“We represent a phenomenon that never existed before,” says Mary Catherine Bateson of herself and her age peers. She has been interviewing a lot of them and they tell her: “I don’t feel like someone who’s 60, or 70, or 80.”

This she explains by observing that “we all carry the mental picture of our own grandparents, what they were like when we were children.” But they lived in a different world and they aged differently.

Author, educator, and cultural anthropologist, Catherine Bateson sees today’s older people as “something new.” Not only do more of us live longer but we live in an era of radical change.

This change has not merely altered technology and introduced new material objects such as emails, cell phones, and i-Pods. More profoundly, our generation has had to change attitudes on basic human realities─relationships between men and women, attitudes toward sexuality and gender, views about race and the environment.

Our era also has made it possible to bring together two realities that often used to be in conflict: wisdom and activity. Many older people are now volunteering, taking courses, traveling, and eloping (the latter much to the surprise of their children and others.)

As for wisdom, it’s the one word about aging that most of us like, observes Catherine Bateson. And we like to think it comes almost automatically with age.

It used to. Viewing the past with and anthropologist’s eye, she observes that in older traditional societies people knew the rules, and by age 40 they could prove useful by providing memories that were important to the community.

However, she points out, it no longer happens this way. What brings wisdom nowadays is not mere experience or length of years; if you wish to become wise, you have to take your experience and reflect on it

This means valuing a “kind of learning that takes place outside of the classroom. Something happens, delights you, scares you, tweaks your curiosity. That’s what wisdom consists in: not just years, but years of experience.”

When you combine the two, activity and wisdom, you produce something of which the world stands in sore need.

Our new longevity has extended the life span of families. Formerly, children were lucky to see one grandparent, more often than not a grandmother.

But now, Catherine, observing the structure of the extended family, says, “I’ve known kids with seven or eight grandparents: the grands, the great-grands, the ex-grands, the step-grands, and the grands-in-law.”

“They have enough grandparents to choose from,” she adds, “so a bit from this one and a bit from that one and they get their full share of grandparental love.”

Another new phenomenon has given children great-aunts and great-uncles who, by virtue of good health and mobility, display a vitality that used to be rare.

But Bateson sees most of us as still “stuck in an old imagination.” This prevents us from claiming the influence we could have in society.

As for politicians, “they are dead wrong: in thinking that just because a person is 60 or 70 or 80 they don’t care about the future.” Social Security, prescription drugs, and other such issues are by no means the only ones that interest us. We should be confronting the politicians more broadly and telling them “What you’re doing is going to make the world worse for my grandchild.”

Many Americans who are in early or middle adulthood typically do not have time for the future. In Bateson’s view, they tend be “incredibly busy and they have fewer assets than they thought they’d have, they are really scraping economically.”

This is where older people can be of help and also help themselves in the process. “The world is full of parents, couples working two jobs who would be grateful to have an honorary aunt or uncle or grandparent tactfully involved,” Catherine suggests.

She feels strongly about intergenerational bonding, as do I. “If you don’t have a child in your life, get one,” she advises us elders quite bluntly.

To the excuse of persons who say they cannot establish such contacts, Bateson sees volunteer activity with organizations as a helpful way of getting in touch with younger people. So are joining organizations, taking courses, going to church.

You might also reach out to the grandchildren of friends who live far away, perhaps inviting them to eat with you. Ours is a society that indulges in segregation by age and thus squanders opportunity and sets limits to what we can do to change things for the better.

Bateson believes strongly in the value of volunteering. She does so not merely because it helps to build up society and improve our communities.

She also considers volunteer activity important to individual development. That is why she urges those involved to “use your volunteer work as a way of framing and reflecting on what it means to be wise and active, both at the same time.”

Richard Griffin

Thomas Perls, M.D., a prominent geriatrician at Harvard Medical School, calls it “huck-sterism.” Of its practitioners he says, “I think they do our field and our society a great deal of harm. I think they’re very dangerous.”

With these scathing comments, Perls takes aim at the anti-aging industry. His par-ticular target is people with M.D.s after their names who go around selling the idea that aging can and should be stopped.

These purveyors of the anti-aging gospel belong to a larger American industry that reaps billions of dollars from its products and services. Dubious drugs, ill-advised plastic surgery, food fads, new spiritualities, diet regimens, and many other gimmicks conspire to persuade Americans that they can put a stop to aging, at least for a while.

The hidden assumption of doctors who practice “anti-aging medicine” is that aging is a disease. They would like everyone to think that aging is something bad.

