Roger Angell: A Man in his Nineties Makes Life Brighter for the Rest of Us

Roger Angell and dog

Roger Angell has written a surpassing piece on life in the tenth decade which will probably leave every twenty and thirty something wondering why all their parents love this essay so. That they will not understand it, that they will not be able to see why it resonates so with their parents is a stark indicator of what it means to be in different places in life. 
He wends his way through elder sex and how the very thought of it unnerves and disgusts the young--there was a great scene in Mad Men about that, when Peter has to face his mother's amorous side and he is revolted by it. 
Angell talks about everything from the wrenching effect of the death of his dog, to the loss of his wife. And he talks about the loss of good friends and the loss of one after another of all the people who made up his life. 
The Phantom has not yet quite got to this stage of life, where the leaves start falling off the trees rapidly, and you are the one still clinging to the branch, but the Phantom can see and feel it through Angell's eyes. 
Mr. Angell  is by turns funny and morose, complaining and exalting and he talks about elderly folks going on line in search of some new intimate love.  He quotes Lawrence Olivier, who said, "Inside, we're all seventeen, with red lips."

Hampton, New Hampshire

 The Phantom finds this idea exasperating and disappointing. He knows many people move on beyond the idea of boy-girl love. He's seen it in so many people here in New Hampshire. Men who have been married to the same woman for 50 years and they say they haven't had, haven't wanted to have sex with their wives,  or with any woman,  for twenty years. Don't miss it. Have moved on.
But  moved on to what is the big question. Locally, the answer seems to be ice fishing, snow mobiles or building furniture.

North Hampton from Plaice Cove--Obadiah Youngblood

Hampton, New Hampshire 

 The Phantom has discovered, with new enthusiasm, music.  And art. He can hear music better now, having started piano lessons, which have given him the atavistic pleasure of struggling at something, plunging headlong into incompetence, again, and he knows that Japanese pleasure of the struggle. 
He has also been thrilled by looking at masters like van Gogh and John Singer Sargent. Having tried to paint, he understands how difficult it is and he can marvel with greater fervor over those who can do it masterfully. 
He has found local artists who see the same seacoast but in such different colors.

North Hampton, December--Obadiah Youngblood 

The Phantom knows only one thing at his advanced age: He is just as clueless as he ever was--he is simply more aware of his inadequacies now, and, fortunately, less disturbed by them.