Image sourced from the Public Domain Image Archive / Internet Archive / University of Toronto Libraries
Often I’ll have an idea for something I want to post and I’ll put it into a note on my phone.
Then, when I’m getting ready to do a post, one of several things happen. One is that I will no longer want to write about it. Another is that I forget to look at my notes for an idea. Other times I will look at the notes and be certain I already wrote the post.
Then I end up with a dozen notes with various length ideas or cryptic descriptions where I don’t know what I intended.
This is a story from the end of last year and things have happened since I kept the note.
As I get older and deal with parents who are getting older, I find that stories about aging people are less interesting to me. I don’t need to see or read a dramatization of a situation (or worse situation) that I have been dealing with in some way or another for close to 20 years.
However, the New Yorker recently published a story from one of their writers, Calvin Tomkins, who turned 100 in December 2025. He was primarily an art critic and was first published by the magazine in 1958. (He passed away in March, 2026.)
I didn’t expect to read the entire article but the author had such good humor and was so candid about aging, I enjoyed the entire article, even when it was tough to read.
“Old age is so embarrassing.”
“New stuff is daunting to old guys, especially when the instructions are in small print.”
“The paraphernalia of old age piles up.”
“It turns out that in our town older people who can’t get up when they fall can call 911 for a ‘lift assist.'”