Ronald Klatz and Robert Goldman, the two founders of the Chicago-based American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, are, in their own words “at the center of it all.” They are not shy in their claims: Klatz has told an interviewer from Penthouse, “Within 30 years we will have a shot at immortality.”

Last October I talked with Bob Goldman whose medical degree caught my attention: it comes from the Central American Health Services University, Belize Medical College.

In his talk at the Harvard School of Education, Goldman delivered his message with great personal pizzaz. “Aging is not inevitable,” he asserted. “If we don’t solve the aging process, we are going bankrupt, we will become a nation of nursing homes.”

If there is any single danger for Americans now, he stated, it is the water most of us drink. “Tap water is poison,” Goldman claims. Instead, we should all be drinking distilled water. It is hard to believe anyone would say this, but Goldman asserted that brain loss, Alzheimer’s disease, and other such bad things happen because of tap water.

You have to wonder about anyone who proclaims, “there is nothing graceful about grow-ing old.” When he asked members of the audience, “Who would like to live to be 150?” more than a few hands went up. Not mine!

According to Goldman, anti-aging medicine is the coming thing. Of himself and his col-leagues, he says, “we’re practicing the way everyone will in the future.” He expects that “surgical de-aging” will become routine along with replacement of body parts.

Following our meeting, Goldman sent me two of his books, co-authored by Ronald Klatz. The first “Stopping the Clock,” presents “dramatic breakthroughs in anti-aging and rejuvenation techniques.” Goldman does not practice the soft sell: here he shares with readers “why many of us will live past 100 – and enjoy every minute!”

The second, “7 Aging Secrets for Optimal Digestion and Scientific Weight Loss,” among other things teaches readers how to “detox your inner core and shed unwanted pounds in the process.” On page four, incidentally, the authors treat seriously reports that a Chinese man, Li Ching-Yun, was born in 1677 and died in 1933!

As must be evident, I find this doctrine intellectually shoddy and socially harmful. To me, it’s a kind of propaganda that serves the interests of big money rather than the common good. It is unscrupulous to prey on people’s fears about change.

Yet, it enjoys amazing respectability in American society. In his publicity materials, Goldman displays a photo showing him a as a member of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. International conferences, medical textbooks, and contacts with Capital Hill, all help raise the profile of the cause.

The anti-aging folks throw around impressive names as endorses. These people know how to wield the media in order to convince the public of their professional prestige.

Yet, they are peddling a doctrine that is noxious. Certain kinds of anti-aging ideas are basically anti-human. It sounds almost banal to say so, but growing old is a fundamental human experience that brings with it rich rewards as well as trials. To try and do away with this expe-rience means twisting out of shape what it means to be a human being.

Of course, I favor measures that have proven themselves by increasing our chances of living longer well. It remains scandalous that only an estimated 10 percent of Americans over age 65 do any significant exercise. And too many of us continue to eat junk food. For our own self-respect we need to take better care of ourselves, physically, mentally, and spiritually.

But that does not mean buying into quick-fix, unreliable, and often downright dangerous schemes that promise what no one can actually deliver. As baby boomers advance in age, it’s only going to get worse. More hucksters will appear ready to promise us youth and happiness.

Richard Griffin

Father Robert Bullock was a friend of mine for 61 years. Starting as high school classmates in 1943, we stayed close until his death in 2004. For the gift of such a friendship I continue to feel grateful.

My vantage point gave me abundant chances to appreciate Bob’s fine personal qualities. From early on, I valued the traits of character that made him easy to be with and that produced good work and good works.

But, though I esteemed him from the beginning, I confess having underestimated his potential for both intellectual development and spiritual leadership. With time, I came to see that his talents in both these areas were outstanding.

It delights me to see how many other people recognize those characteristics, and love Bob for who he was and for all that he accomplished in his ministry as a university chaplain and parish priest.

They also continue to hold him in high esteem for his insight into one of the most crucial issues of our time. As Rabbi Irving Greenberg has said of Father Bullock: “He was our mentor and role model because he understood what is demanded of us when you face an event of such evil.”  

As a prime mover in the agency Facing History and Ourselves, Bob helped create a vital bond between the Catholic Church and the Jewish community.

Over the last 30 years, the Brookline-based  Facing History has become national and international in scope as it works to teach young people and others the awe-full lessons of the Holocaust. Two and a half years after his death, Father Bullock continues to be acclaimed for his part in promoting understanding of what the horror of those event means for everyone.

