At age 80, I have been watching World Cup games for the first time. Well, I admit that I don’t sit and stare at the TV, but I have it on as background while I do other things, looking at it from time to time. Today, I was only able to see the last 20 minutes of the American 1-0 victory over Iran. Of course, I was happy with the victory – why should I root for any team but ours? But I have also been following the protest demonstrations in Iran, and their unfortunate repercussions on the futbal field.

We all recognize the horror of the Iranian regime domestically, as well as its interference in the Middle East, and its apparent alliance with Russia in regard to its invasion and destruction of Ukraine. But there is more to Iran than an intolerant Islamist regime. Persian history is a fairly glorious one and important, and – even under the current regime, the Iranians have been able to maintain a modern and sophisticated state. Even though I remember little of what it said, Roman Ghirshmann’s book “Iran” convinced me that Persia was once the center of world civilization, and it influences us even today. I once read another book, whose name is long gone from my memory, about the restructuring of the government of Iran after the fall of the Shah, and I remember from that book that the transformation of the country into a theocratic autocracy was not at all inevitable. It was a result of a set of unfortunate (in hind sight) decisions made along the way by well meaning jurists and other public servants, that led to unanticipated results. And clearly, from knowing and knowing about Iranian-Americans, we all realize that not every Iranian is one with the Ayatollah.

Now, serious protests, especially against the treatment of women, are going on in Iran. The World Cup team showed surprising sympathy with those protesting. The Iranian government countered immediately and strongly, suggesting that any further protests would be met with severe consequences not only to the players, but to their families back home. With this in mind, although I wanted an American victory today, I also want the Iranian team to come out of the tournament in one piece.

The game was hard fought, to be sure. And 1-0 is not a rout. And I was overjoyed to see that, after the game, American and Iranian players put their arms around each other, smiled at each other, and congratulated each other on a good game.

This gives one hope.

The second thing worth mentioning today is that I had a terrific lunch with two of my college roommates, Doug and Eric. Doug has been 80 for a couple of months now, and Eric still have a couple of weeks left of being 79, and clearly needed our advice. Doug and I live in DC, but Eric lives in Annapolis, so we met half way, in Bowie, just off Route 50 at a First Watch restaurant.

I really had a nice time. For one thing, we did not talk about politics and we did not talk about our health, and we did not talk about our age. We didn’t even repeat 60 year old stories from college that we have each heard twenty times. We talked about our families and especially about our children and grandchildren (in great detail) and we talked about the traveling we had done over the years and the traveling we hope to do in the future. Eric talked about his Panama Canal trip, his Nile River trip, and his trip from Buenos Aires to Barcelona. Doug about his trip to Uzbekistan and India. I talked about trips to Tunisia and Jamaica.

The food at First Watch is, I think, always good. Do you know it? It is a breakfast/lunch chain that I first became acquainted with in Indianapolis in 2019. That’s the time Edie and I were meeting two sets of cousins for brunch at 12 p.m. We were driving home from St. Louis. One set of cousins was driving south from Michigan to Chattanooga. At 12:30 p.m., my phone rang in the car and my Indianapolis cousin asked me how we were doing. I told her we were right on time. She disagreed and said we were already 30 minutes late. Now I ask you: who in their right mind would have have put Indianapolis in the Eastern Time Zone?

Yes, there is a third thing to talk about, but I know you have other things to do. It can wait.