There was a wonderful cartoon in the June 14, 1999 issue of the New Yorker magazine, reproduced here, with the text: "I think I've acquired some wisdom over the years, but there doesn't seem to be much demand for it."

Whether it's in professional or social circles, there's more than a hint of truth to it. In a fast-moving world where the young are often so much more adept and comfortable with technology, who needs to listen to slow and deliberate thought? If the older are so mal-adept at keeping up with technology, maybe they're just as slow and wrong in everything else. When it's so easy to copy pieces of music or software applications, who needs to hear about old-fashioned matters of ethics and piracy. After all, there are so many anti-role-models out there, young, middle-aged and older, that are lying, cheating and stealing, and also getting away with it, whether it's money, power or position. The worst thing, of course, is to press one's accumulated experience (call it wisdom, perhaps) on an unwilling recipient. All of us know what a turnoff it was to hear "Why, when I was your age....". But it can be very hard not to be asked. On the other hand, I still think that there's a place for listening to and asking for opinions and thoughts from the older generations. It's a simple matter of love, respect or courtesy. If not love, then everyone deserves respect which, at a minimum, is courtesy. I, for one, will demand that level of respect. Actually, it's not just the young who prefer not to listen; older peers often seem to want to talk much more than to listen. Talking then turns into a competition where participants talk at and past rather than to and with each other.

One privilege of my station as an older citizen is that if that respect is not forthcoming, then I no longer feel the desire or need to run after it. I don't need or want to compete for attention with my thoughts and opinions any more. If I ask about and listen to you - your interests, activities and thoughts, then I expect you to do the same for me; if not, then I can feel free to go my own way. It's a simple matter of respect.

On the other hand, it's also not about lurking for signs of disrespect, holding grudges and cutting off contact. A simple show of respect and courtesy is always enough.

Note added 6/15/05: I've recently come up with the concept of an "expiration date" to deal with some promised actions or anticipated responses that never seem to happen. Why keep waiting for months or even years when I've lost interest anyway? It's so much easier to just drop the subject entirely.

When you're young, if you think about it at all, you feel that you'll live forever. As the birthdays pile up, you start thinking about reaching half-way marks, or of being past the mid-point. There are certain milestones such as retirement which definitely mark an event in the second half of your life.

Is it a time for feelings of regret, or of accomplishment? Goals set long ago, whether implicit or explicit, have a lot to do with contentment or dissatisfaction at this point.

In my own case, the goals were never fame and fortune, massive material accumulation, or high title or position. How am I to measure success?

I like to think that my principles of integrity, pride of workmanship, and giving 100% effort have had had impact on others, whether fellow workers, acquaintances, friends or family. That might be direct or a "butterfly effect". Although many others can and have done more good, I also sought to do no harm.

As far as facing mortality, then, I feel contentment. Our children are mature adults, self-sufficient, with good value systems. Hard work, never an end in itself, has brought us a comfortable lifestyle. If the time to pass on comes, it will be without regret.

Besides, if I were meant to leave life earlier, there have been opportunities already. The simple matter of surviving a direct bomb hit on a suburban home during wartime has been a constant reminder of the role of chance and luck in life. And there were other times that could have ended badly.

A continuing objective is to keep both body and mind healthy and active. Intellectual curiosity works for one, and a love of motion and activity the other.

On the positive side, both body and spirit still seem to be a good deal younger, at least fifteen years worth (although that would already be about fifty - hmmm...). And the body has held up quite well - for example, a mild blood disorder diagnosed in the mid-1990s has stayed stable. It finally explained the consistently low blood counts (two sigma below normal) that had sometimes prevented me from donating blood. My only bad time with that knowledge came when three well-known people died of a severe case of this disorder in the same week (Carl Sagan and Paul Tsongas among them), but that's already been many years in the past now.

Updated Oct. 2003: (65th birthday)

Birthdays as numbered milestones of age have generally not had that much meaning for me; my fortieth was in fact something to look forward to because it meant that I could (then) qualify for the Boston Marathon and run officially with a number. Which I did. Similarly, the sixtieth was a very enjoyable event because we brought our kids to meet my German relatives (really family) and these relatives made it a special event.

But the sixty-fifth was a little different if only because it meant a transition of medical coverage to Medicare, which I'd always associated with "old people". For at least a while I'll call myself "Medicare Man". On the other hand, sixty-five has some financial compensations with all sorts of discounts for the, yes, elderly. As for the the day itself, I was torn between wanting it to be a special occasion with acknowledgment and recognition of a numerical milestone, or making it as low-key as any other birthday. In the end the question settled itself with some phone calls and a nice dinner ˆ deux.

