At the beginning of the late-morning class at the Hosmer School in Watertown, I offered a prize to the fourth grader enterprising enough to guess the year in which I myself began fourth grade at the Phillips School in Watertown. One of the boys immediately suggested the year 1776. That kid seems either an inspired comic on his way to Hollywood, or thoroughly confused about history.

Surprisingly, it took only a few more guesses by the children before a smart girl came up with the correct answer – – 1938, the year of the great New England hurricane. Another sophisticated youngster was able to supply the answer to my next question: What great world event followed in 1939?

My agenda for the class was to read and discuss some poems. Because I do not believe in talking down to young people, I chose some of the best contemporary poets in America who write for adults.

The first was the poem “The Promotion” which appeared in a recent New Yorker magazine. Written by James Tate, it begins “I was a dog in my former life, a very good dog, and, thus, I was promoted to a human being.”

The poet goes on for 20 or so lines to explain why he much liked being a dog, how good his life was tending the sheep, and how well the farmer and his children treated him. Eventually, however, the dog retired and died, bringing to an end an idyllic life.

Now life is not nearly so rewarding. The narrator lives in a high rise, works in a cubicle, and excites no fear from the human wolves he encounters. Sadly, he reflects, “This is my reward for being a good dog.”

In the course of discussion, the students came to see the point of the poem. A second reading, during which they remained attentive, clinched its punch for them. Some began to catch the irony in the title: what kind of promotion was it to live that kind of human life?

Then I introduced them to the current poet laureate of the United States, Billy Collins. This gracious 60-year-old has charmed America with his personality and his now wildly popular poetry. Unlike so many other poets of our era, Collins writes accessibly. His work can be understood on various levels, and, I discovered, by children.

The first poem by Collins that I chose was “Walking Across the Atlantic.” The narrator shares his feelings as he steps on the waves, looks for whales and waterspouts, and heads toward Spain. His concluding line is memorably playful: “But for now I try to imagine what this must look like to the fish below the bottoms of my feet appearing, disappearing.”

A second Collins poem I read is longer and more complicated. But “Afternoon with Irish Cows,” found in a recent New York Review of Books, also held the children and drew from them perceptive responses. Incidentally, only two of the kids had never seen a real live cow, proof that most of them have traveled outside Watertown.

The main action of the narrative is one cow’s thunderous roar, a sound that makes the poet put down what he is doing and go out to investigate. He discovered that the cow was “only announcing the large, unadulterated cowness of herself.” My auditors found this a difficult idea, of course, but it made them think.

I concluded the class with a brief poem, “My Goal,” written by my friend, the fine poet Robert K. Johnson, a resident of Needham. “My goal,” he tells, “is to write a poem whose form/disappears in the content like sugar in hot coffee; and whose content rivets the reader/the way footsteps in the next room/grip someone who had thought/he was in the house alone.”

Deliberately I thus left to the end discussion about what poetry is. My instinct was to raise this question only after we had studied individual poems. Then we could more profitably explore together what my friend writes about his aspirations as a poet.

A short time remained for student questions. A girl asked whether I wrote poetry myself. She and several others showed themselves disappointed in hearing that I do not. Pressed for a reason, I shared with them my feelings about lacking sufficient imagination to write well in that form. Yes, I had done so as an exercise when I was a student but did not then consider the product promising.

These kids, however, seemed to consider my answer a cop-out; they want me to try. This should serve as warning for readers of future columns in which I may, without provocation, burst into flights of poetry.

Being in that classroom was a rich experience. I came away from the hour spent with children once more reassured: yes, 73 can talk to 10; and 10 can talk to 73.

Richard Griffin

On lectures and sermons, I consider myself to have long ago overdosed. Hardly anyone alive can have listened to more of them than I.  

By reason of an unusually prolonged course of seminary studies, followed by extended association with a university, I have logged many more hours in lecture halls than was good for my brain. Because of a lifetime of church going, I have heard more sermons than could ever have benefited my soul.

One solid benefit of this overload, however, is that I have become a connoisseur of the spoken word. I know a good lecture when I hear one; I resonate to a good sermon when it happens.

Of course, I also quickly recognize the earmarks of bad speech. The professor skilled in dullness, disorganization, and mumbling, among other talents, always causes me pain. The preacher who has no more idea than his listeners do of where or when his sermon is going to end afflicts my spirit.

Perhaps this personal background helps explain my heartfelt enthusiasm when I come upon effective spoken language. Last week, I heard a lecture that stirred me to admiration. It had everything I love in public discourse: scope, insight, wit, sophistication, provocation, and moderate length. I felt myself to be hearing a master of the form, a person who could correct and enlarge my thinking and inspire me to further investigation of his subject.

