October 3, 2025 • 54 mins
Aging isn’t a slow fade—it’s a remix. New York Times reporter John Leland joins Ron Roel to explore what longer lives make possible: a 90-year-old’s first bar mitzvah, blind tennis in downtown Manhattan, why “act your age” is terrible advice, and how gratitude and purpose can outshine loss. We also dig into lifelong learning, bending (not breaking) career timelines, and the stakes of losing local journalism. If you’re rethinking what the second half of life can look like, this conversation will give you frameworks, stories—and a nudge to try the thing you “can’t.”
Guest: John Leland — author of Happiness Is a Choice You Make: Lessons from a Year Among the Oldest Old
Host: Ron Roel — 45 Forward Contact & Links
• John Leland: leland@nytimes.com
• John’s NYT byline archive: search “New York Times John Leland byline”
• Ron: ron@45forward.org — newsletter & show notes at 45Forward.org
• Ron’s book: The Caregiving Navigator (Amazon)
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/45-forward--6550893/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So you wrote an interesting story about blind tennis. Tell
us about that.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Who would think there was such a thing as blind tennis, right,
I didn't. I learned about it from a friend of
a friend of her friend, just how stories often happened.
And her mother was doing blind tennis. She'd been you
had a very professional career and starting to lose her
(00:25):
eyes on and she had to give up her house,
thousands of books she'd had in the house. She'd been
an avid reader. And she was at a program at
the Metropolitan Museum in New York, seeing through drawing this
program for people visually impaired people to try to enable
(00:47):
them to appreciate the collection at the met. So already
this is something I love because it's not recognizing these
limitations that people think we have. And someone said, I
U should really try blind tennis. She's like, I want
to know more. Tell me more. You ever played tennis
in the life, never been interested in athletics. But the
(01:09):
idea that she didn't have to say that she was
somebody who couldn't play tennis because of her impairment and
airy vision. Hio.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Everyone, Welcome to forty five Forward. This is Ron Roell,
your host, talk to you today with John Leland, a
New York Times reporter who's been at the Times for
twenty five years. I last had John on my show
about two years ago, when we talked about his best
selling book, Happiness Is a Choice You Make about the
daily lives several New Yorkers eighty five and older, the
(01:40):
remarkably insightful, somewhat surprising book about aging, and ever since then,
I wanted to ask Sean back to return to forty
five forward and talk about his successive stories about aging
and his thoughts on longevity and really living a purpose
of life all the way through. John has a lot
to say about the subject, and I'm delighted to have
(02:01):
him back. John, and welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Great to be so John.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
As I mentioned, you've heard a lot a lot of things.
You cover the texture of today's life, from youth culture
to the lives of very old I want to talk about,
you know a little bit about a story you wrote.
I think it was the end of last year because
I had an interesting twist to it. It's about a
man who decided to get to bar Mitzford, but not
(02:28):
at the age of thirteen, but rather at the age
of ninety. I'm talking a little bit about the story,
how you found the story, a little bit about the man.
So what you thought about the story and what you
thought about.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Him, Well, it's not something you encountered every day. The
man's name was ron Eleron and he had been a
popular folks singer in Israel or what was then called Palestine,
and then in the United States became kind of a
fixture in the Gradish village folks scene, very very popular.
(03:03):
He's ninety years old. After we do the math and
take us back seventy seven years to when he was thirteen.
It was nineteen forty seven. The area we're talking about
was in a British mandate called Palestine, and it was
in turmoil. And as his thirteenth day birth, they approached
(03:27):
his parents did what parents do you know? They bought
the food, they ordered the food, they invited yests and
then the British government called the curfew because of the unrest,
and so they're there at home. They've got the food,
but nobody could cook, so nobody could go out, and
so he never had a bar mitzvah and he never
(03:50):
missed this. But over the years he was a singer
soph anytime a relative had a bar mitzvah, he sang
at it. But this kid out of bar mitzvah, he
sang on it with his brother, but he's saying at it,
but he'd never had one himself. And as his ninetieth
birthday approached, his brother thought, you know, now is really
the time to do it, because we'd never know, right.
(04:17):
So they invited about the same number of guests, about
seventy five guests through a steakhouse in Manhattan. It was
it was December, I believe, so there were Christmas decorations
on that all and they were, you know, I think
they were very culturally Jewish family, but not a very
(04:38):
religious Jewish family. So there was steak and there was
shrimp to get side by side, which you might not
have at a kosher bar mitzvah. And you know, you've
been to bar mitzra's over your life. And one of
the things that are so wonderful about them is that
they're multi generational events, of which we have too few.
(05:01):
And usually the bar mitzvah boy is the young generation
and the other people are the older generation. But now
when the bar mitzvah boy is ninety we could have it. Uh,
you know, he could be the older represent the older generation,
and there could be you know, his kids, his son
was there and there were you know, great nephews and
(05:24):
great nieces, wives, ex wives, other ex wives. You know,
it was you know, it was a wonderful celebration of
community that he was able to do. And you know
he got the his brother got his band there and
they performed and the in the Israeli console in New
(05:44):
York sang a duet with him. Chair you know, it's no,
they did not waste him in each other. We could
have though they were there was dancing, there was everything
even expected abond this and I don't know why we
didn't notice a minute. Sure, you know, the barn Misphae
is the celebration of life, right, it's the celebration of
(06:06):
entering manhood. But like it's other things, there's a celebration
of life. And we're there with people a lot of
times that we haven't seen in years. We always say
we're going to see them all often that we don't,
and there's always people there we don't know whether we'll
ever see them again. And it was a chance to
(06:26):
do it and including you know people who had come
from Israel for this, who may thought they would never
see Ron again, and they got to see it. So
it was a great celebration. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Yeah, And it's interesting because it really, you know, at thirteen,
you know, we're celebrating becoming a man, but at ninety
years also celebrating having been one and it survived and
you're still there, and it's just sort of an interesting
twist on life. You know, you and I've talked a
lot about sort of what longevity offers is kind of
(07:02):
a disruption of the traditional timetable of you know, events
in our life. And so this is a very interesting twist.
And in some ways, I don't want to say it's
more meaningful, but it's a different kind of meaning.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Well, I think that's absolutely right. I think what does
it mean to become a man means something at thirteen
when it's you know, it's speculative, and what does it
mean to be a man? What does it mean to
be a member of this community, a contributing member who's
ready to take my place in this community in a
(07:34):
different way than I did, you know, when I was
a child. And so I think that meant a lot
to him. And also just heaving. The people there come
to be a part of his life. And I think
when you're thirteen, is there the people that you hope
are going to be part of your life going on forever.
