Twice in a Lifetime

Many old men, including Henry Adams, have experienced their later years as if it were the end times, the collapse of civilization. (For Henry, it was 1914, the beginning of WWI.) Sometimes it is, but we usually don’t come to understand it as such until many years later. And even then, however significant or traumatic the demise, life goes on. I do not mention this truism in consolation for our recent moral and political debacle. Life can be going on badly, bigly badly indefinitely. But it goes on, and you go on in it.

Our presidential election, in which a ridiculous old gasbag, Donald Trump, whose most serious flaws don’t include his age—though age should be included among his lesser flaws—has more or less explicitly threatened the end of the republic under the Constitution. There is rightful concern, even rightful alarm. But reading old men like Henry can help to remind us that even the most discerning cannot see the future with any certainty. It must be lived in and through, and resisted, if need be, because resistance is a form of living.

Paraphrasing H. L. Mencken: Democracy is when 75 million people elect Donald Trump to the Presidency, again! Mencken is also reputed to have said, “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people,” or something like it. I guess we’ll see.

Once in a Lifetime

My only-begotten son married this September in a castle over the sea, one of a number of once-in-a-lifetime experiences that graced my life this season. And when there is increasingly less of life to grace, those gracious moments might seem to take on greater and greater graciousness. They did not. They do not. At least for me. Not that they’re less gracious by virtue of their coming later in life, only that their piquancy is not improved by age—mine.

Preliminary to the wedding ceremony itself, a dozen of us guests played a round of golf on the links at St. Andrews, the game’s holy of holies. It was a Sunday. And we did not go to church. But if you are going to violate the Fourth Commandment, an extenuating case can be made for Golf in the Kingdom. Having grown up on a golf course, scored respectably at times in the past—though quite out of practice these days—and having seriously considered the game as a philosophy, a way of life, a walking meditational practice, I hoped to celebrate those eighteen holes on the Jubilee course at St. Andrews with a certain reverence, a sense of ritual, maybe transcendence. My round comprised two pars, six respectable bogeys, three hack fests in three separate pot bunkers, and four lost balls. Because I also lost both scoring pencils rather early on, a true count cannot be tallied, but for old duffers and golf mystics, the score is hardly the point. I will remember the rolling treelessness, the wind off the sea, the oncoming shower over the Old Course clubhouse that we watched from a distance, and the prickly impenetrability of gorse. ‘Twas lovely, and yet I retain more profound memories from less hallowed golf venues.

The main event, my son’s wedding, in the chapel of Dalhousie Castle outside of Edinburgh, went off rather splendidly, despite some social and logistical trepidations, of which, nothing further to report. He and his bride made their vows with an intelligence, humor, and deep feeling that assures us of its singularity, their once in a lifetime. They proved the highlight of this post.

KSylvie and I ventured onward in search of once and onlies. For an English major like myself and a theatre fangirl like my wife, an evening at Shakespeare’s Globe in London seemed a superlatively promising outing, a fourth anniversary to be remembered. A fine day of Thames-walking, Swan dining, play-watching (Princess Essex, not one of the Bard’s), Millenium Bridge crossing, London night skyline admiring, and double-decker bus riding engaged us fully and satisfactorily. But, alas, again. It was less than magical. Why? Not sure. Of course, the original Globe Theatre burned down in 1613, and the spirit of William Shakespeare has probably wandered off in the four centuries since. And no bears were being baited for ambiance, which is a good thing. But my most elevated, my greatest expectations for dramaturgical rapture went unmet.

In St. Helier, the capital of Jersey Island in the English Channel, I succeeded in piloting, and KSylvie in stoking, a tandem bicycle, for a first time in our lives. While the initial twenty minutes nearly resulted in a trial separation—which would have been ironic—a little communication and a little coordination saved the day, as it so often does in marriage. This incident will likely take on a more positive emotional resonance in the future, but for now, no halo effect.

The Abbey at Mont St. Michel was the most conspicuous high point of our wedding/anniversary sojourn. A UNESCO world cultural heritage site, it has acquired bucket list status for far too many global sightseers despite being somewhat out of the way. I do not have a bucket list—I’m less organized, less intentional than most. But Mont St. Michel has held a place in my historical imagination owing to Henry Adams and his study of 13^th-century unity, Mont-St.-Michel and Chartres. I have visited Chartres previously. There seems a certain and salient closure.

The abbey mount is a magnificent pile of granite, natural and hewn: geologic, ancient, formidable, austere, quietly awe-inspiring, at least from a distance, the very sheerness of verticality. “The Archangel,” Henry wrote, “loved heights.” Up close, however, in tight, alas, the same plague that irritated him in 1895, irritated us in 2024, the “mob of tourists,” that is to say, a throng of those not unlike ourselves, but not ourselves. And souvenir retail, a dearth of restroom facility, the exorbitance of tourist trap pricing. But out on the salt marsh meadows, away from the crowds, a mile off or so, Mont Saint Michel had its better effect. Henry also wrote “men and women who have lived long and are tired,—who want rest,—who have done with aspirations and ambition,—whose life has been a broken arch,—feel this repose and restraint as they feel nothing else.” Count me among them. But its best and most hoped for effect, that of the nameless sublime, did not reveal itself.

 

From One Old Man to Two Old Men

Two old men are hobbling and stumbling and stalling and rambling incoherently along again for the presidency of the United States, the same old men who “ran” four years ago, the oldest pair of has-beens in our history, now older still, and both visibly diminished as candidates. If is it ageist, as an old man myself, I don’t think it unduly ageist to wish that both of these guys retire gracefully—which will never happen, but only because one of them never does anything gracefully. Yet, it would be wise and for the greater good of the country for both, or either, even at this late date, to step away from this clash of antiquities and occasional if increasing senilities. You’ve had your day. Move along.

With my sincere appreciation for your service, Joe.