The speaker was Bernard Lewis, professor emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton, and, before that, professor at the University of London. His writings on the Middle East have attracted wide attention; his most recent book, “What Went Wrong,” has become a best seller. It provides a fascinating account of the historical reasons for the current low ebb of predominately Islamic countries.

Now 85, Professor Lewis brings to his lecturing long experience with original research, familiarity with the countries he talks about, and mastery of other languages. Not everyone agrees with his views, I have discovered, but even his critics must admit his competence.

At the beginning Lewis set forth a simple agenda – – to refine the terms used in the lecture’s title, “The Middle East, Democracy, and Religion.”

The Middle East, he informed us, is a misnomer. He calls it a “shapeless, colorless, meaningless expression,” now used almost everywhere, even within the region itself. Incongruously, residents of the countries included use it without being aware that its geographical reference point is Western Europe.

Speaking about forms of government, Professor Lewis regrets the common Western assumption that there are basically only two –  –  democracy, and everything else. He considers this a great mistake because, among other things, it ignores the vast differences between traditional autocracies and dictatorships.

Whatever their faults, states such as Saudi Arabia respect some freedoms, whereas Iraq and Syria exhibit ruthless tyranny. The latter have implemented the only Western model successfully transplanted to the Middle East – Fascism.

In the theocracy that currently reigns in Iran, Lewis discerns a functional Christianization of traditionally non-clerical Islam: “They have created a papacy, college of cardinals, a bench of bishops, and above all, an Inquisition.”

This venerable professor shows himself skeptical about democracy as a model for all countries. “What we call democracy,” he says, “might more accurately be described as the parochial habits of the English-speaking people that they devise for the conduct of their affairs.”

He goes on to assert, “I do not share the prevailing view that democracy, thus defined, is the natural condition of mankind, any deviation from which is either a crime to be punished or a disease to be cured.”

One has to be wary: the effect of Westernization, he claims, has been not to decrease but to increase autocracy. And, too often, modernization has turned despots into dictators.

In the last part of his talk, Lewis raised the question of the compatibility between religion and democracy. By contrast with recent Christianity, Islam from the beginning has retained its identification with the state. “Mohammed was his own Constantine,” says Lewis. The Turkish form of secularization, separating religion and government, is a model foreign to the other Muslim countries.

About Islamic attitudes toward the United States, Lewis sees three groups of countries: 1) those which have regimes supportive of the U.S. but a population against us (Saudi Arabia); 2) those where regimes are against us and the people are for us (Iran); 3) places where both favor the U. S., (Turkey and Israel).

There is indeed a mood of great anger among many Muslims. They face a crucial choice. Some want to go back to what they conceive of as “true Islam;”

Others recognize their inferior place in the world and want to modernize. Their decisions will have a decisive influence on the world at large.

These brief references to a memorable lecture cannot convey the brilliance of the whole. However, this account may serve to vindicate once more the pleasures of the spoken word when it is graced with learning and matured judgment.

Richard Griffin

“How do you feel about getting old?” asked Ed Bradley, one of the announcers on the CBS show “Sixty Minutes.” The person he was interviewing, Judi Dench, answered in one word: “Awful.”  Then she added, “There is nothing good to be said about getting old.”

When Ed Bradley responded with a cliché, “It’s better than the alternative,” his guest smiled wanly and grudgingly agreed, “well, yes.”

Dame Judi Dench, a diminutive 67-year old British actress, has loomed large in notable films of late. She has played both Queen Victoria, in “Mrs. Brown,” and Queen Elizabeth I in “Shakespeare in Love.” More recently, she has scored a big success in “Iris,” taking the title role of Iris Murdoch, the British novelist who died in 2000. This latter performance has earned her a nomination for the Academy Award as best actress and, by the time this column appears, she may have won the award itself.

Despite this dazzling success, Judi Dench expresses anxiety about her future as an actress. She told Bradley how hard it is for women to get offered desirable roles after a certain age. Approaching 70, she can see herself coming to the end of her career, presumably long before the end of her life.

Perhaps she feels other fears, these provoked by playing Iris Murdoch on screen. In that role, she portrayed memorably a woman who, in her last years, was afflicted by Alzheimer’s Disease. From having been a master of the written word, perhaps the best English novelist then alive, she lost the ability to write anything at all.

I will not soon forget this film and the way Dench conveyed Iris’ plight, her expression becoming increasingly vacant as things became more and more incomprehensible to her.  Jim Broadbent, who played Iris’s husband John Bayley, also gave a magnificent performance, at least as fine as Dench’s. His face had to register a broader range of emotions than she did as he coped with the tragedy of his beloved wife’s disease. With great skill he showed the conflicting feelings he experienced, stretching all the way from tenderness to rage.

