In 1928, the year of my birth, the leader of the Catholic Church was Pope Pius XI. Before being elected to this position, he was Achille Ratti, the archbishop of Milan and director of the Vatican library.
Even when he became pope, however, it did not make him well known outside of Italy. Most Catholics in the United States would not have been familiar with his activities as pope nor perhaps even his name.
Does old age bring wisdom?
I tend to think of this question as limited to gerontology professors. Most elders known to me do not spend their time wondering if they are wise.
However, the question has worth if we use it to think about the good things in our lives. It can help us to recognize the rich gifts that make us valuable.
Yesterday afternoon was the time of my annual physical exam. It proceeded with remarkable ease: Sara, my long-time primary care physician, began on time and carried out the usual checks on my unclothed body with more than usual speed. At the conclusion, she expressed much satisfaction with my health. She thinks me in fine condition for my age.
Often my brother John would ask young restaurant servers this question: “Who was Winston Churchill?”
If they did not know the answer (and they usually didn’t), John would hold forth on the loss of historical knowledge among America’s youth.
My current book group has achieved impressive longevity. It began in 1985 and shows no signs of faltering.
Before that date I had taken part in two other groups. Though I did not retain notes on either of them, I believe they both began in the nineteen seventies and ended in that same decade. Our current group reconfigured itself many years ago, after some tension over religion and politics.
If you have an attic in your house, I hope it is not as cluttered as mine was until recent weeks. That’s when we took action and had the space cleaned out of a great variety of long-nested materials.
Sometime in the late 1970s I first heard a public radio show called “Prairie Home Companion.” It seemed to me odd and indefinable, with a variety of musical shapes and weird ads.
In time, I became familiar with the format and especially the prime performer, Garrison Keillor. I looked forward to his many allusions to Lake Wobegon “where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.”