“I sat there for five hours. I didn’t think about the arthritis pain. All the physical things that annoy you, the other problems in life totally disappear when you get so involved in learning something and the challenge of doing it.”

This is what Ruth Abrams says about the effects on her of acquiring new knowledge and skills. A 77-year-old Brookline resident, this vibrant woman has  established a fine reputation as a video producer. Her weekly program “ElderVision” has run on Brookline Access Television since 1989 and her documentary “Fabric of Life” has been shown to audiences in many places.

The words quoted above refer to Ruth Abrams’ learning how to use new video equipment, but they apply more widely. Her most recent accomplishment is a new show entitled “Collage and Assemblage” that was on view last month in Watertown. To have seen the exhibit with the artist as guide, as I did, was both an esthetic experience and one that revealed something of what aging can be.

The artist has divided the exhibit into three sections: 1) “biographic;” 2) material flowing from guests who appeared in the documentary “Fabric of Life;” and 3) assorted pieces prompted by her own experience.

The first part, featuring memories of her family members, was the section that had made the most impact on me.

An assemblage devoted to her brother displays programs from the theatrical productions in which he was involved. A photograph shows him as a handsome young man; using the stage name Marnel Sumner, he would act in or help produce many shows of which the most popular was “Man of La Mancha.”

Ruth’s husband, Hyman Finkelstein, fought in World War II and won the Purple Heart. Speaking of this beloved spouse who died in 1996, Ruth says that three words typify him in his lifetime: “gentle and kind and caring.”

“The Gypsy” is the title Ruth Abrams gives to the assemblage centering on her mother. A photo shows her in Europe as a young woman. Later she emigrated to the United States from Lithuania where she had learned fortune telling from the gypsies. Her new country is indicated by a rainbow and a landscape.

The exhibit that features Ruth’s father bears the title “Golden Hands,” a traditional German/Jewish phrase denoting manual skill. This assemblage displays a model of hands that Ruth painted gold along with some of the actual tools that her father used.

This section witnesses to a family legacy rich in memories. One visitor wrote in the guest book of the effect it had on her: “Now I am inspired truly to get busy and create my loving legacy.”

The displays in the second section are too numerous to comment on one by one. The one entitled “Friendship Over a Cup of Tea” impressed me. To quote another guest’s written tribute to the artist, “It seems you look into peoples’ souls and create a picture from within. Beautiful, original, and warm, especially the teapot one – this reminds me of my mother.”

I also liked the one entitled “Marriage – We Have Mellowed’ that shows off Sophie and Ted Simons, aunt and uncle to Ruth Abrams. The lace in the assemblage evokes a marriage that lasted more than sixty years. The spouses attributed much value to their mellowing “that has helped us be not so demanding of one another.”

The third section quietly displays the artist’s imagination at work. She takes three pieces of driftwood, a dry portion of a sponge, a nut for the head, and makes of them Don Quixote. As a lesson in battling stress she shows us butterflies and suggests we learn from them.

In “Gardening” she quotes the Roxbury elder Ed Cooper who looked back over some ninety years and said “One of the greatest things I have learned is how to deal with the good earth.” We see there an old glove that proved Ruth’s most expensive piece. She washed it in the sink only to have the sand clog her drain requiring a plumber to come and unstop it at a cost of 45 dollars.

Written tributes witness to the effect that the artist’s work had on visitors. “Eye-catching, thought provoking, and very cool,” wrote one apparently younger guest. “It has a wonderful simplicity and charm,” wrote another. And, to top it off, a woman enthused: “What a treasure trove you are! So full of creativity, bravado, intelligence and talent! Never stop.”

Ruth herself does not allow her head to be turned by such tributes. In fact, only recently did she dare assume the title of artist. “Until two months ago,” she explains, “I could not let the words come out of my mouth saying ‘I am an artist.’ I’m just beginning to be able to say it.”

But she keeps on learning.  Of her recent show she says: “It gives me this feeling of really accomplishing, .  .   . of all the things I have tried in my life the most fulfilling.”

Richard Griffin

To live long is to be astonished often.

That’s the way I felt about the terrorist attack last week. Of course, I also experienced the other emotions felt by my fellow Americans – pity, fear, horror, indignation, and sorrow. But astonishment that such a thing could really happen dominated my psyche.

The prophet Joel in the Hebrew Bible says, “Your old men shall dream dreams and your young men will see visions.” For drama and vividness, the catastrophic events in New York and Washington go beyond the dreams that I can recall having in later life.

When the life of a man or woman stretches over many years, it bears witness to events that no one would have thought possible. The swift collapse of the Soviet Union, the rapid reunification of the two Germanys, the end of South African apartheid, a man’s dramatic walk on the moon – of these welcome events, most fooled the experts as well as the rest of us.

Of the horrible events –the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Holocaust, the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic, the sudden fall of France in World War II, the Cuban missile crisis – these, too, caught just about everybody by surprise.

