My Father Takes the Stairs

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My father turned 97 yesterday. 

We celebrated with a cake with four candles. 

It’s an incredible span of time. 

Dad remembers the ice box before the family got a fridge with an electric coil on top. And the coal chute that delivered briquets he and his brother shoveled into the furnace each morning.

He remembers sitting in the “radio room” of his house listening to shows and the arrival of first television in the neighborhood and private phones and gas rationing coupons during the war.

He saw the wreck of the ocean liner Morro Castle in Asbury Park and heard Franklin Roosevelt’s Day of Infamy speech live on radio in his high school auditorium. He saw Jackie Robinson play at Rupert stadium in Newark.

Dad says he has been lucky and it’s hard to argue. He entered World War II just as it was ending and finished his three years just as the Korean War was starting.

He survived the deadliest train derailment in New Jersey history which killed 85 people in 1951.

He had a great job he enjoyed, and which allowed him time to coach his kids’ Little League teams and retire with a pension. 

He bought the house where I grew up and saw it appreciate dramatically. 

And most of all, he has been happily married to my mom for almost 60 years. 

A lot of his good health has been due to good habits.

He rarely drinks and never smoked. 

He exercises daily, walking around the park and doing chair yoga. When he was younger, he swam each night after work and refereed high school soccer. 

He eats a steady diet of meat, potatoes and vegetables, but he never snacks between meals or drinks soda. 

He has strong views about simple things like how to cut up your pancakes. But he doesn’t talk about them, much less demand you do the same. 

He expends little mental energy being judgmental or angry, which is an underappreciated virtue.

Perhaps most important, and a lesson for everyone, he keeps busy and tries to do most things for himself.

Dad mends chairs or unclogs the drain or installs pegs in the closet to hang the vacuum. He plays Sudoku. He does not sit still. There is always something to do. 

As his eyesight has deteriorated, Dad compensated by counting the stairs and memorizing the layout of the furniture so he can navigate unassisted.

During the day he makes it a point to use the bathroom that is farthest away, which requires him to climb an extra flight of stairs.

Last week, my parents took the train to New York instead of having me drive out and get them.

So much of what keeps us healthy and happy comes from consistent, simple choices.

Take the stairs and the train. Don’t snack.

Insist on doing things for yourself.

Happy birthday, Dad!

BRIEF OBSERVATIONS

Following the News: An interesting academic paper recently argued that public opinion drives news coverage more than the other way around. There is a lot of anger these days about things that are written by the media, presumably because of the assumption people will read it and adopt that view. But maybe it’s the opposite, that articles reflect public sentiment more than make it.

Honesty by Vocation: A fascinating data visualization shows which professions are considered the most and least honest based on party affiliation. One of the biggest gaps is about how people feel about journalists and specifically a sudden negative shift among Republicans about a decade ago.

Air Temperature: Hermann Zschiegner, creative head at design firm Two-N, is working on a data visualization project that shows how global average temperatures have changed. It’s alarming to see how forty years ago there were almost no record temperature days and now they are commonplace.

Phone Book: I carried a tiny black phone book around when I was in high school. I found it in the basement recently and was reminded that in addition to my friends’ home numbers, I also wrote down the numbers for public pay phones that we used to receive calls. I would tell my parents to call me at 4 pm and I would wait in the pay phone at the train station or in the library. Effectively, I used public pay phones as a kind of cell phone.