The occasion for this renewed focus on my friend is a recent commemoration of his life and work held at Boston College, his alma mater. Presented in the Burns Library, this celebration marked the first display of his archive. The collection includes his sermons, letters, photos, and other memorabilia that help document Bob’s career.

I take pleasure in seeing how the university where my friend did his undergraduate studies has recognized the value of his personal stature and his accomplishments. The collection housed in the library, now being prepared for eventual showing to the public, will preserve a record of his legacy for the indefinite future.

In the program prepared for this event, Father Bullock is quoted for the value he set on wisdom. “It (education) talks about trying to acquire wisdom─not just knowledge,” he said, “but the intelligent application of knowledge, to try to see below the surface of things, to try to achieve the moral balance.”

That quest for wisdom, for seeing below the surface and achieving moral balance, expresses one of my friend’s central themes. That is why he read so avidly and explored these themes in conversation with friends and those who specialized in the study of history.

From 1978 to 2004, Father Bullock was pastor of Our Lady of Sorrows parish in Sharon, Massachusetts. There he ministered to the Catholics of the town and reached out to the Jewish residents, becoming personally known and a friend to many of them.

His ties with the Jewish community enabled him to continue the work he had begun during his time as chaplain at Brandeis University. During the turbulent 1970s, he had served the Catholic community of Brandeis while developing a deeper understanding of the Catholic Church’s treatment of Jews and holding his own church to account.

During this same period, Bob was also director of campus ministry for the Archdiocese of Boston. In this capacity he helped many, including me, to carry out their ministry in the midst of continued turmoil in church and academia. He managed to stay cool in the storms that whirled about us in those troubled (but also dynamic) times.

Starting in the middle 1970s, he served Facing History as its prime Catholic figure, working to bring about deeper understanding of the church’s historical role and trying to reverse the lethal prejudices that had brought about such unspeakable harm to the Jewish community in Europe.

Many of us older people think, at least sometimes, about the legacy we will leave behind. My friend Bob’s life serves as a model of one that clearly made a difference and will endure.

Few of us, perhaps, will have made the same impact on our larger society as he did. But inevitably we too will have had our own distinctive impact.

We all have the capacity to make a difference. Figuring out the best ways can prove a fine agenda for one’s later years.

What may count most in the long run is our character. The capacity to be our best selves, being courageous and, most of all, compassionate toward others, makes us important, no matter how the world may ignore us.

My friend Bob was a person of character, and this explains best why so many people continue to honor him after his death.

Richard Griffin

This past year, Walter Sobel received official notification of his promotion to the rank of lieutenant. The notice came 60 years after this U.S. Navy veteran would have received it had he not been in Great Lakes Hospital recovering from wounds. If we may attach a further meaning to the word “senior,” this is indeed a Lieutenant of the Senior Grade.

He also belatedly received the Purple Heart and seven other medals commemorating the campaigns that he went through on the battleship New Mexico.

Along with others who served on this ship, Walter Sobel took part in the 49th annual reunion of his shipmates, as they met in St. Louis this fall. On Jan. 6, 1945, during the battle of Lingayen Gulf, he was on the New Mexico's bridge when a Japanese Kamikaze pilot crashed into the area where he was standing.

As Officer of the Deck for General Quarters, Walter had been standing near the captain of the ship, Robert Fleming. The latter was killed, as were 30 others, including two British officers on board as observers. Walter himself was hit in the head by shrapnel, bled profusely and was carried unconscious down seven flights to the sick bay.

Later, he was transported to a hospital ship and ultimately back to the United States. The New Mexico, having managed to withstand the Lingayen Gulf attack, took part in several further actions, including the invasion of Okinawa, and finally sailed into Tokyo Bay for the Japanese surrender.

At the reunion, Walter learned that the New Mexico had been especially targeted because it was the flagship of the American fleet and was carrying high-ranking officers. In fact, the Japanese radio propagandist, Tokyo Rose, as she was called, announced on the day before the attack that this ship would be singled out as principal target.

Lucky in his survival of the attack, Walter also proved lucky at the reunion. In a raffle of memorabilia, he took chances and won both a larger and a smaller model of the ship on which he had served. The larger one, some 15 inches long, will have an honored place in his home.

After the war, this veteran of the Pacific campaign resumed his career as an architect. Based in Chicago, he has been highly successful in his field, a fact recognized by his being named a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. He also continues to teach at the Illinois Institute of Technology and, in his 90s, remains active in professional affairs.

