our clothes on, perhaps we can talk calmly about what happened. We might be able to walk away from such a discussion as friends or, at least, no longer at enmity.

Richard Griffin

What an ideal guest Tom proved to be! He and his wife Maria came down from Montreal last weekend to visit. Maria herself is a marvelous person, always welcome for her own gifts of personality and her flexibility as a guest. Whatever plans you as host have, she is ready and willing to accommodate herself to them.

On this occasion, the arriving guests found me just about to leave the house for my weekly softball came. It was a steaming hot day, not the kind of climate the ordinary person would choose to run around a shadeless field. Though neither an Englishman nor (presumably) a madman, I was eager for the noontime sun.

Did my duties as host require me to stay home? Certainly not. Instead I invited Tom to come and play with us. Mind you this is a guy then on the eve of his 65th birthday, someone who grew up in Poland, France, and England, all countries not enlightened enough to have chosen baseball as their chief sport.

With no perceptible hesitation, Tom agreed to accompany me and play ball. So I gave him a fielder’s glove, lent him a Red Sox cap, and off we went to the field in Allston , next to Harvard Stadium.

After a warm-up period, the game started. Tom, chosen for the other team, took his position at second base and batted low in the order. During the game I observed his play closely because, without acknowledging it, I felt somewhat protective of my guest.

Well might I have felt solicitude for Tom’s well-being. Though a frequent tennis player and daily swimmer, he had presumably not played softball for years and I was not sure how he would handle drives hit hard in his direction. Our players do get injured sometimes; I would have been thoroughly chagrined to have Tom spend his 65th in a local hospital.

It would be heartwarming to report that Tom’s performance in the field and at bat was outstanding. The fact is that he allowed several shots to get by him; at bat, he got one good clean hit, a drive that carried between the third baseman and the shortstop into left field. The rest of his contacts resulted in either outs or errors.

My own efforts were little better. Though I do not recall making any errors at first base, I made precious few solid contacts at bat. The one notably hard shot off my bat went back at the pitcher with dazzling speed; somehow, he was able to catch it, thus preserving his vital parts from injury.

So Tom and I, later-life warriors both, experienced failure at first hand. We freely endured the frustrations built into the game of baseball. Is any other sport so designed that those who claim success themselves fail at least six times out of ten when in the batter’s box and other times when deployed in the field?

Former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent, speaking of people who have grown up with the game, said the same thing better: “Baseball teaches us, or has taught most of us, how to deal with failure. We learn at a very young age that failure is the norm in baseball, and precisely because we have failed , we hold in high regard those who have failed less often.”

This quotation I have borrowed from a book recently sent me by an old friend, Ernest Kurtz. He and his co-author, Katherine Ketcham, entitle their 1992 volume, The Spirituality of Imperfection: Modern Wisdom from Classic Stories. Their writing pleases me because it provides a rationale for what I did many years ago: give up the effort to become perfect.

Mind you, these authors stand in favor of spiritual growth; it’s just that trying for human perfection, in their view, can block such growth by falsifying one’s life. They draw on stories from many of the great spiritual traditions of world history to show that wisdom requires us to accept ourselves as we are, rather than as some abstract ideal would have us be.

So this forms the background to my perseverance in playing the game, inglorious as so much of my play continues to be. I make outs, often in clutch situations. And I screw up in the field, sometimes even allowing runners to advance because I fall asleep while awake. But it’s good for my soul as well as exercise for my body.

Whether Tom clutched failure to his heart that day and grew in true spirituality, I have not discovered. Nor should I try to impose my rationale for the game on him. But he and I, as the oldest players on the field, may have served the others as outstanding models of  failure. At game’s end, we could leave the field with the hope of having shown our juniors the wisdom and beauty of self-acceptance.

Richard Griffin

Here’s a conversation between a man and his doctor:

“For a man of 60, you’re in remarkable shape.
Did I say I was 60? I’m 83.
My goodness, your father must have lived a long time.
Did I say my father was dead? He’s 104.
Good grief, man, how long did your grandfather live?
Did I say my grandfather was dead? He’s 124 and he’s getting married next month.
Why on earth would a 124-year-old man want to get married?
Did I say he wanted to get married?”