(07:54):
And now you see that at ninety, you've seen if
some of them aren't there anymore, some of the you
know what thought would make this journey with you art there.
But you can value the people that are there and
not take it for granted that they were going to
be there for the rest of your life. So there's
a different perspective on it that he was able to
share with the people there, and maybe they can discuss
(08:16):
and understand and share with each other. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Yeah, And certainly you know when you you know, when
you're thirteen, you know it's mostly your family and I
guess here to some of your adolescent friends. But now
you have friends from many periods hopefully of your life.
So it's a different kind of experience. It's kind of
more enriching. I mean, you know, I got married, not
bar Mits, but I got married, you know, relatively late
(08:41):
early forties, and that wedding was quite different from when
if I had been say twenty three, I mean, was
a very different mixture of friends and family and already
from several period you know, stages of my life, so
really is more enriching. So I think that this is interesting.
Now is still willis?
Speaker 2 (09:01):
He is as far as I know, and still performing
and he's still in good voice. You know, he might
not do the complicated tours that he once did, but
he still performs. To this event, I thought, you were
a friend of mine who's going to be ninety five
in November, and I said, you know David, and David
(09:22):
had been a fixture in the Granwish Villege folks scene
as well, So I said, do you know ron Eleron
And he had this bart mitspah, and he said, really,
I'm having a propist for two. For a slightly different reason,
his family was in DC, I think at the time
when he was thirteen, but they didn't have the money
to be part of a temple, so he had never
(09:43):
had one. And he thought that or somebody had thought, well,
David's done so much and he really is somebody who
had done a lot in his life, but he'd never
had a barnus. He'd never had this ritual. And he
came from a long tradition of rabbi, so it was
a missing element in his life, not to show that
(10:04):
he really felt it as a missing element until it
was brought up. But here's somebody who will never miss
an opportunity for celebration. So they had this. I think
here's ninety three at the time.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
You and I've talked about this. So the markers in
our life have been changing, you know, and this is
one of the you know, implications of longevity is that
we can really stretch things out and change the markers around.
So one of the things, I mean, one of your
earliest stories was about I think it was called the
Secret lives of seniors who don't want to stop working.
(10:39):
So that's you know, another you know, one of the
elements is that we have a much longer spans of life,
but perhaps not there's no need to work in the
same kind of traditional way, right, and we can you know,
we go to school, we go to college, we get married,
we have a career, and we work until we retire
and then you know that's it. We do something else.
(11:00):
But this, you know what, the loejety gives us an
opportunity to disrupt this kind of pattern.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Yes, I mean for centuries and beings work mostly in agriculture, right,
and it was backbreaking work and you could do it,
and you would do it and do it and do
it until you dropped. And when we started to work
in slightly different fields and created the idea of retirement,
it's the idea that work would would wear you out.
(11:27):
We would be digging up stumps or you know, working
in assembly lines. We'd be doing, you know, physically draining
work that we couldn't do all our lives, and you
know it can us. A lot of people still do that.
We have a lot of We think of our nurses
who have to be on their feet, you know, for
(11:48):
twelve hour shifts. One can't do that always after a
certain age that gets to be more or people can
do it, but it gets challenging after a certain age.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
But now a lot of us, not all of this,
but a lot of us work in fields where it's
not physically draining, where our experience is worth something.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
And maybe that calendar doesn't really work as well as
the East. Maybe we don't need to get all our
education by the time we're twenty eighteen or twenty two
or twenty five with twenty six and then go into
the workplace and try to make as much money as
we can while we can and have children and get
(12:34):
out of the workplace to have children, work for heaving children.
Maybe we want maybe our education should be a lifelong
then and we'll work a bit and get our education
for a bit, and maybe then maybe we don't need
to work so much when we're raising our children. Maybe
(12:54):
you know, we skip those years from when we're thirty
to thirty five, work when we're sixty five to seventy,
you know, moved those five years later. These are just
just thoughts. Everybody would have a different plan for this.
For some people that that scenario that didn't work, But
(13:15):
other people would have, you know, a more radical disruption
of their ideas of their timeline. And we as a
society now, as individuals but as a culture, haven't really
rethought that calendar for you know, as he's existed for centuries.
(13:35):
But we are living differently. We're living longer than than
we were when social security was instituted. People couldn't work
much past sixty five and they didn't live mutch past
sixty five. There was a lower life expendise. But now
we're going to live another fifteen twenty twenty five, thirty
(13:56):
years after sixty five, So so how do we make
those years productive and why do we think of them
as as a period of time after we'd like contributing
members to acide.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that there's lots of rationale
to kind of break it up. Certainly, you know, certainly
I didn't have a you know, physically demanding job. I
was a writer and journalist like you, and I still am.
I'm just not working from one employer, but I think
they're there.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
You know.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
The longevity gives us a chance to recognize people have
a longer overall period. But we can break it up.
Working in a job for you know, ten years and
you're not physically trained, but emotionally you may be like, well, okay,
that's enough. There's no reason why she keep doing that
and continuing on that trajectory. You know, I think there's
(14:51):
a lot of rationale for taking you know what piping
considers sort of a semi you know, a small sabbatical
you know. Uh, you know, we do it in some professions,
right in the teaching professions and the ministries, and you know,
it's not supposed to be pretty where we just sell
it said Okay, we'll just take a break and go
on vacation. Some people do and take some vacation time,
(15:14):
but it's really a time to kind of prethink, you know,
to pivot and say, well, where am I whatever I
want to do? Do we want to continue along this path?
Maybe I do, but not right you know, let me
just you know, take some time to reorient myself.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
You know.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
I had a little bit of this, you know, when
I was at you know, an editor at Newsday, and
then we had her two sons a little bit later,
and then it's like, well, I do need to take
a parent to leave taking care of twins. And my
wife is like, no, I this is not on her alone.
(15:50):
And it did give me. You know, you come back
and you're like, you're different, certainly when you have kids,
you're different, you know, and your part has changed. But
it seems like that's an opportunity we don't take advantage of.
And I think sometimes it's on us and something it's
on the employer. And I think there is sort of
an assumption if you do that kind of have that
(16:10):
kind of you know, you know, checkerboard career or towards
breaks like that, that maybe you're not quite as serious
as the guy next to you about advancing your company.