My source for much of this information is Richard Sobel, Walter's son. He accompanied his father to the reunion and was struck by the spirit of the old veterans there. Looking back on the traumatic events of 61 years ago, they feel proud of their part in the Allied victory over a determined and often fanatical enemy.

Four years ago, in honor of Veterans Day 2002, I wrote a column about Walter and his English friend, Geoffrey Brooke, the latter a hero of the British Navy. Among other exploits, Geoffrey survived the sinking of the battleship Prince of Wales.

As that ship was sinking, he rappelled his way by rope across the oil-dark sea to a British destroyer standing alongside. Shortly after he reached the safety of this ship, the captain had to give the command to cut the rope because of the danger to the destroyer.

A transoceanic friendship between Geoffrey and Walter has continued, though they have met only once, when I had the privilege of talking with them.

Asked about his survival, Walter now says: “The Lord was watching out for me, that's all you can say.” As to remembering the experience itself, after so many decades, he says: “It's indelible. It makes such an imprint on your memory that you can't forget.”

About age, Walter shows himself guarded. The birthday he celebrated last July he takes as the anniversary of his 39th. Of his fellow veterans at the reunion he observes: “They didn't seem old except for my former roommate. In general, they showed their age, except for a few. I have to use a walker, and that's a bummer.”

This one veteran, energized in old age, shows forth the spirit that animated so many members of the armed forces in World War II. Though I distrust the modish phrase “The Greatest Generation,” I admire the qualities of heart shown by a great many of that war's veterans. An extraordinary number of them demonstrated the personal qualities of courage and resourcefulness that still bring credit to this nation.

Virginia Woolf once wrote: “The present when backed by the past is a thousand times deeper.” That truth may well apply to this veteran of war and long living. As I understand it, his life continues to be made psychically rich by memories of experiences both hazardous and dramatic.

Walter Sobel does not live simply for these moments long ago but he does appear to draw from them material that help make his current life, itself not without trials, rewarding.

Richard Griffin

This past year, Walter Sobel received official notification of his promotion to the rank of Lieutenant. The notice came 60 years after this U.S. Navy veteran would have received it had he not been in Great Lakes Hospital recovering from wounds. If we may attach a further meaning to the word senior, this is indeed a Lieutenant of the Senior Grade.

He also belatedly received the Purple Heart and seven other medals commemorating the campaigns that he went through on the battleship New Mexico.

Along with others who served on this ship, Walter Sobel took part in the 49th annual reunion of his shipmates, as they met in St. Louis this fall. On January 6, 1945 during the battle of Lingayen Gulf, he was on the New Mexico’s bridge when a Japanese Kamikaze pilot crashed into the area where he was standing.

As Officer of the Deck for General Quarters, Walter had been standing near the captain of the ship, Robert Fleming. The latter was killed, as were 30 others including two British officers on board as observers. Walter himself was hit in the head by shrapnel, bled profusely, and was carried unconscious down seven flights to the sick bay.

Later he was transported to a hospital ship and ultimately back to the United States. The New Mexico, having managed to withstand the Lingayen Gulf attack, took part in several further actions, including the invasion of Okinawa, and finally sailed into Tokyo Bay for the Japanese surrender.

At the reunion, Walter learned that the New Mexico had been especially targeted because it was the flagship of the American fleet and was carrying high-ranking officers. In fact, the Japanese radio propagandist, Tokyo Rose, as she was called, announced on the day before the attack that this ship would be singled out as principal target.

Lucky in his survival of the attack, Walter also proved lucky at the reunion. In a raffle of memorabilia, he took chances and won both a larger and a smaller model of the ship on which he had served. The larger one, some 15 inches long, will have an honored place in his home.

After the war, this veteran of the Pacific campaign resumed his career as architect. Based in Chicago, he has been highly successful in his field, a fact recognized by his being named a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. He also continues to teach at the Illinois Institute of Technology and, in his 90s, remains active in professional affairs.

My source for much of this information is Richard Sobel, Walter’s son. He accompanied his father to the reunion and was struck by the spirit of the old veterans there. Looking back on the traumatic events of 61 years ago they feel proud of their part in the Allied victory over a determined and often fanatical enemy.

Four years ago, in honor of Veterans Day 2002, I wrote a column about Walter and his English friend Geoffrey Brooke, the latter a hero of the British Navy. Among other exploits, Geoffrey survived the sinking of the battleship Prince of Wales.

As that ship was sinking, he rappelled his way by rope across the oil-dark sea to a British destroyer standing alongside. Shortly after he reached the safety of this ship, the captain had to give the command to cut the rope because of the danger to the destroyer.