Before turning to films, Judi Dench enjoyed a distinguished career as an actress on the stage. “Sixty Minutes” showed a clip of her singing and dancing in Cabaret, one of her many roles. In this latter performance she displayed a versatility that must have surprised viewers who know her only from her films. At first sight, Dench does not seem physically suited to this kind of stage role, but apparently she carried it off well.

Returning to her comments about growing older, I find them sad.  And yet, like most people my age, I know what she means. A few weeks ago, a friend whom I have known since age fifteen entered a extended care facility. Alzheimer’s Disease had made it impossible for his wife to care for him any longer at home. Realizing that my friend Jack, when young among the most brilliant students I have ever known, and later distinguished in his career as a lawyer, has suffered the loss of coherent brain functioning  –  – all this has made me sad indeed.

Why was Jack singled out among my contemporaries to endure this frightening disease? How have the rest of us, thus far at least, escaped this plague? Why could not the inevitable cure have been found before Jack came down with the devastating illness?

No one knows the answers to these questions, of course. They are more the cries of our hearts than they are rationally posed questions issuing from our minds. But this particular disease, and others also devastating await many of us;  we know how foolhardy it is to express easy optimism about growing older. We elders have reasons enough  to be pessimistic about our prospects.

Yet, to find nothing at all good about getting old strikes me as extreme. I find it sad if Dench really holds this view. Granted that for her the looming prospect of losing her brilliant career with all its achievements, its excitement, and the celebrity that goes with this kind of work, can surely get her to feel wary of her future. But nothing good?

Even in a week when bodily life has been burdensome, I much value the psychic richness of later life. So many precious memories, such a range of extended family relationships, numerous valued friends and associates – – these qualities of my life strike me as distinctively different from what I knew earlier.

And the spiritual resources available in later life, leisure to take care of one’s soul and appreciate the wonder of it all, varied opportunities to continue the great search for truth, for insight, ultimately for God. Surprisingly, in a long life, this often turns out to be the best time for this reaching within and outside as well.

Richard Griffin

Before the world-famous scientist took the stage to speak, the 92-year-old woman sitting in front of me shared with me her evaluation of him as a person:  “He has never grown up, he will never grow up.”

She speaks from experience, having known James Watson for several decades. And in the course of his talk, I came to see for myself what she means.

When only 24 years old, Watson, working with Francis Crick, discovered the structure of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), the basic genetic material from which all life is formed. For this great scientific feat, he received the Nobel Prize in 1962.

James Watson is 73 now, an age I know something about, having attained it myself. He has just published a new book “Genes, Girls, and Gamow,” a volume that seems just as frivolous as its title. It does not seem destined to become a classic the way his “The Double Helix” did soon after it was first published in 1968. In fact, some reviewers are already badmouthing the new book.

To prepare for the talk, I reread “The Double Helix” and found it absorbing but less charming than its reputation would indicate. Continual gossip about the author’s colleagues and his self absorption limit its pleasures for me but the scientific quest retains its power.

Among much else, the book will be remembered for such Watsonisms as: “One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid.”

Last week’s talk revealed Watson as still self-indulgent, frivolous, opinionated, and scattered. As the nonagenarian quoted earlier says of her longtime friend: “He’s arrogant –  –  he doesn’t care what people think.”

The talk itself was filled with mumbling, difficult-to-hear anecdotes, grimaces, and head-scratchings by this speaker. Almost every sentence was punctuated with Watson laughing at his own wit, with much wheezing and snorting. Some audience members found it entertaining but a person without his reputation would surely have had many walk out on him during the 40-minutes of rambling.

He did offer a few noteworthy reflections about his pioneering work. “In science, it pays to talk to your competitors,” he advised, something he and Francis Crick did much of, to their great benefit. Putting it facetiously, he added: “You don’t want to kill your competitors – – you’ll have no one to talk to.”

Speaking about old group photos of scientists, Watson observed that “the best people were in the front row.” From this, he advised the young people in the audience: “If you want to be a scientist, sit in the front row.”

To the question of what he thought about most of the time in the period after his great discovery, his succinct answer was: “Girls.” In part, that happened because “after a month or two, I was bored with the double helix.”

About his latest book, he takes issue with his critics. “The book is beneath me,” they say. But, he replies, “The book is me.” Taking the offensive, he adds, “The book is better than most books.” Besides, he says with a snort, (referring to his friends and associates among the scientists): “I could have waited till they were all dead, including me.”

Slapping back at Bernadine Healy, the person who fired him from his job as head of the Human Genome Project, he observes: “It’s very dangerous to have power and exercise it in the absence of knowledge.”

Asked about cloning, Watson responds: “I’m too old to be interested.” But then he goes on to discuss the question. His main take on the issue is its feasibility, not ethics. “I have no moral qualms about it,” he says. “Most people want something new.”

