Sunday Support Group: Roger Angell

I've been on a reading kick lately.

Some while back I read a book called The Thing About Life is that One Day You'll Be Dead, by David Shields. The book is a vigorously morbid catalogue of all the possible predicaments of being trapped in a deteriorating infrastructure. It's chock full of interesting facts about aging and the ages and stages of life. I can't say it was good to read, but it is good to have read it, turns out. Aside from being a bit of a horror show, it's very interesting and engaging, and I still remember and regurgitate many of the facts, which are fascinating. You've got to look at it the other way, though: you should be grateful if you've lived long enough to suffer some of the insults of aging and still have the wits to complain about it. Shields was cheating on that account, it turns out. He's only a year older than I am, and the book came out almost exactly 11 years ago, meaning he wrote it before he was 52. That's not that old.

I've got some great counterexamples in my life. The other day I was playing pool with some friends, and, as he sometimes does, Kenny hit the cue ball so hard on the break that it flew off the table, rolled across the floor, and landed in the corner of the room, way back under a triangular table that supports a big screen TV. Our friend Norm went to fetch it. Norm leaned down, supporting himself on one hand and, like a contortionist, reached way back under the table with the other hand and came up with the ball. No groaning, no moaning, no complaining—just reached way back under the table and popped back up. Nothing to it.

Which would not be remarkable except that Norm just turned 95. He's the guy I told you about who can still drive a golf ball 200 yards and score less than his age. I want to be Norm when I grow up!

I thought of this because of an essay by a writer I admire that I wanted to point you to. Roger Angell is the son of Katherine White of The New Yorker and of Ernest Angell, and the stepson of E.B. White, the essayist and author of Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little. Back when he was only 93 he wrote a lovely essay about life in his nineties called "This Old Man." And you know what? In it, he says he was more obsessed by death when he was David Shields' age, when David was writing his book I mean, than he is at 93. Hmm. Maybe death is more of a big deal in midlife than as it approaches. The essay is long, but it's better the second time through. It's a bit spiky on the first pass and flows better the second time around. Good reading for a lazy afternoon.

Roger will turn 100 this coming September 19th. I hope he's here to celebrate it. I hope I remember to. I want to be Roger when I grow up, too.

Mike

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[Weekes James]

One of the great writers about baseball.

[Chris Kern]

I don’t know whether this is what inspired your post, but The New Yorker has just published an interview of Roger Angell by staff writer Willing Davidson ( https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/baseball-fiction-and-life-roger-angells-era-spanning-career-at-the-new-yorker ), with several excellent portraits by photographer Brigitte Lacombe.

I not only want to be Roger when I grow up; I want to look like him, too.

[Mike Ferron]

"Norm just turned 95. He's the guy I told you about who can still drive a golf ball 200 yards"

Amazing. I read a piece some time ago from some aging authority that a human body can go right up to age 80 and be reasonably fit. (if the things go well with some decent genes) This expert and I forget the source said after 80 the body ages quick. Maybe there is hope? (says the 65 year old)

[Thomas Mc Cann]

When I was 10 my father , aged 56, died. I though he was an old man. Last year a good friend died aged 56. As Ive now passed my 3 score and ten I thought he was a young man. Its all relative.

[Christer]

Norm (95), photo (of), please.