A transoceanic friendship between Geoffrey and Walter has continued, though they have met only once, when I had the privilege of talking with them.

Asked about his survival, Walter now says: “The Lord was watching out for me, that’s all you can say.” As to remembering the experience itself, after so many decades, he says: “It’s indelible. It makes such an imprint on your memory that you can’t forget.”

About age, Walter shows himself guarded. The birthday he celebrated last July he takes as the anniversary of his 39th. Of his fellow veterans at the reunion he observes: “They didn’t seem old except for my former roommate. In general, they showed their age, except for a few. I have to use a walker and that’s a bummer.”

This one veteran, energized in old age, shows forth the spirit that animated so many members of the armed forces in World War II. Though I distrust the modish phrase “The Greatest Generation,” I admire the qualities of heart shown by a great many of that war’s veterans. An extraordinary number of them demonstrated the personal qualities of courage and resourcefulness that still bring credit to this nation.

Virginia Woolf once wrote: “The present when backed by the past is a thousand times deeper.” That truth may well apply to this veteran of war and long living. As I understand it, his life continues to be made psychically rich by memories of experiences both hazardous and dramatic.

Walter Sobel does not live simply for these moments long ago but he does appear to draw from them material that help make his current life, itself not without trials, rewarding.

Richard Griffin

According to family lore at least, my father wanted to buy a newspaper. After having been first a reporter and then Sunday Editor for many years at the old Boston Post, he would have liked to become owner of a daily or weekly outside the city.

For various reasons, it did not happen; in the last year of his life my father became editor-in-chief of the Post but he never closed a deal to become a publisher elsewhere.

Maybe the power of paternal genes accounts for my interest in publishing. How else can one explain what drove me, 16 years ago, to start a publication for my neighbors? Realists would call this rag a newsletter; however, with grandiose vision, I like to think of it as my very own newspaper.

Admittedly, it does not rival the New York Times, nor can it claim the scope of the paper you are reading now. Instead, my work features homey news provided, in large part, by neighbors themselves.

Known as The Howl, this publication takes its name from the 10-house Howland Street where I live. This name also echoes distantly the Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, whose epic “Howl” swept the country in 1955-1956. To me, the title suggests that  readers will cry out either with delight or horror, or a mixture of the two.   

The trouble with being sole proprietor of a publication, I have discovered, is the need to take on all the jobs oneself. To serve as editor, reporter, photographer, copy boy, printer and deliverer, among other roles, often proves burdensome. I have tried to lure neighbors into exercising some of these prestigious positions, but have found no takers so far.

But these same neighbors often contribute fine editorial material. Five-year-old Peter, for instance, sent us a three-line poem about a snail and adorned this verse with a fanciful drawing of several snails emerging from the grass.

And Jim, 40 years older than Peter, contributed a fascinating account of a vacation in Peru with his son. The accompanying photo of Machu Picchu was awesome.

I tell neighbors of my intention to dig up dirt about them, but this lighthearted threat serves only to push them to take the initiative with their news. Occasionally, professional writers among the neighbors have contributed to The Howl but, for the most part, we rely on amateurs.

And neighbors have been generous in sharing their expertise in desktop publishing. The most recent issue featured, for the first time, the capacity to deliver the paper by email. This enabled some readers to see photos in living color, an amenity that has added much to the pleasure of perusing The Howl.

If, in the pursuit of self-knowledge you crave experience of your fallibility, I strongly recommend starting your own publication. The effort to avoid mistakes entails constant and depressing struggle. Pain and embarrassment frequently result from what now seem to me inevitable slips.

In the October issue, I managed to confuse the name of my next-door neighbor─who is a good friend, and whom I have known for decades─with that of a television personality. She has, I think, forgiven me.

Another neighbor, though, wrote me a stinging letter denouncing me and all my works. She demanded, and received, the cancellation of her non-existent subscription.

Many years ago, a neighbor who is a highly successful realtor credited The Howl with increasing property values in our neighborhood. In fact, we have observed at least one other professional in the house-selling field providing a copy of the publication for his customers to peruse.

But this publisher’s purpose does not center on economic considerations. Instead, my driving force has always been to build neighborhood solidarity. Sharing news and experience among those who live in the same area strikes me as conducive to good relationships. It is one way of fostering cohesion in groups of people who differ from one another in many ways.

This purpose can make perhaps make The Howl seem like a paper that Don Quixote might have published. And, in pursuit of my idealistic goal, I am prepared to fight windmills, the way Cervantes’s hero did. However, I can supply some evidence that the main aspirations behind The Howl have found at least modest fulfillment.

