“God knows what other potentials lurk in other people, if we could only keep them alive well into their 90s.”
A profile featured in last week's New York Times made me think of my 94-year-old neighbor Peg, and her 96-year-old husband Al. I make a point of trying to visit them when I can, but I don't get to see them nearly as often as I would like. Each time I do, Al tells an anecdote or, reveals some snippet of life from when he was younger. It's in the telling that you can see him transported to another time, another life.
After his wife died, 96-year-old Harry Bernstein needed something to fill the void. In 1934, a short story of his was published in a magazine, alongside works of literary notables like Gertrude Stein and William Carlos Williams, but his own literary success did not come until he returned to his typewriter a few years ago. The Invisible Wall , his first book, chronicles his childhood in an English mill town in which Jews live on one side of the street, Christians on the other. It is getting great reviews and deserves a look. Check it out when you can.
