Brilliant, graceful, inspired, and esthetic.  These were some of the words that sprang to mind when, last week, I visited “Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years,” an exhibition now on view at the Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston.

For fear these words in response to Jackie Kennedy’s clothes seem merely conventional, you should know that normally I hardly notice what people wear. Nor would my credentials as a fashion critic impress anyone.

In fact, my ignorance of clothing, for both women and men, extends far and wide. Without tutoring, I do not even know the difference between an A line and a cockade. It’s excusable: for many years as a young man, I wore the same costume every day, a somber unadorned black cassock.

Fortunately, my sister – a highly qualified tutor – agreed to accompany me to the exhibition. There I found the clothes featured by Mrs. Kennedy during her time in the White House to be objects of beauty. They showed her to be indeed, as the museum material says, “a woman of commanding personal style and one who had an unerring sense of history and her place in it.”

Approaching the exhibition, I felt uncertain whether Jackie’s clothes, now some forty years old, would equal the memories that people of my age have of them. We remember the way that she dazzled America, along with the leaders and citizens of many other nations, with her style and flair.

She embodied what my niece Jennifer Griffin has identified as “Bouviessence.” In her book, co-authored with Kera Bolonik and entitled “Frugal Indulgents,” Jennifer memorably coined the term Bouviessence explaining it thus: “In honor of the queen of grace, this word signifies glamour at all times for all occasions.”

What impressed me most about the array of dresses, gowns, and hats worn by Jackie is their variety. The exhibition displays, on mannequins carefully crafted to look like her, a brilliant array of colors, both striking and subtle. She wore bright yellow at a state dinner, for instance, as well as an ascetic black for her visit to Pope John XXIII.

And the variety of styles struck me also. They range all the way from  wool suits that served for less formal occasions to a green evening gown designed by Oleg Cassini and described in the exhibit as a “liquid columnar dress that also suggested an ancient statuary.” And, as my sister observed, “she looked fabulous in all of them.”

Jackie’s clothes remain in remarkably good condition after the passage of four decades. However, the gown she wore at the Inaugural Ball on January 19, 1961 shows signs of deterioration, enough that this will be the last time it is shown publicly. The colors of the other clothes have held fast and still give viewers a strong sense of the impression they made on those who saw them on Jackie herself.  

Surprisingly, Jackie’s clothing did not excite much negative criticism at the time. Instead of badmouthing her expensive tastes, most Americans apparently felt gratified by their first lady showing such style. By and large they liked having in the White House a woman who knew how to be beautiful, poised, and intelligent all at once.

These words may seem gee-whiz, the product of a publicity agent. However, the exhibition stirred in me, as it will in many others, warm memories of a person who went beyond mere style. She did in fact serve this country extraordinarily well, for instance as an effective good-will ambassador to other nations.

When Jackie visited India in March, 1962, the U.S. ambassador, John Kenneth Galbraith sent an “Eyes Only” message to the President. “Your wife’s speeches model of  brevity and syntax and urge copies be put in briefing kit of all new senators,” wrote the ambassador with typical wit.

The dignity she habitually displayed inclined people everywhere to respect America. In November 1963, at a time of crushing loss, both personal to her and also to the nation and world, that same dignity ensured her a lasting place in our shared history.

By themselves, clothes do not make the woman but my own consciousness has been raised by seeing how Jackie dressed. The ugliness of garb and general appearance of so many among the rest of us now strikes me forcibly. It’s not a matter of  poverty, as a rule, but of imagination.

Most of us could look a lot better than we do and that might help us to feel a good deal better about ourselves, no matter our age. The specter of retirees, both male and female, wearing short shorts that I have seen in Florida churches makes me shudder at how tastelessly many of us dress.

The exhibition runs through February 28, 2002. I take no pleasure in reporting the cost of tickets: 15 dollars for adults, 13 dollars for “seniors” and students, and 8 dollars for children ages 13 – 17. These prices strike me as high but they do include admission to the permanent collection of the museum. You can call (617) 695-2JFK for reservations.