But I think that the the enrichment that's possible really
greatly outweighs the you know, the lockstep you know advancement.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
So but it's hard, it's hard, and I'm hoping I've
hoped for the generation after us because we're about the
same age. I think who you know aren't working for
companies for life in that long term profession, and often
they're not in the same profession for life because the
Johns are changing aunt, so they need to be more nimble. Uh,
(16:56):
I'm I'm just optimistic. I think they will start to
rethink that calendar because I worked this I worked this
job for five years and then maybe I need to
go back to school and do a little different kind
of training. I work this other field for ten fifteen
years and then be something else, as opposed to I
(17:18):
think most of you know, and I worked in the field
that we're in for thirty forty years.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Yeah, I think that you know, certainly, you know, having
worked in journalism, there there is an opportunity to shift
a little bit because you can just you know, take
on different beat and then yes, you're still writing but
it takes me to a different area. So I think
that's important to change your perspective. You know, it's it's
easy to get caught in, you know, one of view.
(17:45):
And I think that's what you know. I think you
started talking about, you know, sort of education, and I
think that you know, there is you know, this possibility
for lifelong learning and a really broad perspective. I mean,
it can be going back to school, getting different kinds
of credentials, you know. I I'm going to have someone
(18:08):
on the show in a few weeks who was an attorney.
Actually she was a judge and then she retired and
now she started a jewelry business. I mean, something something
completely different. But I think that you know, and even
when I I think, you know, I'm not going to
say that education is wasted on the young, it's not.
(18:29):
It's just again, it's a different education. You know, you're
you know, it's a religious education. You know, getting the
barments is different thirteen and ninety and you know, as
you get the same kind the same kind of education
if you had it at you know, forty forty five
instead of twenty five, be a different experience too. You know,
(18:53):
things and look at things and ways you could you
just couldn't do when you were earlier, younger, and I
think we missed that opportunity.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
I think we do. Of course, if your kids of
the age that I think they are, then you're paying
for their education now where you recently pay for education,
and you know that that's just implausible for a lot
of families to pay for that four year education when
your kids are eighteen nineteen and there's nothing coming back.
(19:22):
You know, maybe and it's the payoff is it from
it isn't what it was was, So maybe it's it's
do a little technical training at eighteen nineteen, work on
your soul a little bit in your thirties, work on
something else in your forties. There's an opportunity there, just
not to do things a certain way just because we
(19:44):
used to do it with living.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
What right, Yeah, I think that certainly, you know, the
issue of the cost of college education comes into it
where people are you know, they're they're burdened with a
lot of student debt and then there's no job, so
that's a concern for people. And then perhaps that kind
of college education is not for everybody, certainly not. But
(20:08):
at the same time, you know, I do you know
I had sort of a classical liberal arts education, you know,
where I said, well, this is my time, you know, Okay, yes,
I'm fortunate we could afford it. But it also was
a time to explore things in broad ways that I
(20:29):
don't know if I don't have it again. So I said,
well let me, let me do this. And I think
we're sort of missing that in education. Say we were going, well,
why are we learning all this? This is no relevance
to anything, And well, in some ways you don't. But
sometimes you just you don't know what the relevance is.
You're too not to know what relevance is.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Well, you know, the broad based liberal arts education has
become a smaller part of the college experience. You know,
it involves fewer students of small shows, did body and us.
I have to say that I've had the great opportunity
to speak at a couple of lifetime learning institutions and
(21:11):
where the where the students are older, and it has
been wonderful. They come. You know, you're in this class
and there's a lawyer, and there's a scientist, and there's
a retired in general, and there's somebody else, and they've
made the point to to continue their education in areas
(21:33):
where they might have expertise or it might have no expertise.
A lot of the people are professionally accomplished, but they
put themselves in an environment where they're not the experts anymore.
And it's I think it takes a certain amount of
courage to do that, but there's great value in it,
I think.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
So, yeah, so you need to have a dose of humility,
like okay, you know, just like when you go through school,
you're a freshman and you're a senior. Then you're start
over again in college as freshman. But I think that
people do appreciate I and you know, having gone to
a number of college reunions, some of my classmates, I
(22:14):
you know, talking with them there, you know you have
opportunities to take you know, listen to lectures from you know,
various professors. Uh, And they would say like, wow, I
missed that, I missed just that exploration. You know, you're
so focused on pragmatic living, getting things done, you know,
dealing with your kids, taking care of day to day pragmatics,
(22:36):
you don't have a chance to expand your mind. And
I think that's something again that you know that that
that lifelong learning offers an opportunity. You know, I had
a I'm a member of this group called PEER, which
is affiliated with a local college here in Long Island.
I think it stands for Personal Enrichment and Retirement. So
(22:59):
people are by and large retire to join this group.
But it's a group in which people actually teach each other.
You know that you take on a subject and maybe,
as you mentioned, you know something that maybe know nothing
about it, but you you learn about it, and then
you have to teach it to your peers, and and
(23:20):
so it does become in part, you know, educational, in
part social. You know, everyone is older and so you're
looking for social engagement. So it brings back both the
educational and social aspects of love learning. That's great, Yeah,
yeah it is. And actually there have been a couple
(23:41):
of marriages that have come out of it. Anyway, So listen,
I just wanted to shift a little bit in terms
of breaking up that kind we're talking about breaking up
those kinds of milestones. One of the things you and
I have talked about too, is just sort of breaking
up of traditional ways to act, you know, the different
you know, you don't need to act or age in
certain ways, and I think that you know they're in there.
(24:03):
People today are different in that respect.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Well, it's the worst idea that we should act our age,
isn't it that we should act We should act well,
we should act well in the society. But this idea
that you should behave a certain way, thirteen in a
different way, it's forty three in a different way, eighty
three dress a different way at thirteen and forty three
and eighty three. I think this limits us in so
(24:28):
many ways. Why shouldn't we Why do we have to
be age appropriate all the time. Why do we have
to say, oh no, I can't wear that skirt because
I'm too old to with that skirt or that jacket
as well. It's why I want to you know, we
look at the mirror. We we wanted to wear that
(24:49):
skirt because we imagined ourselves in that skirt. We were
able to see ourselves in that skirt and saw something
we liked. Now, if we're wearing that skirt to try
to make us feel younger than we are, I might
have an issue with that. I think we should embrace
our age rather than try to hide it. But if
we're wearing that skirt because we think we look fantastic
(25:11):
in that skirt, and damn it, we want to show
up our legs a little bit, you know, go for it.
You've you've earned those legs whenever they look like you know,
those weren't easy. So wear that and and and do
the things you want to do. You want to go
to that that bar, and people are younger than you
(25:32):
go to that bar. Don't don't don't let this let
the fear that you're you're the old guy or the
old gal at the bar stop me from going there.
Take up hobbies that are for young people. Take up
to do through things that you never thought you would do.
