Old Men and Hats

I sat with the old men today. It wasn’t my first time. Just inside the north entrance to the Northgate Mall there are four very comfortable easy chairs arranged in a large circle. I’ve discovered that it’s a very pleasant place to eat lunch, out of the wind and warmed by the sun filtering softly through the skylights. It’s also a convenient place for wives to park their husbands while shopping at Macy’s.

The husbands, I assume, are all retired; or why else would they be at the mall on a weekday? They sit there with sadly blank expressions. They show no interest in the passing scene: the shoppers bustling to and fro, the perky teens chattering on their lunch break from nearby Terra Linda High, or even each other. Perhaps they are the chauffeurs, or perhaps their wives don’t trust them to be home alone for some reason. But there they sit. Rarely is there a book, a snack or even a newspaper.

I sometimes wonder who I will be when I get to their age. Over the years, I have had several remarkable women who showed me how to age gracefully, full of curiosity and vitality, but not many older men. There is one friend of mine, a well-known theatrical director, who once told me that he was looking forward to being a “mean, old son-of-a-bitch,” just because when you’re really old you can get away with that kind of behavior. In his case, he’s actually gone the other direction, and has ended up more of a kitten than a snarling wolverine.

I never knew one of my grandfathers, and only met the other on a couple of occasions, but there was one older almost-relative in my young life, and he was significant. He was my mother’s best-friend’s husband and was more a part of our family than just about anyone outside our home. His name was Anshall Nelson, but to us he was always just Ancy. He and his wife, Jean, made a perfect pair. Even the vanity plate on their car said so: “JEANCY.”

Ancy holds a very special place in my heart because he was my first true adult friend. He didn’t care that I was only seven or eight years old – he engaged me as a grown-up. We held grown-up conversations about what little of the world I understood. He asked me about my schoolwork in much the same way I imagined he would ask a co-worker about an ongoing project. And we pondered the unknowns together. His favorite was to pose the question: If the word “twice” means two times; and “once” means one time; then, logically, shouldn’t no-times be “nonce”? Back then, I didn’t know that nonce was, in fact, a word, but I did know that this running joke was just between us. He already had two remarkable daughters, so perhaps I was his surrogate son. As I got older, I did some gardening at their house and he was always respectful of my opinions and my work. That meant a lot to me. He died in the early eighties, and Jean left this world just a couple of years ago. She was one of those afore-mentioned remarkable women and I do miss her, but I am glad that they are together again.

There is another older man whom I have been noticing lately. If I ride my bike to work in the morning and take Novato Boulevard to Redwood Boulevard, and then up over the steep hill to Palmer – I often see him. He takes his morning stroll at that time and the first thing you notice is that he is always well turned-out, from his snap-brim hat down to his snappy walking shoes. Then, as you pass by, he will tap one finger to the brim of his hat and then point it in your direction while flashing his brilliant Maurice Chevalier smile. His face is tanned, and his wrinkles seem to be the result of a lot of smiling over the years. I don’t know his name, but he always puts a smile on my lips as I wave back, and he never fails to lift my spirits.

What I love is that through his attire and that simple gesture he declares that he is still someone who has a place in the world. For him, each day is that rare occasion – yet another morning of being alive. At my age, I have lost enough friends and relatives to begin to appreciate that sentiment.

Last summer, I took a several-week hiatus from attending my usual church. And, on the occasion of my first Sunday back, one of our congregants pulled me aside and said what a pleasure it was to see me again, that she missed the way that I always had a smile on my face. It’s funny that I don’t always realize that the smile is there, but perhaps you will see me someday, out for my morning constitutional and tipping my hat in greeting as you ride off to work.