An odd set of images, but there's a reason . . . More ....

These are the transforming, highly emotional and highly memorable events in my life, in no particular order.

• Surviving a direct hit by a bomb on our small suburban home near Berlin during WW II. All else follows, because if that had turned out badly ....


• After the war, sometime between 1945-47, in the small town of Neuenhagen, as I walked to school every day in the month before Christmas, I would pass a small shop with a toy train set in the window. Times were hard, food was scarce, and I knew that there was no way that it could ever be mine. Then one day it was gone, and I was heartbroken. Imagine the joy when it showed up as my Christmas present! Since money had little value, my parents had bartered for it to give me that great pleasure. I still have that MŠrklin train set. now; somehow my parents managed to send it ahead to the U. S. when we emigrated.


• Hearing four large works by J.S. Bach at Carnegie Hall for the first time, all in one week sometime in the '60s, as performed by the Munich Bach Choir and Orchestra under Karl Richter; they were the St. Matthew Passion, the St. John Passion, the Mass in B Minor and the Christmas Oratorio.


• Seeing our children right after their birth on June 14, 1969. The miracle of life is never as vivid as when one sees a new life for the first time.


• Running and finishing my first marathon run, in Boston. Going through Hereford Street just before the finish was magical.


• Going to an Eric Clapton rock concert in Providence. The kids wanted to go, and we wouldn't let them be driven by a someone that had just gotten a driver's license. I volunteered, not knowing how overwhelming the sound level would be, but the songs were great. Yes, one can have peak experiences from Bach and Clapton in the same life.


• The walks in the Arnold Arboretum with daughter Ruth in the year after college when she was living here and searching for her career path.


• Visiting my uncle Heinz in what had been East Germany on his 90th birthday, not only meeting him for the first time as an adult, but also getting to know four sets of relatives who quickly became family and friends. The visit also included returning to my city of origin Berlin after an absence of 47 years. All that time, my communication with Heinz had been by letter; his optimistic views on life made him a role model for me.


• Learning and playing a Two-part Invention composed by son Daniel, and then performing it at a workshop.

A true story . . . More ....

This may not be politically correct, but as a man, don't come between women and their need to talk. It supersedes everything, even maternal instincts. Two personal incidents:

Some many years ago, when the children were very young, we got to know another couple with twins of about the same age. Being football enthusiasts, we husbands thought it would be great to get together on a Sunday afternoon to watch a favorite team. Unfortunately, while the wife attended to serious chatting, her kids roamed the house unsupervised. I spent more time taking care seeing that they didn't hurt or poison themselves than watching football. Afterward, I decided never to do that again.

A few years ago, we had some relatives and their young children over to our house. I had some apprehensions about becoming the caretaker. Sure enough, while the women chatted on the deck, the kids roamed the house, yard, walkway and steps. If I hadn't watched them going up and down concrete steps, they would have pitched forward and cracked their heads on the hard steps and sidewalk. But the women were all obliviously talking, talking,...

My fear of women giving primacy to talk while presumably engaged in other matters also has me give as wide a berth as possible to two kinds of women drivers: Those with a woman companion in the car, and those talking on a cell phone. There's little on the road as fearsome as a woman making a turn toward you with an SUV, one-handed, while using her cell phone.

When younger, I used to wonder why men in many families where so quiet. When one says "strong and silent", the image is always a man. Women can be strong, but silent?

Of course men have their own way of talking. A lot of man-talk has a competitive edge to it - the speaker will often claim to have done or possess something bigger, faster, smarter, cheaper or more expensive (whichever applies), a better deal, etc., than you.

The best bet is to find a woman that will listen as well as talk.

Things are not always what they seem. There are times when you may be asked to give an opinion, or think that you are, when that's actually the last thing of interest. The questioner really may already have a decision in hand, and just wants confirmation, not your alternative thoughts. It can be hard to sort out the difference, but a mistake can disturb domestic tranquility.

The best way to proceed may be to give gently, diplomatically qualified agreement. Then, if further elaboration is desired, it'll be asked for; if not, the subject is better off closed. That may be tough on the ego but is overall more effective than treading on a landmine.

There are probably no two statements that provide a greater irritation factor. One expects them from children, but not adults.

"I forgot" is a standard excuse for a child, which most often really means "I didn't want to do it". An adult may forget something for any number of reasons, but should at least appear to be apologetic or regretful. The unqualified "I forgot", said as if it were as natural and unpreventable as tornados or tsunamis, really means that the forgotten matter, and you if it had to do with you, weren't deemed important enough for making an effort to remember. In short, it's a child's excuse, not worthy of an adult.

