Although not everything lately has gone as swimmingly as I might have wished, undeniably today is the least worrisome I have been in a while. The combination of both medical and dental emergencies over the past four months has at last – thanks to the inestimable talent of my professional advisors – become tolerable. This afternoon, in deference to my new-found tranquility, I positioned myself on the balcony overlooking the field and upriver. When not dozing in the warm sunshine – stimulated in my dreamlike state by the squawking Canada geese which had assembled in parade lines along the river’s shores – I contemplated the summary fate of aging. Specifically I ruminated upon the narrowing reserve of one’s friends.

In spite of the hopeful jargon about longevity, the persistence is clearly not universal. Plus, having been out of the work force for over a decade, the general association with others is commensurately diminished. I cannot recall the last time I ventured aimlessly into the downtown retail stores on Mill Street. In the result one quickly accedes to counting one’s friends, acquaintances and associates on one hand.

Serendipitously this afternoon during my muted lounging exercise, I received a telephone call from a chap who is the son of a former neighbour of ours. I first became acquainted with the son – other than a passing acknowledgement afforded any child – when his parents consulted me about an issue involving their boy at university. Until then my only familiarity with the fellow was the result of some young girls having asked me if he – his name is Paul – were the son of my neighbours (he was a hockey star in high school).

To this day I cannot recollect the difficulty which had arisen at the university but the involvement began an interest in the boy’s well-being. In the result the relationship has had a continued expansion, including marriage, children and professional career.

It was not surprising therefore that I welcomed the telephone call from Paul this afternoon. After celebrating the incomprehensible advancement of his two sons (now in Grades IX and XI), the banter moved on to travel and retirement. It naturally stirred me to know our familiarity spans three generations. The mad feature of today’s call is that, as recently as last evening, I had thought about the boy. His recollection had surfaced while indulging myself in a wandering memory of my own former school acquaintances – specifically Ricardo Schmeichler whom I last saw in Paris, France where the two of us had attended Alliance Française for the summer in the 1960s. That reminiscence reminded me that my erstwhile physician had unexpectedly encountered the boy’s brother on Champs Élsysées near l’Arc de Triomphe (which is precisely where Ricardo and I had initially arranged to meet when I arrived in Paris from Spain and he from Venezuela). Anyway…you see how this mystical recollection transpires.

It is a true mark of friendship that the passage of time does not affect its sustainability. It also speaks to the governing need for prolonged sociability (especially meaningful for those of us in the later years “when the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened“). As I unwittingly confessed to Paul during our confab, the reality of my dismal currency is that am no longer capable of doing the things I once did. Perhaps to my credit, I further acknowledged that I haven’t any disappointment regarding my limitations – yet I insist upon admitting defeat in at least some departments. Otherwise the unexpected call was fortifying.