So you don't carp a soap box, Jerby, I don't care,
(25:53):
you know, like get your boy Scouts certificate and then.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Great, get that Merit badge still there. That's great. So listen,
I'm going to just take a quick break John, So, folks,
we are going to take a short break, but we'll
be coming right back and talking much more with John
Lenan of the New York Times. So don't go anywhere.
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(26:38):
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Speaker 1 (26:50):
Welcome back to forty five Forward, folks. We're talking today
with John Lenan, a longtime reporter for The New York
Times and author of Happiness Is a Choice We Make,
which we'll talk about a little bit more, and you know,
just sort of updating the book and letting people know
about it if they haven't already seen my previous podcast
on it. Why don't shift a little bit now to
(27:11):
you know, issues of aging and longevity and how that
sort of intersects with technology and accessibility, because there are
opportunities that we have now, you know, over a longer
life to do things that previously weren't possible. So you
wrote an interesting story about blind tennis. Tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Who who would think there was such a thing as
blind tennis? Right? I didn't, but I was. I learned
about it from a friend of a friend of a
friend and just how stories often happened. And her mother
was was was doing blind tennis. She's been you know,
had a very professional career and start to lose her
(27:57):
eyes on and she had to give up her house
that thousands of books she'd had in her house. She'd
been an avid reader. And she was at a program
at the Metropolitan Museum in New York seeing through drawing
this program for people visually impaired people to try to
(28:18):
enable them to appreciate the collection at the met So
already this is something I love because it's not recognizing
these limitations that that people think we have. And someone said,
I U should really try blind tennis, and she's like, yeah,
I want to know more. Tell me, were you ever
played tennis in the life, never been interested in athletics.
(28:40):
But the idea that she didn't have to say that
she was somebody who couldn't play tennis because of her
impairment and terr vision, but she could learn to play.
So there was a program in Lower Manhattan in the
Financial District called Sound of Tennis that taught tennis to
(29:04):
people with different levels of vision impairment. Some could sort
of see a ball. Some were they were all I
guess legally blind, but people some people had more vision
than others. Some had no vision of the ball at all,
and they could only follow it through sound. And they
would get out there every Saturday morning, get themselves to
(29:29):
this club in the basement in the Financial District, which
was itself a challenge for anyone who has experienced with
accessor ride or paratransit in the New York City, which
often called stress a ride. So they said that this
is the great challenge of the place because the building
had drawers on three sides, so they never knew when
(29:51):
they gave the accessor ride driver the address, they never
knew exactly where they would be keep rops, so they
had to figure out where they were and then did
her on the way home. He didn't know what driver
was going to pit them up, So there was already
a challenge before they got there. And as I said this,
some of the players really couldn't see at all, and
(30:13):
some instructor would would would kind of throw the ball
towards their racket and say okay, now push and they
would hit the ball. Sometimes they would make contact and
sometimes they wouldn't. And the woman that had led me
into the story. She ended up not playing when I
was there because she had fallen and hurt her shoulder.
(30:36):
Her daughter said to her after she would you could
never schedule anything on a Saturday with her because she
was so in love with the tennis lesson. His daughter
would say, Mom, I was tennis today. What did you hit?
Who did you hit? Sometimes you say, well, I hit
the ball, and sometimes she would say, oh, I hit
the instructor. So it was just part of the part
(30:59):
of the thing. But it gave her something, you know.
It was just a lesson to all of us that
there are these things we think we can't do, and God,
we can do a lot of them. Not maybe not
in the ways that we might totally imagine ourselves in
our fantasies of doing them, but that's no reason for
(31:20):
us not to.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Do that right, right, and this gives us that opportunity.
I think that one of the things that I have
been looking at and I do a lot of things
that I deal without age, what I call aging successfully.
And there is a lot of intersection with you know,
with physical challenges as we get older, so there's an
overlap in terms of you know, needs for people who
(31:45):
are older, and those for people who are frail and
elderly and have somewhat of a disability in that sense.
And you know, I think that we miss the opportunity
to recognize what we can learn about how to age
well by those who were, you know, dealing with certain disabilities.
(32:07):
You know, a certainly as we age. You know, vision
is an issue, hearing is an issue. I have some
of these things. And one of the things I loved
about your book, you know, of happy is a choice
you make, is that you dealt with people who are
eighty five and older and you know, it wasn't easy
(32:28):
for them, but they just lived and they and they
accepted these challenges. And I think that and not only
now can we not just accept them, but we can
do something about them. There are technologies that can really
enrich our lives, you know, much longer than previously.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
One of the you know my book is also the
subtitle of this Lessons from a Year among the Oldest Old,
And it was really about the lessons that I learned
from that, and one of the most important and early
lessons I said, they all had things that they lost,
all had things that they couldn't do that they used
to do. But none of them define themselves by that loss.
(33:08):
Only other people define them that way, maybe with their doctors,
maybe their kids, who said.
Speaker 5 (33:13):
Mom can't walk like she used to, and that was mom,
and she sometimes forgets things she does notne of the
memory she used to have, instead of thinking that she's mom.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Did a great job with their plants today, or or
you know, dad had a really thoughtful conversation to them,
And I know, I think that's something that we can
learn from people who, you know, let's face it, are
experts at loss at a certain point dealt with it enough.
(33:44):
Maybe a lot of the people that I talked to,
because they were over eighty five, a lot of them
had lost spouses, they'd certainly all lost parents, of course
they were they were. They were expressing that they've lost
some of their mobility, they've lost their memory, they lost
son of their eyes. Study not all a bit in
the cases of the people that I dealt with, although
(34:06):
in the case of mobility is some lost more than others,
and they get up every morning and say, like, life
isn't what I've lost. Life is what I can do.
That's what defines me. That's right, Hang just as it
did when I was seventeen and couldn't do some of
the things I did when I was fifteen.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Yeah, I think there is a lot of life that's enriching.