Richard Griffin

Despite receiving a press release filled with compelling language, I failed this month to attend what was billed as “The First Annual LifePart2 Festival.”  Held in San Diego, this happening was a “combination educational event, spiritual retreat, and vacation for those who are reluctant, skeptical, fearful, and intrigued by their own aging process.”

If you are any of the above, perhaps you, too,  missed something you should have been at. For a registration fee of a mere $575 plus a discounted room rate at the Town and Country Resort Hotel and travel costs,  you could have enjoyed four days of feeling groovy about your own aging.

You and I should be chastising ourselves for not making the trip to a festival designed as “a spa for one’s Mind, Body and Soul.” Where else are you going to find a spa for your constituent parts? And imagine gaining what the festival promises – “a complete understanding of the interrelationships of the mind, body, soul, and environment!”

Surely we would have come away from the event with our bods soothed and streamlined for LifePart2. Among the exercises offered were: “Aqua Aerobics (low impact jumping with deep water interval training), Watsu Therapy (deep body work therapy done in water),  .   .   .  Instinctual Movement (guided movement exercises accompanied by live drumming), Salsa Aerobics (a combination of exercise and dance that connects with the spirit), Qigong (a powerful ancient Chinese healing technique), Meditation, Chanting, Yoga, Belly Dancing, Tai Chi, Running, Power Walking and more.”

How can you have reached whatever age you are without having employed at least several of these therapies, preferably each day? I must, however, confess never having done any belly dancing at all, though I have on occasion watched graceful women with considerably more comely bellies than mine doing it. And salsa, to me, means food rather than music.

In case you think the festival people put too much emphasis on the body, you should understand their philosophy. “Our bodies are literally the framework of the soul,”  they announce. Literally? I would have thought the soul, being spiritual,  had no literal framework at all. For  myself , I tend to find a deeper unity: “I stink, therefore I am.”

Going to the festival might have filled definite lacks in your life, as it would have in mine. Do you, for example, consider yourself successful? Or, like me, do you perhaps give yourself only middling marks in this regard? Festival organizers scheduled a keynote speech that might have done you and me a world of good. It was given by “professional success expert” Cheryl Richardson.

I am so benighted as not to have known there was such a profession as success expert.  Instead, I have long believed, perhaps ignorantly, that success cannot be taught. I also hold the outmoded position that success is made up of things other than money, celebrity, and power.

Other speakers gave keynote talks as well. Among them were “some of the most revered thinkers of our time.” When I mention the names of certain among them, you will surely recognize how well they deserve this reputation. Author Marianne Williamson, poet David Whyte, and AARP Executive Director Horace Deets will undoubtedly register in your household among those revered thinkers.

What? You have never heard of them? That’s simply another reason why you should have been in San Diego last week.

For fear you did not recognize the importance of these speakers and others on the schedule, they are also called “some of the most influential, provocative, and innovative thinkers of our era.” Left to myself, I would have thought that these superlatives belong more to the inventors of the artificial heart or the author of the Harry Potter books than to the three people mentioned.

Discussion was to form part of the agenda also. It would “cover the many ways to enjoy a richer, longer, and healthier life.”  Presumably that would touch on how those of us who are barely getting by can find more economic support.

Sometimes we can forget that our growing older lends itself to hype and hucksterism, often pitched with the most sophisticated techniques of Hollywood and  Madison Avenue. Clever people who know how to  make slick presentations can shape aging into an elite enterprise. They can make us feel that aging must be made into a mindful, modish business if we are to get anything out of it.

“Get a Jump on Life,” they urge us in the festival brochure, forgetting that some of us are already on.

When I was a sophomore in college, the university president once came to visit the large house where many of us students lived. I will never forget the message he left with us. “Be skeptical,” he said. At the time,  this message scandalized me in part because of my still youthful illusions. Since then, however, I have come to appreciate the wisdom in this advice. It’s not enough to guide all of life but this wisdom covers more than a little.