I will soon be sending forth ethereal words (via email) announcing the annual holiday issue. If I can persuade the writer closest to my heart to compose her often-annual poetic tribute to neighbors, I will feel myself off to a top-flight start. Ideally, adult neighbors with literary ambitions will contribute stylish essays. And maybe local urchins will report with gusto on Halloween and other fall activities.

In any event, my dreams of exercising freedom of the press will continue to be fulfilled. Using the computer as a successor to Gutenberg’s printing press, I fantasize myself a publishing tycoon.

Surely, my father would have approved.

Richard Griffin

“Rules for Old Men Waiting” does not meet my standards for a felicitous book title.  Almost every word carries connotations that many browsers will take as off-putting.

First, who will get excited about rules? They bring back images of classroom discipline or, perhaps, military demands.

And does anyone want to read about aging? People in the publishing business will tell you that the word “old” is toxic.

Thirdly, “waiting” suggests passivity, something no true-blue American wants to be accused of, especially when the waiting is for death.

Despite this handicap, however, the book turns out to be well worth reading. It took Peter Pouncey, its author, 23 years to write it. Getting the book published when, as he says, he was “two thirds of a century old,” counts as a notable achievement for this late-blooming novelist. His academic duties, first as dean of Columbia University and then president of Amherst College, delayed the birth of this work.

“Rules” features a novel within a novel, a tricky device for a writer to pull off. Its chief story, in the inner framework, is a grimy and suspenseful tale of British soldiers in the trenches of World War I. A rich diversity of character among the troops looms large in this account of deadly conflict within their ranks.

But I find myself most taken by what the narrator tells us about a man’s life in its later stages. I zeroed in on the way Pouncey’s chief character, MacIver, manages his physical decline. He does so in large part by formulating the set of rules referred to in the title.

The man has lost his beloved wife and now faces life alone in the rustic Cape Cod cottage where they had chosen to retire. Margaret was a beautiful person and MacIver desperately misses her. Her loss followed the death of their only son in the Vietnam War, years before, when MacIver and his wife were still in middle age.

The old man feels himself slipping into the abyss of isolation and, even worse, self-neglect. Soon he realizes that he must do something to arrest this frightening descent. That is what moves him to formulate a set of rules for his daily effort to regain hold of himself.

Here is his seven-point agenda:

1. Keep personally clean;
2. Make bed every morning, and clean house twice a week;
3. Dress warmly, and light fire when necessary, burning least important things first;
4. Eat regularly;
5. Play music and read;
6. Television only in the evening, except for weekend and seasonal showdown sports;
7. Work every morning. Nap in the afternoon if needed.

This agenda speaks to me. In fact, I implement most of it myself by long ingrained habit. However, I do not clean the house at all, much less twice a week. That seems to me excessive, though, perhaps for MacIver it serves as a kind of therapy.

Nor do I light fires or burn. But that practice would help reduce the rubble of paper in my office to manageable proportions.

Yes to television, under exactly the same conditions the man sets for himself.  How would I ever have deprived myself, this season, of the late-game heroics of Big Papi and his Red Sox compadres? And without watching the news on public TV, I would find world and national events much less vibrant.

The virtues of naps, taken in moderation, prove hard to exaggerate. A half-hour’s sleep, in the afternoon slump time, counts for me as a sovereign remedy for the trials of soul and body.

Surely the most glaring omission in the list is contact with other people. Like the rest of us, MacIver badly needs to be in touch with others who can relate to him.

Of course, physical exercise deserves explicit mention as well; MacIver’s making the bed and cleaning the house provide some muscular exertion but these activities fall far short of the mark.

Not everyone desires to follow MacIver’s agenda, of course, and many could not do so. Many of my age peers have developed other schemes that work well for them. They may include prayer, for example, an activity (or passivity) that rates no mention in MacIver’s list.

This fictional person, however, does write, a pursuit that often seems to me an extension of prayer. Writing factual material or fiction can be taken as a service to others, at least if they have the opportunity to read your stuff.

Spiritual exercise is an important component of a well-rounded daily schedule, it seems to me. Contemplation adds a vital element to later life, one too little noticed by the seers who discourse about aging.

As chapter one concludes, MacIver has fined-tuned three of his rules further and winds up with ten. “On the whole,” the author writes of his protagonist, “he felt he had brought some order to his abject life. These were tough, good rules─tough but fair.”

Richard Griffin