That's that's you know, it forms you in ways that
you couldn't appreciate when you were younger. Certainly, you know,
you talked a lot in the book about, you know,
the issue of gratitude for what you have as opposed
to what you've lost. And one of my colleagues coined
(34:44):
this term. I haven't heard it except from her, and
I think, you know, this person, Viggie Eller, who has
also interviewed you, and that is, you know, we talk
about as we get older and somebody who looks, you know,
good at we're you know, physically strong in adept as
(35:04):
they get older, we say, lord, they look at them
and you call it even So, let's say you're in
your seventies and you look like you're in your fifties supposedly,
and you say, well, you're that person is really ageless,
and she says, well, why don't we change the term
to age full and embracing our age? We are full
of our age whatever age that is as opposed to
(35:26):
you know, defining it as you don't age, we do age.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Also, I don't like the idea that when people are
eighty something and they're not frail, we say you seem
really young, because then it seems that young is not
fail and oldest frail, Old isn't frail. There are people
that are frail when they're older. There's people who are
not frail when they're older. There's people who are frail
when they're younger, and there's people who are not frail
(35:51):
when they're younger. Frail is fail, old is old. Those
are the different ways sharp is sharp. You know, cognitive
decline is cognitive decline that's not aging. So it might
have an age related component to it, but that's not
what eighty looks like. Aighting looks like everything it eighty
(36:14):
looks like, you know, Gloria Steinem and it looks like
your uncle who's not getting around.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
And I think there are some actually cases where people
you know, will say they if they start taking care
of themselves in different ways when they're sixty five, you know,
I do know some people say, well, I'm in better
shaped now than when I was forty five, you know,
and they literally are you know, so so let's let
(36:40):
me just have a little bit of a reprise where
people who weren't familiar with with what you did with
happiness is a choice you're making. Just just describe that
story a little bit what you did with that.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
So it was a life changing experience for me, which
was the last thing I expected. It began with a
year long series in the New York Times. I just
thought I would follow six people over the age of
eighty five for a year and see where their life
took them. And I thought, well, this is going to
be again. I thought this would be a tale of
(37:08):
the loss, and somebody's going to lose their hearing and
and their life would go down. Somebody's going to lose
part of their memory. Their life's going to go down.
And someone's going to fall and break a hip or
become less mobile, and their lives's going to go down.
And what I found over the course of the year
is sort of what I said before. Is it that
(37:29):
people had a lot of the problems that I that
I expected, but those weren't the governing factors in their lives.
Their lives were elsewhere. Their lives were there their time
with their children, or their time caring for their playouts,
or or their their cantankerous relationships with their neighbors, or
you know, whatever they might be. Or they were romantic
(37:51):
involvement because one of the people had, you know, was
in a couple with somebody she met in Nersica. So
it was following them for a year. And then when
the year was over, I was supposed to be done
with and I found that something was missing from my life.
I didn't know what it was. What was it? What
was missing from my life? And it was it was
(38:13):
what I was learning day to day from spending time
with people who were experts in living or lived a
light the lib likes and new things that I didn't know,
and that might be historical periods, or it might have been,
you know, wisdom. I like to think that older people
are necessarily wise, because they're not, you know, a dumb
(38:34):
old person who's probably had done one person. We got old,
but there was something I missed. I started to explore that,
and they thought I needed to get back in their lives,
and I thought I would write a book about the
lessons I learned from them, and I ended up following
them in the Times and partly in the book, but
(38:55):
also in the book, but in the times until the
end of their lives.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
All yeah, and you say, so it changed you. I
think that we don't. We don't you know, as journalists.
I think you know, there is a certain sense of
objectivity you want to be you know, observe, But it
does change you. I mean, you are participants, even if
you're and I think that actually, you know, I had
(39:20):
someone on my show last week about uh. She she
did surveys and voters. She did a book called Our
Common Ground, which you can listen to on my podcast
as well. But so she she said that in talking
(39:40):
with voters, you know, the the tradition is, well, you
don't get you don't get involved with them, but in fact,
you know, she did get involved in relationships with them,
and in fact, you know, by doing so, they she
felt that they were actually more honest with her about
what they really believed and who they voted for and
did not vote for why. And I think that that's
(40:01):
some sudden that to me, is a lesson about writing
about people that you know, you're, yes, you're you're not
intimately involved with them, but you're in a relationship that
you can really understand their lives and they can really
open up to you and and you know, provide stories
that otherwise your readers wouldn't wouldn't have. And I think
(40:23):
that's what one of the things I did I do
appreciate about your writing, John, is that you know you're
here an elegant, eloquent writer, and and you're certain warmth
of that. I you know, a lot of writing today
seems sort of a cerbic, and yours is objective but
also involved and respectful of your of your subject, and
(40:49):
I think that comes out in your writing.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Well. I think we owe that to the people. I
asked a lot, you know, in this series and the
Times and in the book, I asked a lot of people.
I asked a lot of them, ask them to let
me into their lives, and it's a really important part
of their lives. And in parts of their lives where
maybe they found vulnerable, maybe they felt mortal in ways
(41:11):
that they were not necessarily comfortable with, or they thought
that there was things that they didn't do and maybe
they had progressed. I asked them to share that with me,
so I you had to honor that. But of course
my work life, I've often written about people who went
(41:31):
through terrible experiences, and I felt like I don't have
to live that experience with them, but I really have
to horg on it. I have to. I have to
take into account what it's like and hate they respected it,
And so I try to do that with anybody I
write it on. I think we all should, and most
(41:53):
people do. I find that there's that that kind of
starky stuff is very loud, so we might think that
it's more of that world than it is, and and
it attracts us. It's like a shiny little thing, so
we might be drawn to that. Think of the think
of like my colleagues who review restaurants. They know that
(42:14):
panning a restaurant is going to get a zillion views
and saying, oh, the stick was really quite good. There
is not like it's it's not gonna work the same way.
So even that's that's what we deal with. But we
can always treat people. And you know, I came to
realize that these people had given me so much. It's
(42:36):
really Uh. It helped me appreciate my mother because I
was in the mid fifties the in my mother was
in the mid eighties, and I would see my mother
regularly she's living in a building for older adults in Manhattan,
and uh, you know, I would think about the things
I could do for good, but I never thought about
(42:56):
what she was giving me. And maybe I thought of
the things that she get anyone that's going up. But
I thought that period of time was over. Now it
was my time. And I realized that what I was
getting from these people who were you know, we're strangers
to me or just like near for new journals the world,
we're giving me so much. And I helped me appreciate
(43:18):
what I was getting from my mother. It's you know,
our are you know, get together as were less. What
can I do for mom? Then well let's have a
great lunchting, you know, like what it just changed it.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
In the last part part of our show, before we conclude,
I wanted to talk a little bit more about just
your career as a journalist and just some of your
observations about your profession. A lot of people talk about
and I feel to talk about us, you know, and
sometimes I'm a little bit like, well, here, you don't
(43:56):
really know what's happening and what we're thinking. You might think,
you know, both you and I have been through some
really big changes and relatively short time in our profession.
You know, when I started out in the late sixties
and an intern, you know, we still had you know
it now known as hot type. You know, actually men,
(44:18):
I think maybe some women, but mostly men actually getting
articles and setting them up and locking them in pages
and then sending them off. And you know that there
would be five editions, five star editions, and people would
stay there until my shift started at one in the
(44:39):
afternoon until eight at night, and then the people took over.
