Labor Day weekend was scheduled to be a high-mileage event. Rather than my usual three hour-plus run from mid-Vermont to my friend Bea’s place on the ocean Friday afternoon, and then back on Monday noonish before my evening deadline, I committed to a high school class reunion on the far shore of Lake Champlain at noon on Saturday, and then dinner in Nahant, Mass., that evening.
That’s not quite the piece of cake it once was; plus, AAA was warning that a record number of holiday travelers would be clogging every means of transportation; but without snow or freezing rain in the offing, it seemed doable.
The weak link was the ferryboat across the lake. A snag there could upset the timing; I have, at 90, fewer hours of useful wakefulness each day than of yore, and the prospect of diving wearily into the tangle of holiday traffic on I-95 near Boston was a bit daunting. Still, cancellation is not yet the answer; so off we went: my little hybrid, Batty, my constant companion, Kiki, and I.
The high school reunion was the sixtieth of the Class of 1965. Only two of the teachers who ever taught that class are still alive. We were both there. It was as Bea had said: a once-in-a-lifetime occasion that I should not miss. It was very pleasant to see what’s become of all those fresh young faces of so long ago. Some even recalled kindnesses I’d shown during their school days. I couldn’t recall any, but of course was happy to take credit for them. It was a lovely lunch.
It’s helpful when facing potentially difficult circumstances to remember what you used to teach your students during your salad days. I often paired the reading of Tennyson’s “Ulysses” with Cavafy’s “Ithaka,” two poems about the hero Odysseus’ protracted return home from the Trojan War and his itching restlessness afterward. In particular, we used to focus in class on the mortal perils that Odysseus knew he would face, and how he managed to stare them down. They turned out in every case to have been more fearsome in prospect than in reality.
And so it was with the trek back across the lake, down the length of I-89, into the frenetic pell-mell of I-93 and I-95, and finally past the last peril, a kind of free-for-all rotary, and onto the causeway out to Bea’s island home, right on schedule. We dined, as we often do, with elderly friends, each of whom was recovering from surgery to correct life-threatening illnesses. The mood, you might say, was upbeat.
The big event of the weekend, however, was a pig roast at a neighbor’s house just two doors up the beach. Everybody brought something and, in that relatively exclusive little neighborhood, everybody knew almost everybody else. The weather was perfect – a soft, cool northerly breeze, clear blue sky and a slowly westering sun. The tables were aligned north and south. It was a golden moment in a late summer season that hasn’t always been friendly. I sat with my back to the sun and the sea so I could watch and listen to the company. Background music played softly from a large speaker perched in a corner of the patio. People went up and down the staircase leading to the buffet in the dining room.
Besides their obvious bonhomie, what I noticed first was their age. Almost all, as nearly as I could tell, were retired and living quite (shall we say) comfortably in large houses with patios in a row beside or near the water. The slings and arrows of age had assailed many. The stairs revealed quite a few hitches in gaits, especially near the bottom where the railings petered out, a feature that I, of all people, would notice. There was a college lacrosse coach who was just starting a new job. His excitement was palpable. I sat beside a retired admiral who’d been fighting illness. He told great stories and expounded on theories and practices of leadership. His wife watched him closely and lovingly, especially when he tackled the stairs up to the house. He’d been successful in his career, but even more so in his marriage.
It occurred to me that these folks, like me, were enjoying the golden moment in advanced age between what was and what’s coming. It was a perfect holiday afternoon beside a glittering sea, enjoying the fruits of a dozen different careers, in a serene atmosphere of apparent equilibrium. I had to leave early to go feed Kiki. Bea came along shortly after sunset. We sipped a mug of tea and a demitasse of coffee, respectively. Tomorrow we’d breakfast at a favorite place in Swampscott. Shortly afterward the golden moment would give way to the life that keeps us going.