(1) Want a Ride? When I retired from law practice in 2012, I wanted to find volunteer opportunities. One that I selected was to volunteer for Northwest Neighborhood Village, a local organization devoted to helping seniors remain in their homes, helping drive members to medical appointments and the like. I did this for about 5 years, until I turned 75, when I was told (basically) that I was too old to continue driving, that I should retake a driving test, plus a senior driver learner’s course, and that I would only be given short assignments within the neighborhood. That’s when I stopped volunteering for them.

But it was a terrific thing to do, although it interrupted my day quite often, largely because of the people I met. Without naming names, here were some of them:

1. An Episcopal priest who had led an upstate New York diocese and who had just retired as assistant dean of the National Cathedral. He and I became fairly friendly and even had lunch a few times.
2. A man who was a long time science reporter for National Geographic Magazine, interesting because – when he got the job – he had no scientific background whatsoever.
3. A former university professor who had been blind for life, but now was also deaf, but still living on her own. She my most challenging assignment and – believe me – was well beyond my skill set.
4. A Dutch born diplomat who had been working at the World Bank. I became friendly with both him and his Lebanese wife, and after he became housebound visited him just to talk a few times.
5. A woman who actually had been a paralegal for my law firm 40 years earlier, and whom I hadn’t seen since. This was a surprise, and a treat.
6. A nice, reserved woman from Sri Lanka who lived up the street in a Connecticut Avenue Apartment. I used to drive her to a Buddhist retreat way far away (and I don’t even remember where it was).
7. A Filipino woman, who family was originally Indian, from Goa, who lived with her sister, and who loved to hear the latest about my then very young granddaughter.
8. The mother of a prominent national author and journalist, who was an expert on Al Qaeda and bin Laden.
9. A man who was a DC native, but whose career was as a university librarian in New York City. He moved back to DC when he needed to go into assisted living.
10. An African American economist who spent most of his career working in India before becoming a university professor in the Midwest.

Each of these people I drove multiple times to their medical or other appointments. Of the 10 people I listed above and assisted in the years 2012…..I know at least 7 have passed away. I find that fact, by itself, to be rather amazing.

(2) Want to see King Lear? One of my memories of King Lear is from almost 40 years ago, when then very young Michelle was shown a photo (I think she was shown a photo) of Martin Luther King and asked if she knew who that was. She did. She said: “It’s Martin Luther King Lear”.

On a very different note…….last night, Edie and I streamed the Shakespeare Theatre’s version of “King Lear”, starring Patrick Page, who exuded emotion and confusion and sorrow as the unfortunate, aging King whose plans for the future had certainly crumbled. A bravura performance to be sure, and supported by a very strong cast, and by a collection of simple, yet evocative, sets that did not detract from the intensity of the drama.

You remember Lear? He decided to divide his kingdom equally among his three daughters, only asking them to tell him how much they loved him. Two did so, but poor Cornelia could not exaggerate like her sisters and simply she told him that she loved him as a daughter was to love her father. She was disinherited (but not left without a penny, because she soon married the King of France), and the other two daughters plotted against their father and each other, tearing the kingdom apart. Cornelia tried to rescue her father, but in the end – it’s a Shakespearean tragedy after all – Lear and his three daughters all perish. And while all of this transpires, the aging Earl of Gloucester (Craig Wallace in this production) has his own parallel problems, dealing with his deceptive adopted son, and his skittish biological son.

Reviews of the play talk about the necessity of advance planning if you are an aging king, so you can know when to step back and have the next generation ready to move forward. Maureen Dowd, in an NYT editorial yesterday, referenced the show as a lead-in to talking about Joe Biden, Donald Trump and even Diane Feinstein; they should know when to step away. But, looking at Lear from the perspective of an 80 year old man, I am not so sure. I think the lesson might be the opposite: yes, you are old, but if you step away from your ruling position, you might find yourself the target of the next generation and you might go mad defending yourself while, as you watch from the side, everything you worked for your entire life goes to ruin. It’s all about perspective.