Does a gap yawn wide and deep between Americans currently middle-aged and their parents? Has the generation of younger adults been brought up so differently that communication between them and those now old is, if not next to impossible, at least extremely difficult?

Mary Pipher, Ph.D. definitely thinks so. Another Country: Navigating the Emotional Terrain of Our Elders, the title of her new book, suggests as much. Pipher, a clinical psychologist based in Lincoln, Nebraska, places great emphasis on the cultural changes that have swept over this country in the past century, considering them to have made members of older and younger generations practically foreigners to one another.

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On a bright breezy morning, cheek-by-jowl with noisy Beacon Hill street traffic and busy people on the way to work, it was exhilarating to stand outside the State House interviewing advocates from around the Commonwealth who had come to lobby for health care legislation. Many older men and women animatedly milled about holding signs in favor of single payer health care.

Barbara Ackermann who reads this column in Cambridge, had urged me to come to the rally. Now age 74 and long retired from electoral office, she once served as Cambridge’s first female mayor. These days she uses her sharp political skills to lobby for fundamental change in the health care system.

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Growing up in New York City, the four argued their way through their early manhood. Their chief  rite of passage was passionate discussion of issues, especially the political issues that loomed over the 1930s and 1940s. Classmates at City College, they were sons of Jewish immigrants who were struggling to survive in a turbulent urban environment.

Irving Kristol, Irving Howe, Daniel Bell, and Nathan Glazer are the subjects of a fascinating documentary recently shown on public television and now available on videotape. This film, “Arguing the World,” traces the unforeseen changes that swept over the lives of the four men as the decades moved on. All but Irving Howe are still alive and working in professional fields where they have achieved notable reputations.

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Good news – – I’m going to live to 95.8 years of age! At least that’s what the Life Expectancy Calculator tells me.  Following the suggestion of Harvard researchers, Thomas Perls, M.D. and Margery Silver, Ed.D., I took the test devised by them and can now plan ahead with confidence.

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“We’re around the corner doing a job on a house – we have stuff left over and we’ll do it for free.” That’s the kind of bait used by people who prey on elder citizens, according to Detective Joseph Magee of the Boston Police Department.

The detective called me recently suggesting that I do a column alerting readers to the dangers posed by such scam artists.

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A lot of elder citizens in suburbs west of Boston are stirred up these days about their property taxes. That’s why some one hundred of them turned out for a meeting in the Wayland Town Building two weeks ago to make the case for coming to their assistance. Several of their state legislators were there to listen, along with Senate President Tom Birmingham. That President Birmingham came to Wayland was, by his own admission, a rarity and it underlined the importance of the occasion.

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“Here’s a prize for the student who guesses correctly the year in which I was a fourth-grader in the public schools of this town.” That was my opening gambit on entering a classroom at the Hosmer School in Watertown two weeks ago.

I was there at the invitation of the school, along with various other guests who signed up to read to the students for an hour or so. What a privilege to interest young students in an activity that will be among the most important in their future lives. And what fun as well!

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