Reflecting on this encounter with a man already ranked high in the history of science, I feel a mixture of reactions. I share almost everyone’s appreciation of what he accomplished early in life. After all, as his colleague Walter Gilbert said introducing him, “From this discovery flowed all of modern biology.”

But it comes as a shock to realize how superficial a man can be who has achieved something great. And I am surprised by how little wisdom some people  have gained after eight decades of life.

Of course, all of us elders have learned that a person may have a great impact on the world without being especially virtuous. We know that people can demonstrate soaring intelligence and yet be flawed in character. And almost everyone has discovered how a person who can think clearly, even brilliantly, can fail utterly as a speaker.

And yet naively I continue to cherish my illusion that achieving distinction in a field of knowledge or activity brings with it great stature as a human being. It shakes me every time I recognize the falsity of this view as I did once more when I heard the learned scientist.

Richard Griffin

Martin Eagen, a native of Roscommon, Ireland, was only 23 years old when he threw himself overboard from the SS. Mantiban. The ship was bound for Boston in the great mid-19th century  Irish emigration period when this terrible event occurred. The vessel stopped and turned around to look for him but he was lost forever. His sister, Mary Eagen, was left to find her way alone to Portland, Maine.

Margaret McGovern, listed under occupation as “spinster,”  arrived at the port of Boston on February 16, 1882. She had a child fathered by one James Bracken in Ireland who gave her parents one hundred dollars “to dispose of her.” With this money the parents paid their daughter’s passage, gave her ten dollars for her expenses, and told her to apply for the almshouse when she reached Boston.

These two stories, with their pathetic details, are among the many thousands to be found in public records kept by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In addition to the Passenger Lists collection from which the stories cited come, this agency has many other records relating to family history. The web site www.state.ma.us/sec/arc provides more detailed information about these holdings.

The period from 1848 to 1891 saw one million immigrants land in Boston. Not a few of the new arrivals here were also new arrivals into the world, having been born on board the ship that carried their mothers. At least one record gives the exact latitude and longitude of the ship the infant was delivered.

One such was born to a woman not arriving on these shores for the first time. Maggie Mason, 20 years old, had been born in the United States and was visiting family members in Ireland. She booked passage to Boston on the liner Marathon and during the voyage she gave birth to “infant Mason.” This child was legally Irish, rather than American, because Maggie Mason  bore the nationality of her husband. Only in 1920, with women’s suffrage, did women acquire citizenship in their own right.

I recently heard these stories and others during a talk given by Janis Duffy, who works as reference supervisor at the Massachusetts State Archives, located near Columbia Point in Boston. She also lists herself as a lecturer, researcher, and genealogist. Her presentation fascinated me and the other elders who listened as she related often heart-rending tales of suffering and hardship borne by our ancestors, or people like them, as they struggled to reach American shores.

We heard about one traveler who had already become famous –  – John L. Sullivan, the heavyweight champion of the world. He came first class and, on his arrival, was met on the dock by thousands of his wildly enthusiastic fans.  Janis Duffy found his name among hundreds of John Sullivans and became sure it was he when she found a Boston Post newspaper account of his arrival.

And Pat Kennedy’s name appears in the records also. He arrived in 1849 when he was 29 years old. He was to become JFK’s great-grandfather. He died young, so that his wife Bridget had find outside employment in order to support her family.

“We have the best research resources in the country,” says Janis Duffy. As one who has made extensive use of such resources here and in other parts of the United States, she knows whereof she speaks. Ms.Duffy began as a volunteer at the Massachusetts archives and then moved into a professional position there. She demonstrates how interest in family history can become a marvelous vantage point for a wide diversity of learning.

During her talk I reflected on my maternal grandfather, Richard Barry, who arrived in Boston May 8, 1871 as a passenger on the Cunard’s “Siberia” en route from Liverpool  and Queenstown.  Described as a “common laborer” at age 12, he was accompanied by his two younger brothers, James and John. Though it must have taken pluck for boys like this to find their way in the new world, he managed marvelously. He settled in Peabody where he went to work in a leather factory. Eventually, he became owner of a factory himself and was able to put his family on a secure footing before his death in 1909 at the age of fifty.

Using this link with Ireland, I have inquired about Irish citizenship, a step that many other Americans of Irish descent have taken. That could give me an Irish passport and facilitate travel in the European Community. Had I received citizenship before the birth  of my daughter, she too could have benefited from my new status.

The Massachusetts Archives welcomes visitors from 9 to 5 Monday through Friday and also Saturday until 3. Information over the telephone is available at (617) 727-2816. The Archives are under the direction of  the Secretary of State and contain a great many materials bearing on the history of the Commonwealth as well as other resources valuable for tracing family histories.

Richard Griffin