Like many others among my age peers. I have given up saying what cannot happen. All of us have been fooled too many times. The human capacity for bringing about massive changes or engineering acts of unimaginable destruction against all odds has made us wary of confident prediction.

I did not imagine it possible to knock down the twin towers of the World Trade Center. It seemed unthinkable that terrorists could highjack four planes on a single morning. The events of that day had to be judged likely material for a Hollywood script, not real life. September 11th was Hollywood turned into awful reality.

The hellish scenes in lower Manhattan as the towers first caught on fire, then burned and imploded will take their place among the searing images of a lifetime, along with such others as the London Blitz, the liberation of the death camps, and the landscape of Hiroshima after the bomb.

The brightness of that cloudless September morning with the fateful jet moving into view, the huge dark billows of cloud, the devastation of the landscape below – these features of that scene will stay engraved on our memories, part of our old men’s dreams, or rather nightmares.

As one introduced early in life to apocalyptic images in the page of the Bible, perhaps I should have been less surprised by encountering them in real life. Stars falling from the sky, mountains toppling, the seas rising, and other catastrophic events as depicted by the biblical writers might have better prepared me for the devastation wrought by terrorists.

But nothing can prepare us for the shock of a person hurtling out of a window a thousand feet above the ground. And to watch firefighters walk toward an inferno from which they will never escape fills one with dread. This real-life apocalypse has an ability to inflict continuing horror.
 
The response that my wife and I made at noontime on that fateful day last week was to walk to our parish church and take part in the Eucharist. This gesture was admittedly an intangible response to crisis but we saw it as a chance to express in community our grief for those who died and suffered injury as well as for those who love them.

By listening to the word of God and taking part in the sacred meal, we also sought strength for ourselves at a time of mortal threat. We needed spiritual reassurance that evil, no matter how devastating, would not ultimately triumph over us all.

We also wanted to pray for our national community and its leaders. Our hope remains that these leaders will not stir up in us the desire for vengeance against our enemies. And, if we ever yield to the temptation of searching for scapegoats among those of certain ethnic origins, this sin could diminish every one of us.

Whatever little wisdom I can find in this crisis focuses on values held dear for a lifetime. The precious quality of family relationships emerges more clearly than ever at a time of so many personal losses. The heroism of New York’s firefighters, police officers, medical personnel and many others, both those who perished and those who have survived, shines out as a summons to hope.

The primacy of the spiritual as a response to the mystery of evil seems to me essential.

Our nation must find some wisdom too at this time of transition toward the unknown. This is the time to cultivate solidarity with other peoples. (We can take heart from the editorial headline in the French newspaper Le Monde last Wednesday, “We are all Americans.”) It is also opportune to renew awareness of the need to share our resources with people living in poverty and wretchedness. And it is now, and always, time to treat one another with compassion.

Richard Griffin

In 1969, two of the Beatles, John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote a song that came to my mind last week. The sad lyric begins like this: “Wednesday morning at five o'clock as the day begins: Silently closing her bedroom door / Leaving the note that she hoped would say more / She goes downstairs to the kitchen clutching her handkerchief / Quietly turning the backdoor key / Stepping outside she is free.”

The Beatles were singing about a girl who was making a painful break with her parents. She feels the pressing need to get away from them and find a freedom that she cannot have in the home where she grew up. The parents themselves are portrayed as uncomprehending because fixated on themselves.

The line which serves as something of a refrain says it best: “She’s leaving home where she lived for so many years alone.”

The reason why this sad ditty came to my mind recently was a leave-taking in my own home. However, you may be relieved to know that the atmosphere of this leaving was entirely different from that of the girl in the song. For one thing, this leave-taking came after so many years of living in a loving relationship with parents. For another, this departure qualified as a natural rite of passage after graduation from college and being hired in a job that means the beginning of a career.

My daughter left home at the right time in her life with the enthusiastic backing of her parents in anticipation of becoming a teacher. Of course, my wife and I felt some separation pangs but we also felt happy for our now grown-up child that she was going out into the world of work prepared for adventure and the opportunity to do some good.

Of course, this kind of leave-taking is one of the oldest stories in the world and you may wonder why it deserves retelling here. Millions of other parents have experienced the welcome departure from home of their children after the latter have come of age. In fact, for most parents with seniority, that event took place long ago. It has become part of ancient history for them.

But for me, a person who does everything later than normal people, this event has happened in my later years. Only after reaching age 73 am I old enough to see my daughter set out on her first job. It has taken me a long lifetime to arrive at this day so significant in the life of our family.

The major milestones of life can have a different resonance depending on the age at which you come to them. For me, going through the departure of my daughter at 73 hardly feels the same as it would have at age 43, for instance. Inevitably, I both experience it differently at the time and have formed a different set of reflections afterward.

My main response to this leavetaking is one of thanksgiving for longevity. When my daughter was born on New Year’s Day in 1980, I began to hope and pray for survival until she grew up. Despite being aware that most American men last until their middle seventies, I was painfully aware that many do not. For her sake and my own I wanted to enjoy good enough health to be around at least for the completion of her schooling.