So the profession has really changed a lot. What are
your thoughts about that. I mean, you've been through a
lot of those changes soon.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
I have. And I think that the thing that changed
that troubles me the most is the loss of local
press since the ad done Craigslist, which took away, which
killed classified ads for newspapers right which a lot of
smaller papers will lied about. The New York Times fortunately doesn't,
but a lot of papers did, and a lot of
(45:13):
communities have lost their local news. And so I think
it's made it easier for people who are criticized in
the news to say the news is horrible, the press
is terrible, because now when you think about the press
it's somebody far away. It's not the neighbors who were reporting.
You know, we're going to that you know, town council
(45:36):
meeting and reporting back on what happened there, because even
other time to do that, it's are busy. So I
think that that uh, you know, diminution of the local press,
that idea that the newspaper guy with proviting your story
or the people who live in that store, has really
made it possible for people that to demonize the press
(45:58):
the ways they did. And I think probably we've fallen
and we've made mistakes, and we've contributed to the low
reputation you have now. But but but we do have
a low reputation now, and we need to be mindful
of that at the same time. You know, I look
at Money News organization. Uh, these stories that are happening
(46:19):
right now, right this second. It's a new thing. I
was when I started there, pictures were only in black
and white, and if you wanted to read about the
planes that hit the World Trade Center on September eleventh,
you would read about them on September twelfth. Now now
you would read about it ten minutes later. And it
(46:41):
involves an entirely new level of competitiveness, but it also
gives people a commission immediately and that immediacy as he's ups.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
And dobs, right right, Yeah, I think your last common
is is really to remain that there are ups and downs.
Certainly you want information as quickly as possible, especially in
crises and disasters, but often the first accounts are not
correct or are first drafts, and that's not in fact
(47:14):
what happened. And and I think that's so that's one
of the unfortunate things about that those first impressions stick
and that sometimes it's hard to change. That's no, that's
not what happened, you know. And I'll just you know,
one example that came up recently that was you know,
(47:34):
and again I think it's the immediacy of being able
to go on you know, podcasts or you know, a
TV show or blog or something. Again can can alter
things in ways that are unfortunate. So there was an
incident where there's it I guess it got a lot
(47:55):
of you. So there was a game of Philadelphia Phillies
game which you probably know this. There's a scene there
was a scene in the crowd where I don't know
if it was a foul ball, there was a ball
that was hit into the stands, and uh, the scene
you see is that a man takes the ball and
(48:19):
he goes over and he gives it to his son.
I presume it's his son. The son likes it and
he said, this is great. And then you see a
woman come over and confront him and they have a
you know, short argument, and and he gives her the ball.
And the observations of you know, people talked about it,
the you know, sports pundits whatever said, can you look,
(48:42):
that's a Philadelphia fan grabbing the ball, you know, from
a kid, you know. And in fact, what happened if
you dug a little dueper watched the whole thing, spent
a little time, he realized that she was upset because
the ball was hit in her section. It was right
in front of her, and this guy from the section
over came over and grabbed the ball, basically depriving it
from people who are legitimately in that section. The wall
(49:04):
was there, so, you know, but but now this woman,
you know, I'm sure no one ever saw that, and like,
look at that that Philly fan boy, oh boy. And
so that's I think the unfortunate thing is we don't.
The immediacy also does not allow us for reflection and
for you know, thoughtfulness, and and again to your your stories,
(49:26):
they're they're thoughtful. You know, you think about them, you
spend time with them, so you know you're writing. Reminds
me of a lot of thoughtful writers in my canon
of people like Joseph Mitchell and Bill Zinzer and some
of them, you know, are the you know, the new
(49:46):
journalists of their age. But I think they're basically they
they took the time to really explore things, and I
think that's that's the piece of journalism I'd like to,
you know, keep in there.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
I hope.
Speaker 6 (49:56):
So I'm not worthy to be considering that company, but
I am very fortunate that I get time to what
tease jos I do, and I get editors who have
time to d them, and we think about what it
is we're slaying, and uh, do we need to go
back to this person?
Speaker 2 (50:15):
So did they really see what we think they said?
Was not the important thing here? Or was there something
more important that we're missing? Get a chance to go
back to the interviews and think did I get right?
Instead of looking at it in print the next day
and said he didn't get that light. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:37):
Yeah, so this horror has gone quickly. We could do
it whole other Yeah. Any last thoughts, John about what
you're what you like to do going forward?
Speaker 2 (50:50):
You know, it's it's what I like to do. I'm
sixty five. I'm sorry, I'm sixty six. As my son
had to remind me the other day, I can do
what I do. I mean, you know, there's things that
other people can do that I cannot do. That well,
there's certain I'm not a digital native, but I'm never
(51:10):
going to be a disualinad. So there's certain digital skills
that I probably could learn, but I might not. There's
certain things that I can do that some of my
colleagues that can do things that I can't can't do.
And it's a wonderful thing to be able to go
(51:30):
out there and meet interesting people. Some of them are
ninety and some of them are thirty or twenty seventeen.
It's just a trying to gift that I'd give it
and I get to share it with like I really
what like as you do with your podcast, get to
share it with a really wonderful community who sometimes show
(51:52):
how wonderful they are on their feedback.
Speaker 1 (51:54):
Yeah, yeah, And that's one thing. I'll just mention this
before we close. But I do think that's, you know,
you know, some of us, you know, print natives, you know,
sort of lament the digital quality quality. That's a lot
of us like to hold things in our hands and
read them. But that's one thing that I do appreciate
about well in your case the New York Times digital edition,
(52:18):
which I get in, which is that you do get
the opportunity to engage your readers in much more immediate ways.
And I like reading the articles and then and then
the comments of which are are you know, aren't the
usual kind of you know self right to this common?
But there's a lot of interesting information about it and
a lot of interesting engagements. So I think, you know,
(52:39):
we should, you know, embrace the digital age in terms
of how it can enrich print. So that's what I'm
going to try to do. Okay, anyway, So listen, John,
and thank you for a very thoughtful and thought provoking conversation.
People have questions or comments, they want to get in
touch with you or or read more about you.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
How would they do that? It's my last name Leland
at NYTimes dot com and I'm always happy to hear
from people.
Speaker 1 (53:08):
And I think if if correct me if I'm wrong.
So I think that if people go to ny Times
dot com slash by slash John desh Leland, they can
see some of your stories. They can look at archive
of your stories.
Speaker 2 (53:20):
Take your work. Because of the that's the code you
need to put in.
Speaker 1 (53:23):
But yes, yeah, I mean I think if you just
google it you can find it as well. But I
mean there is a way that they can. And that's
what I've done the last few days and I've enjoyed it.