Richard Griffin

The emeriti – dozens of retired faculty members of Simmons College – were festively garbed in their academic robes for the occasion. As their names were read, they came from their seats on the stage of Jordan Hall, one by one to be greeted by the audience’s applause and to receive a large commemorative medal.

With their names came a citation tailored especially for each. With grace and wit, a group of current faculty and an alumna had crafted a statement for each emeritus and emerita, describing their special gifts. The large audience – students, faculty, alums, family, and friends – responded with enthusiastic ovations.

Incidentally, this gala event was held at the distinguished concert venue Jordan Hall for a reason. It was there that Simmons held its very first commencement back in 1906.

I found this convocation in honor of Simmons College’s 100th aniversary a moving tableau of graceful aging. Even among these retired women and men there was a surprisingly wide range of years. Some traveled the short distance to center stage with uncertain agility, but with obvious spirit.

Among those honored, one stood out in particular. Ruth Leonard, associate professor of library science, brought down the house when the year of her arrival as a freshman was announced.

After college graduation and later graduate studies, she served as a faculty member for 34 yearsa. But that was just the start of her service to Simmons. Even now, at age 96, she continues giving time and talent to the college.

Her citation reads as follows: “Alumna, library science professor, devoted volunteer and a vital part of the Simmons scene for decades, Ruth Leonard came here as a freshman 75 years ago this fall! To this day, she continues to volunteer for the College, and is currently at Simmons one day a week archiving Alumnae Association minutes.”

Small in physical stature, this dynamic nonagenarian thanked the college “for giving me this opportunity to be of service.” Back in 1994, the college had awarded her an honorary degree in recognition of her work and placed her in the college’s hall of fame, but the Simmons community never tires of honoring her.

When I talked with her later, Professor Leonard was sitting with Eleanor Gustafson, a retired librarian who expresses high regard for her former teacher. Asked how she herself feels about her long career, the most Ruth Leonard will claim is: “All I can say is I enjoyed teaching.”

I also asked her attitude about growing old. “I don’t think about it,” she replied. However, she does admit: “I’ve slowed up. I’m unsteady on my feet.”

Not that any of this stops her. Using the MBTA’s Ride program, she now commutes from Goddard House in Brookline to Simmons for her volunteer chores.

Though I have no official connection with Simmons College, another reason makes me feel  tied to the life of the place. First, my beloved aunt, Mary Barry, was a student there in 1905 and 1906. A future public schoolteacher, she was then enrolled in the School of  Secretarial Studies.

Since the very first students did not arrive until 1902, my aunt can be numbered among the pioneers. She was the kind of student envisioned by the founder, John Simmons, who left money to start a college for women planning to enter the world of work, a novel idea at the time.

Secondly, my wife has been a Simmons faculty member since 1964. Now a veteran with almost unrivaled seniority, she continues to teach with relish, and to serve the college in other ways as well.

At the convocation, what held my attention most was the spectacle of generation succeeding generation. I reflected on the way each group of faculty comes along, people who build upon the work of those who have served and later stepped aside.

To me, recognizing the women and men who contributed their working years to the teaching enterprise is one of the most meaningful action an educational institution can take. This kind of event gives former teachers a sense that their service did make a difference, that they did in fact touch the lives of others.

It is true that former students will sometimes pay tribute to former teachers. But, often, retired teachers must believe in themselves without this kind of external support. That’s why the Jordan Hall ceremony was so heartwarming – it showed that, though the people who once taught at Simmons no longer frequent the classrooms, they are not forgotten and still count.

Perhaps the students who attended the convocation profited from seeing, in the honors accorded the retired professors, a model of how people who have served an institution well should be treated. They might have realized how it’s good for the community to recognize later life as a time appropriate for honoring dignity, merit, and service.

Richard Griffin

“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