Of course, I also feel thankful that my daughter’s upbringing was so harmonious. Unlike the girl in the Beatles’ song, she prospered at home, loving her neighborhood and making friends with a great many age peers and others. Despite having all of her schooling in the same zip code, she learned to appreciate the larger world and to face it with confidence.

That this has happened I take as a gift, the best I could have received. And for me to have been well in mind and body all during my only child’s development into a young woman gratifies me more than I can easily express. Clearly it was not my own doing; that’s why I call it a gift. The risky ride of my own growing older has carried me to an important destination.

And yet life remains vulnerable. Another of my reflections on my daughter’s departure abroad is that it could be the last time I see her. The longevity tables makes that quite unlikely; still, the thought has often occurred to me and freighted the event with extra meaning. Unlike most forty-year-old fathers, I know that the diseases associated with later life could do me in at any time.

If these latter reflections seem excessively dour, you should know that they do not depress me but rather add to my appreciation for the gift of life. I do value each day as it comes along and welcome whatever good it holds in store. That includes the day my daughter set out for life on her own.

Richard Griffin

The headlines and the photo on the front page of the Boston Post for May 7, 1937 have stayed fixed in my memory ever since I saw them. I was then a few months short of my ninth birthday and even then an avid reader of the newspaper that employed my father.

Had I been listening to the radio the evening before, I could presumably have heard a man named Herb Morrison announce the arrival of the Hindenburg at Lakehurst, New Jersey. Standing next to his network’s sound truck in the drizzle, he started to describe the mooring of this great German dirigible, just arrived from a flight across the Atlantic.

Clearly he found the sight awesome but his voice is controlled as he tells how the famous airship was hovering “like some great feather.” This it did as some two hundred handlers prepared to attach the Hindenburg to its mooring post.

Then, all of a sudden, he cries out: “It’s terrible, oh my get out of the way, it’s one of the worst catastrophes in the world.” Without warning the giant ship had burst into flames that were engulfing its entire structure, shooting four or five hundred feet in the air and endangering all the bystanders assembled for its arrival.

Listening to Herb Morrison on the recording, I find it difficult to discern all of his words, so caught up with emotion was he. As he realized what was happening to people around him, he actually began to weep. The broadcast’s original listeners would have had trouble developing a coherent notion of what was happening.

I have been listening to this dramatic spoken history on one of three phonograph records in the Columbia Masterworks album entitled “I Can Hear It Now.” This album was purchased by a member of my family decades ago. I play it on a venerable turntable that still gives good service and vinyl records that have preserved remarkable sound fidelity over so many years.

The segment on the Hindenburg disaster is only one among dozens of events and personalities, with words spoken by the central figures or by  eyewitnesses. Inside the album are comments written by Edward R. Murrow, Fred W. Friendly, and J. G. Gude. These producers say of the era from which I have culled a single incident “The thirteen years from the beginning of 1933 to the end of 1945 was an era for ear. The first and perhaps the last.”

With no little exuberance, they also call those thirteen years “perhaps the most fateful and exciting years in all the recorded story of civilization.” For people of my certain age, the events recorded here stir a rich collection of memories that have played a part in the development of our psyches.

Another of the bands on the record is entitled “Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returns from Munich and tells of his meeting with Hitler.” And a New York Philharmonic broadcast is interrupted for an announcement of the devastating Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. This latter announcement I myself heard by reason of having been banished to my room by my parents for bad behavior.

Harry Truman’s first speech to Congress in April of 1945 is included, a speech that produced a rash judgment from me. Not without regional prejudice, I remember feeling that this man from Missouri sounded like someone too unpolished for the job of president.

Another entry, this for August 6, 1945, still provokes in me disturbing thoughts about religion, warfare, and the dropping of the atomic bomb. “Chaplain William Downey, U. S. Army Air Forces, says a prayer at Tinian before takeoff of the Enola Gay, which carried the first atomic bomb used in warfare.”

Sprinkled among these events, some of them literally earth-shaking, are others that simply give the flavor of the times. The Yankee Stadium heavyweight bout between Max Schmeling and Joe Louis suggests the part that championship boxing then played in national life. And Mayor Fiorello La Guardia reading the comic strips to children during the New York City newspaper delivery strike of 1945 provides comic relief.

For fear this all seem mere nostalgia, it bears repeating that the events and personalities recalled here form part of who we are as a people.

To a greater or lesser extent, these happenings were shared by all of us alive then. And for those who have come long after, the material transcribed into “I Can Hear It Now” has some place in their heritage also. Our society was shaped by what you can hear on these records and it was affected by the people, good and bad, who figured in the events.

Listening to the story of the Hindenburg disaster also brings me back to my boyhood with its still unknown potential. Soon, the events of World War II would fill my imagination and made me feel part of a cause much larger than myself.

Richard Griffin