And read me once again, folks, this is Ron Roell
forty five Forward. Thank you for spending this hour with me.
If you have questions for me, you can email me
(53:45):
at Ron at forty five forward dot org, send me questions,
comments about the show, sign up from a monthly newsletter,
or just tell me what you think. So until next week, folks,
keep moving forward. Forty five Forward
So you wrote an interesting story about blind tennis. Tell
us about that.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Who would think there was such a thing as blind tennis, right,
I didn't. I learned about it from a friend of
a friend of her friend, just how stories often happened.
And her mother was doing blind tennis. She'd been you
had a very professional career and starting to lose her
(00:25):
eyes on and she had to give up her house,
thousands of books she'd had in the house. She'd been
an avid reader. And she was at a program at
the Metropolitan Museum in New York, seeing through drawing this
program for people visually impaired people to try to enable
(00:47):
them to appreciate the collection at the met. So already
this is something I love because it's not recognizing these
limitations that people think we have. And someone said, I
U should really try blind tennis. She's like, I want
to know more. Tell me more. You ever played tennis
in the life, never been interested in athletics. But the
(01:09):
idea that she didn't have to say that she was
somebody who couldn't play tennis because of her impairment and
airy vision. Hio.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Everyone, Welcome to forty five Forward. This is Ron Roell,
your host, talk to you today with John Leland, a
New York Times reporter who's been at the Times for
twenty five years. I last had John on my show
about two years ago, when we talked about his best
selling book, Happiness Is a Choice You Make about the
daily lives several New Yorkers eighty five and older, the
(01:40):
remarkably insightful, somewhat surprising book about aging, and ever since then,
I wanted to ask Sean back to return to forty
five forward and talk about his successive stories about aging
and his thoughts on longevity and really living a purpose
of life all the way through. John has a lot
to say about the subject, and I'm delighted to have
(02:01):
him back. John, and welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Great to be so John.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
As I mentioned, you've heard a lot a lot of things.
You cover the texture of today's life, from youth culture
to the lives of very old I want to talk about,
you know a little bit about a story you wrote.
I think it was the end of last year because
I had an interesting twist to it. It's about a
man who decided to get to bar Mitzford, but not
(02:28):
at the age of thirteen, but rather at the age
of ninety. I'm talking a little bit about the story,
how you found the story, a little bit about the man.
So what you thought about the story and what you
thought about.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Him, Well, it's not something you encountered every day. The
man's name was ron Eleron and he had been a
popular folks singer in Israel or what was then called Palestine,
and then in the United States became kind of a
fixture in the Gradish village folks scene, very very popular.
(03:03):
He's ninety years old. After we do the math and
take us back seventy seven years to when he was thirteen.
It was nineteen forty seven. The area we're talking about
was in a British mandate called Palestine, and it was
in turmoil. And as his thirteenth day birth, they approached
(03:27):
his parents did what parents do you know? They bought
the food, they ordered the food, they invited yests and
then the British government called the curfew because of the unrest,
and so they're there at home. They've got the food,
but nobody could cook, so nobody could go out, and
so he never had a bar mitzvah and he never
(03:50):
missed this. But over the years he was a singer
soph anytime a relative had a bar mitzvah, he sang
at it. But this kid out of bar mitzvah, he
sang on it with his brother, but he's saying at it,
but he'd never had one himself. And as his ninetieth
birthday approached, his brother thought, you know, now is really
the time to do it, because we'd never know, right.
(04:17):
So they invited about the same number of guests, about
seventy five guests through a steakhouse in Manhattan. It was
it was December, I believe, so there were Christmas decorations
on that all and they were, you know, I think
they were very culturally Jewish family, but not a very
(04:38):
religious Jewish family. So there was steak and there was
shrimp to get side by side, which you might not
have at a kosher bar mitzvah. And you know, you've
been to bar mitzra's over your life. And one of
the things that are so wonderful about them is that
they're multi generational events, of which we have too few.
(05:01):
And usually the bar mitzvah boy is the young generation
and the other people are the older generation. But now
when the bar mitzvah boy is ninety we could have it. Uh,
you know, he could be the older represent the older generation,
and there could be you know, his kids, his son
was there and there were you know, great nephews and
(05:24):
great nieces, wives, ex wives, other ex wives. You know,
it was you know, it was a wonderful celebration of
community that he was able to do. And you know
he got the his brother got his band there and
they performed and the in the Israeli console in New
(05:44):
York sang a duet with him. Chair you know, it's no,
they did not waste him in each other. We could
have though they were there was dancing, there was everything
even expected abond this and I don't know why we
didn't notice a minute. Sure, you know, the barn Misphae
is the celebration of life, right, it's the celebration of
(06:06):
entering manhood. But like it's other things, there's a celebration
of life. And we're there with people a lot of
times that we haven't seen in years. We always say
we're going to see them all often that we don't,
and there's always people there we don't know whether we'll
ever see them again. And it was a chance to
(06:26):
do it and including you know people who had come
from Israel for this, who may thought they would never
see Ron again, and they got to see it. So
it was a great celebration. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Yeah, And it's interesting because it really, you know, at thirteen,
you know, we're celebrating becoming a man, but at ninety
years also celebrating having been one and it survived and
you're still there, and it's just sort of an interesting
twist on life. You know, you and I've talked a
lot about sort of what longevity offers is kind of
(07:02):
a disruption of the traditional timetable of you know, events
in our life. And so this is a very interesting twist.
And in some ways, I don't want to say it's
more meaningful, but it's a different kind of meaning.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Well, I think that's absolutely right. I think what does
it mean to become a man means something at thirteen
when it's you know, it's speculative, and what does it
mean to be a man? What does it mean to
be a member of this community, a contributing member who's
ready to take my place in this community in a
(07:34):
different way than I did, you know, when I was
a child. And so I think that meant a lot
to him. And also just heaving. The people there come
to be a part of his life. And I think
when you're thirteen, is there the people that you hope
are going to be part of your life going on forever.
(07:54):
And now you see that at ninety, you've seen if
some of them aren't there anymore, some of the you
know what thought would make this journey with you art there.
But you can value the people that are there and
not take it for granted that they were going to
be there for the rest of your life. So there's
a different perspective on it that he was able to
share with the people there, and maybe they can discuss
(08:16):
and understand and share with each other. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Yeah, And certainly you know when you you know, when
you're thirteen, you know it's mostly your family and I
guess here to some of your adolescent friends. But now
you have friends from many periods hopefully of your life.
So it's a different kind of experience. It's kind of
more enriching. I mean, you know, I got married, not
bar Mits, but I got married, you know, relatively late
(08:41):
early forties, and that wedding was quite different from when
if I had been say twenty three, I mean, was
a very different mixture of friends and family and already
from several period you know, stages of my life, so
really is more enriching. So I think that this is interesting.
