Junque

 
I’m in the midst cleaning out my barn and fixing up a small house I’ve owned for years to ready it for sale. The process has evoked unexpected nostalgia even though I have no emotional attachment to any of the junk per se or to the real estate. I suspect the reaction is from an implicit acknowledgement of aging. Most of the things in the barn (along with the small house for that matter) targeted for removal have been retained up until now on the “I may do something with this someday” theory. The bulk of them (not actually garbage in the usual sense, but things such as screens, hardware of all kinds, specialty tools, mismatched lumber, cabinet pieces, etc.) were stored there by my dad (gone more than 20 years now) on the same “I may do something with this someday” theory. The realities of time being what they are, I’m really not going to do anything more with them than he did if I keep them. Yet, removing them (whether by sale, gift, or disposal) is a recognition of doors closing.

the barn

 
Nostalgia is tricky. It’s not just about missing the past, such as that special someone in one’s youth who got away. (Odds are we are lucky that particular someone got away.) It’s about missing past futures. We miss having had the option of a certain kind of future with that someone as much as (or rather than) miss the person herself. Everyone has biological clocks that tick at different speeds for different activities. As we age, our options constrict – quicker in practical terms than in hypothetical terms. Yes, in principle someone in his or her 60s, for instance, still could go to medical school and complete residency by age 80, but I think we can agree that as a practical career plan that option faded decades earlier. With each passing year our realistic possible futures become more limited. It begins early. By our late 20s most of us are weighing time costs (of more education for example) against the benefits, and sometimes the costs already are too high. So, while we remember past people, places, and events when in a nostalgic mood, we also contemplate the past world of possibilities associated with them.
 
Of course, we never really know how much future (and therefore how many possible futures) we have at our disposal. Actuarial tables give us the odds, but the distribution curve has, as they say, fat tails: there are a lot of outliers. It is uncertain what is the maximum lifespan for a human being. During the time of Charles I, there was the case of Old Tom Parr who married at for the first time at 80 (fathering two children) and for the second time at 122. He eventually succumbed in 1635 at age 150 shortly after being entertained (on account of his age) at Charles’ court. However, recordkeeping was somewhat questionable in those days, so modern historians tend to be skeptical that the numbers are right.
 
The oldest person for whom the records are reliable was Jeanne Louise Calment who died in 1997 at age 122 (and 164 days). One poor fellow in Arles made the biggest mistake of his life by betting against her based on actuarial tables. André-François Raffray at age 47 signed a contract to buy Calment’s Arles apartment en viager, by which Calment not only retained life rights to occupy the apartment but received a 2500 franc monthly check besides. Calment was 90 at the time. Raffray quite reasonably expected he would be on a hook for perhaps a few years, which would mean the apartment was a steal. Calment outlived Raffray by three years. What was Calment’s secret to a long life? Well, she did quit smoking – at age 117. She also drank port wine every day and ate two pounds of chocolate per week.
 
A curious thing about centenarians – especially those over age 105 – is how infrequently they follow usual health advice about exercise and diet. Muriel Froomberg, who died in London in 2017 at age 108, drank a bottle of whisky a week and touted its benefits. Antonio Docampo Garcia (died 107) drank up to four bottles of homemade wine per night – he disdained water. Batuli Lamichhane (119) of Nepal never quit her 30 cigarette per day habit. Susannah Mushatt Jones of Brooklyn (died 116) recommended eating bacon. Richard Overton (died last year at 112) of Texas credited his health (or at least his happiness) to cigars, bourbon, and ice cream. A Japanese study of seven people over 110 may give some clue about what is going on here. The seven have (and apparently were born with) exceptional immune systems. Specifically, their CD4 T-cells actively attack viruses and cancerous cells with an effectiveness not seen in average people. So, they can get away with (perhaps even benefit from) lifestyles that might kill the rest of us.
 
Are you one of those destined to live over 110 years? Probably not. You and I might well be on the nearer tail of the actuarial curve rather than the further. But you never know. With that thought, I think I’ll keep some of the stuff I had earmarked in the garage after all. I might use it for something someday. And that decision, too, feels like old times.

Diane Keaton – Seems Like Old Times