Absurdist humor of this sort is, admittedly, not to everyone’s taste. But you must admit it has its virtues. By holding up longevity to gentle ridicule this dialogue makes us smile at the comedic elements in growing older. Whoever the author of this playful piece drawn from the Internet, he or she deserves credit for helping us see some laughable aspects of aging.

Humor is one of the redeeming virtues of later life. Recognizing that the human condition, our being at one and the same time both rational and animal, puts us in a basically peculiar situation – – this amounts to wisdom. The ability to laugh at oneself must be accounted a precious gift.

“Humor,” writes Kathleen Fischer, “reveals that there is a ‘more’ in the midst of human life. Humor reminds us that there is a larger perspective on life than our own.”

Fischer goes further: “Humor recognizes that limitations and failures are not final and unredeemable tragedies.”

In his new book, A Map to the End of Time, philosophy teacher Ronald  Manheimer recounts a series of dialogues that he has led, over a period of several years, with men and women  much older than himself. Their talks have centered on the teaching of such thinkers as Plato, Aristotle, Kierkegaard, John Stuart Mill, and Martin Buber. The chapter I liked best was the one focused on humor.

Manheimer asks the question: “Is it strength of character or some impulse of self-preservation to laugh in the face of adversity?”  He thinks that, whatever the reason, as we grow older we come to appreciate humor differently.

If with age, as this thinker suggests, “we are slow-moving targets for adversity,” then we need humor more. After all, the dangers posed by the world around us can become greater threats the older we get. Is there a better response to the sudden blow that changes everything for us? And what else besides humor responds so well to the experience of slowly falling apart?

The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard saw humor as an accommodation to incompleteness. In his eyes it is a response to our recognition that we lack something. Thus it is also a form of humility and self-acceptance.

In the difficult and frustrating situations of daily life – – the bank informing you that the check you wrote has bounced and you’ve been assessed a hefty fine, or your car that you thought was parked in the right place has been towed to the ends of the city, or tripping over a rug, falling and badly bruising your leg – – given the choice between laughing and crying, don’t we sometimes find that laughing makes more sense?

When you come right down to it, humor is a manifestation of wisdom. It shows that we have not altogether lost perspective. We can see ourselves, if not exactly as others see us, still not as the measure of all things.

Perhaps we can even identify with the comic hero and laughing at him or her, laugh at ourselves. Again Manheimer: “In comedy the heroic individual, drawing from a bag of tricks, painlessly triumphs over humiliation, failure and degradation. The comic hero’s flaws – foolishness, impulsiveness, or naïveté – – can become redeeming qualities that turn the tide.”

This description reminds me of Charlie Chaplin and his misadventures on film. This great comic makes us laugh at life’s situations made difficult by other people’s actions or our own bumbling. The Little Tramp, with his formal attire, hat and cane and flat shoes, is able to help us recognize the absurd aspects of life and to draw forth from us a mirthful response.

This kind of help can move us toward a growth in wisdom that may come with later life. Manheimer gives expression to the ideal: “We learn to accept many of the contraries in life, make our peace with time. We can look at ourselves and laugh at what formerly troubled us and made us anxious. We accept our humanity.”

So reading again the dialogue with which this column began, one can find in it, not the funniest of situations to be sure, but a rapid-fire, irreverent, and ironic exchange that exposes at least some of the absurdity that marks the human enterprise.

What about it? Did the 124-year-old guy want to get married?

Richard Griffin

One often hears people say “You are what you eat.”  What a frightening thought, when you consider all that has passed down our gullets! Who among us would ever want to be a pepper or a prune or a pig?

But, fortunately, in daily life becoming what you eat does not demand thought. Eating well does. And that means knowing how to be smart about food shopping.

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It was the single most exciting event in professional sports that I have ever seen in person. The drama of it all has stayed with me ever since July 9, 1946, the day on which the best hitter in the history of the Boston Red Sox did the impossible.

On that day, in the All-Star Game at Fenway Park, Ted Williams hit a home run off the famous eephus pitch thrown by Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher RipSewall. And it was Williams’ second home run of the game, leading the way to a twelve-to-nothing American League rout.

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