"I can't" is a prelude to defeat before the battle has even begun. It says "I won't try, and if I did I wouldn't succeed", which certainly makes the speaker predictively correct by giving up before beginning. Why am I so bothered by this? In my life I've had a number of difficult situations that merited an "I can't", but where that wasn't a feasible option. Sure enough, getting through those built strength and pride, and a greater ability to handle the next tough spot. If it works for physical muscles, why not for mental ones as well?

A man and father's lot, like the Gilbert & Sullivan policeman, is not always "an 'appy one". More ....

A intriguing and counter-intuitive title, because "Learning by doing" is generally accepted as the best way to learn something new. I'll agree that it's much better than listening to instructions, or trying to read them, without actually doing. But my point here is that there's a lot to learn just from watching with open eyes and a receptive mind. Some personal examples come to mind:

When I was growing up, ours was a typical household in which my mother was the homemaker, and thus the cook and baker, and a good one. I never cooked or baked a single thing while at home, but I must have kept my eyes wide open because, when I eventually got my own apartment, I was able to draw on what I had seen her do and to do my own cooking, with relatively few mistakes. All those times of sitting in the kitchen had meant absorbing information and storing it away, even without intended later use.

In one of my High-Tech workplaces I typically stayed late at least once a week because of all the work that needed to be done. A young man led an evening cleaning crew; he obviously took pride in his work, and was looking to expand his operation. That fit right in with my view that any job, no matter what, is worth doing well, so I started chatting with him. I learned from him how to keep stainless steel looking uniformly shiny, namely by wiping a thin film of oil over it.

And, although I did some work around the home together with my father, certainly wallpapering and painting, I'm sure I learned many other techniques just by watching and asking questions.

It's really only necessary to be alert, and to keep eyes and mind open. I'll contrast that with what I call a "Claude Rains", someone who turns into the invisible man when there's work to be done, and neither helps nor watches. Yet I don't have much patience with "blank" watching either, i.e., watching without learning.

In the modern world where most things are thrown out when they no longer work, I'm an anachronism who will look to fix them first. There's a great satisfaction to making something function again, and one also learns about the inner workings. And so, for example, I kept a clothes dryer going for years past its expected life by tracing a problem to a faulty electrical connection.

Similarly, I would rather try my own repair than immediately calling in an expert. I've seen "professionals" do slipshod work that I've had to fix afterward. The most recent example was the installation of a new dishwasher - it took three visits by service personnel, the latest by the "master plumber". A few days later, I noticed a drip and had to tighten down a connection!

The modern throwaway world does not make it easy for the old-fashioned repairer. Many things have become so technologically complex that they defy repair efforts. In the 1960's I could still attempt a major car repair (foolhardy, and successful); all other things being equal, I would not dare to do that now.

Of course I'm also fighting the overwhelming tide of consumerism. Advertising hammers us with the message that new stuff is better, bigger, faster, improved, lemon-freshened; also, throwing out the old and buying the new is good for the economy. I've been told that it's better to waste food because that helps farm production.

Unfortunately the disposable society extends to people as well. Workers are laid off, fired, made redundant, to improve the bottom line, or maybe only the perception. Loyalty in the workplace is a quaint notion; the lifetime employee an anachronism.

And so I prefer to keep stuff going and not to add yet more junk to the nation's trashpiles. At home, when I look first to repair something that's not working as well as it used to, while Naomi would rather go out to buy a new one, I'll mention that maybe I should look after a new wife model too. Generally that buys me enough time to make the thing work again.

I was born in Germany in 1938, emigrated to the U.S. in 1949, became a citizen in 1955, and continued to live here. That means I was young enough to be a victim in the war, rather than a perpetrator. It was also long enough ago that, as a long-time U.S, citizen, I could disavow all things German and have nothing to do with the country or its troubled past.

But I've kept and nurtured the language, and taken great pleasure in the best that Germany has had to offer in music and literature. Can't I say, simply, that since I was too young, I had nothing to do with the horrors that were committed in its name, and can freely enjoy all the culture without the guilt?

My answer is also very simple: No, I cannot.

I believe that one cannot "cherry-pick", but must take the whole package. It means seeing not only the lofty thoughts and spiritual music, but also the terrible deeds and cracks in the German being. The war and the Holocaust are not something to hide and forget (not "Schwamm drüber"), but to remember, to try to understand, and to feel shame over.

Just a few years ago, I met someone on a cruise, someone from a German background, who loved and raved about "German culture", although it did seem to stop with Goethe. The present contamination from foreigners was something to look down on. Some anti-Semitism might also have lurked within him, although it barely peeked out; fortunately, we parted before it emerged fully. But, in my opinion, he represented exactly the wrong attitude and approach to things German.

What then is one to do? After all, it's hard for one small individual to make amends of any sort. Well, while keeping a visible German persona, one can try to live a good life without doing harm. One can be sensitive to the hurt and pain that Germany has caused rather than ignoring or rejecting the past; that means accepting views and opinions that might be hurtful to oneself, or that one would rather not hear. Yes, there are people who will never buy a German car or go over to Germany, but they have their good reasons. And perhaps this works: I've never had my German background thrown in my face despite close contact with people who had the right to do so.

Although I left the greater Berlin area at age 9 and Germany itself at age 11, I still consider it as my "Heimatsstadt" (home city). [see WWII Memories for some details]. Hence also my preoccupation with the city's emblem, the famous "Berliner BŠr" (bear).

It was a very emotional time finally going back in 1994, after 47 years, and to see the city and hear the dialect with its dry humor once again. There's an expressiveness the folk wisdom of oft-used, well-known phrases that, while rough, show subtleties that just cannot be translated fully. Some of my favorites, with attempts at giving the meaning:

"Keene Antwort is' ooch 'ne Antwort"	"No answer is an answer too" - for those occasions when phone calls, Email or letters go unanswered.
"Nachtigall, ick hör dir trapsen"	"Nightingale, I hear you clomping" - that subtle or perhaps not-too-subtle hint meant to be heard; the image of a small, graceful bird "clomping" is priceless.
"Wer angibt, hat mehr vom Leben"	"Those who make a big deal of themselves enjoy life more" - meant to puncture the self-important promoting themselves as a great gift.
"Denken ist Glückssache"	"Common sense is a roll of the dice" - when one observes the stupidities committed by people where just a little thought and consideration for others would go far.
"Doof bleibt doof, da helfen keene Pillen"	"If you're dim you're dim, even pills can't help" - for the terminally unperceptive who are beyond help.
"Humor ist wenn man trotzdem lacht"	"Humor is when you laugh despite it all" - When the going gets tough, as it always does, humor goes a long way.
"Sonst noch jemand ohne Fahrschein?"	"Anyone else without a ticket?" - is what streetcar conductors used to ask, but useful when you're trying to get a group underway, and ask whether everyone has everything they need.
"Red' doch nicht so kariert"	"Don't talk so plaid" - when someone is giving you needlessly complex and lengthy instructions.

Most newspapers now have an op-ed page, where writers can present personal opinions and analyses rather than straight news, with their own blend of seriousness or humor, or both. There they can be advocates for a cause, pontificate, or just explore the human condition.

Although there are many better-known ones, one of the best, and one of my favorites, was Art Hoppe of the San Francisco Chronicle. "Was", because he died in 2000. He was an early opponent of the Viet Nam war in the 1960s, writing a series of columns that always began with "It was in the 43rd year of our lightning campaign to wipe out the dread Viet-Narian guerillas in West Vhhhtnnng. ....", skewering the foolishness of the war effort with his fictional characters and incidents.

Trying to remember that phrase led me contact him in the late '90s for the correct wording and, to my delighted surprise, he responded to my Email (reproduced here, typos and all). From that time to his death, I never missed his column, and also searched out older ones in the newspaper archives.

His humor was of a gentle sort, of the sort to make us smile and laugh at our own foibles and those of the self-important types like politicians, but always with insight and some wisdom. But there would also be deeply serious columns, unleavened by humor, against the death penalty or questionable governmental actions.

Below are some relevant links:

Art Hoppe Archives: Under Archives

choose the Source: Chronicle,
type the Byline: Hoppe,
and select the year (from 1995 to 2000, the year of his death)

to see his articles in the San Francisco Chronicle. There are also a few relevant articles in 2001.

Art Hoppe tributes , including my own contribution ("It was in the 43d year of our lightning campaign...").

There's an astounding painting by Domenico Ghirlandaio in the National Gallery in Washington, one of a Madonna and Child. It radiates such beauty and peace, portrayed by fine and lifelike detail of both figures. If there's only one painting that I'd like to own, it would be this one. For more about the painting, click on the image. There are also more images of Ghirlandaio paintings at another site. Be sure to go down the page and click on the small images to see the larger ones in fine detail.

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Last updated 6/15/08

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