Now is still willis?
Speaker 2 (09:01):
He is as far as I know, and still performing
and he's still in good voice. You know, he might
not do the complicated tours that he once did, but
he still performs. To this event, I thought, you were
a friend of mine who's going to be ninety five
in November, and I said, you know David, and David
(09:22):
had been a fixture in the Granwish Villege folks scene
as well, So I said, do you know ron Eleron
And he had this bart mitspah, and he said, really,
I'm having a propist for two. For a slightly different reason,
his family was in DC, I think at the time
when he was thirteen, but they didn't have the money
to be part of a temple, so he had never
(09:43):
had one. And he thought that or somebody had thought, well,
David's done so much and he really is somebody who
had done a lot in his life, but he'd never
had a barnus. He'd never had this ritual. And he
came from a long tradition of rabbi, so it was
a missing element in his life, not to show that
(10:04):
he really felt it as a missing element until it
was brought up. But here's somebody who will never miss
an opportunity for celebration. So they had this. I think
here's ninety three at the time.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
You and I've talked about this. So the markers in
our life have been changing, you know, and this is
one of the you know, implications of longevity is that
we can really stretch things out and change the markers around.
So one of the things, I mean, one of your
earliest stories was about I think it was called the
Secret lives of seniors who don't want to stop working.
(10:39):
So that's you know, another you know, one of the
elements is that we have a much longer spans of life,
but perhaps not there's no need to work in the
same kind of traditional way, right, and we can you know,
we go to school, we go to college, we get married,
we have a career, and we work until we retire
and then you know that's it. We do something else.
(11:00):
But this, you know what, the loejety gives us an
opportunity to disrupt this kind of pattern.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Yes, I mean for centuries and beings work mostly in agriculture, right,
and it was backbreaking work and you could do it,
and you would do it and do it and do
it until you dropped. And when we started to work
in slightly different fields and created the idea of retirement,
it's the idea that work would would wear you out.
(11:27):
We would be digging up stumps or you know, working
in assembly lines. We'd be doing, you know, physically draining
work that we couldn't do all our lives, and you
know it can us. A lot of people still do that.
We have a lot of We think of our nurses
who have to be on their feet, you know, for
(11:48):
twelve hour shifts. One can't do that always after a
certain age that gets to be more or people can
do it, but it gets challenging after a certain age.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
But now a lot of us, not all of this,
but a lot of us work in fields where it's
not physically draining, where our experience is worth something.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
And maybe that calendar doesn't really work as well as
the East. Maybe we don't need to get all our
education by the time we're twenty eighteen or twenty two
or twenty five with twenty six and then go into
the workplace and try to make as much money as
we can while we can and have children and get
(12:34):
out of the workplace to have children, work for heaving children.
Maybe we want maybe our education should be a lifelong
then and we'll work a bit and get our education
for a bit, and maybe then maybe we don't need
to work so much when we're raising our children. Maybe
(12:54):
you know, we skip those years from when we're thirty
to thirty five, work when we're sixty five to seventy,
you know, moved those five years later. These are just
just thoughts. Everybody would have a different plan for this.
For some people that that scenario that didn't work, But
(13:15):
other people would have, you know, a more radical disruption
of their ideas of their timeline. And we as a
society now, as individuals but as a culture, haven't really
rethought that calendar for you know, as he's existed for centuries.
(13:35):
But we are living differently. We're living longer than than
we were when social security was instituted. People couldn't work
much past sixty five and they didn't live mutch past
sixty five. There was a lower life expendise. But now
we're going to live another fifteen twenty twenty five, thirty
(13:56):
years after sixty five, So so how do we make
those years productive and why do we think of them
as as a period of time after we'd like contributing
members to acide.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that there's lots of rationale
to kind of break it up. Certainly, you know, certainly
I didn't have a you know, physically demanding job. I
was a writer and journalist like you, and I still am.
I'm just not working from one employer, but I think
they're there.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
You know.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
The longevity gives us a chance to recognize people have
a longer overall period. But we can break it up.
Working in a job for you know, ten years and
you're not physically trained, but emotionally you may be like, well, okay,
that's enough. There's no reason why she keep doing that
and continuing on that trajectory. You know, I think there's
(14:51):
a lot of rationale for taking you know what piping
considers sort of a semi you know, a small sabbatical
you know. Uh, you know, we do it in some professions,
right in the teaching professions and the ministries, and you know,
it's not supposed to be pretty where we just sell
it said Okay, we'll just take a break and go
on vacation. Some people do and take some vacation time,
(15:14):
but it's really a time to kind of prethink, you know,
to pivot and say, well, where am I whatever I
want to do? Do we want to continue along this path?
Maybe I do, but not right you know, let me
just you know, take some time to reorient myself.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
You know.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
I had a little bit of this, you know, when
I was at you know, an editor at Newsday, and
then we had her two sons a little bit later,
and then it's like, well, I do need to take
a parent to leave taking care of twins. And my
wife is like, no, I this is not on her alone.
(15:50):
And it did give me. You know, you come back
and you're like, you're different, certainly when you have kids,
you're different, you know, and your part has changed. But
it seems like that's an opportunity we don't take advantage of.
And I think sometimes it's on us and something it's
on the employer. And I think there is sort of
an assumption if you do that kind of have that
(16:10):
kind of you know, you know, checkerboard career or towards
breaks like that, that maybe you're not quite as serious
as the guy next to you about advancing your company.
But I think that the the enrichment that's possible really
greatly outweighs the you know, the lockstep you know advancement.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
So but it's hard, it's hard, and I'm hoping I've
hoped for the generation after us because we're about the
same age. I think who you know aren't working for
companies for life in that long term profession, and often
they're not in the same profession for life because the
Johns are changing aunt, so they need to be more nimble. Uh,
(16:56):
I'm I'm just optimistic. I think they will start to
rethink that calendar because I worked this I worked this
job for five years and then maybe I need to
go back to school and do a little different kind
of training. I work this other field for ten fifteen
years and then be something else, as opposed to I
(17:18):
think most of you know, and I worked in the field
that we're in for thirty forty years.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Yeah, I think that you know, certainly, you know, having
worked in journalism, there there is an opportunity to shift
a little bit because you can just you know, take
on different beat and then yes, you're still writing but
it takes me to a different area. So I think
that's important to change your perspective. You know, it's it's
easy to get caught in, you know, one of view.
(17:45):
And I think that's what you know. I think you
started talking about, you know, sort of education, and I
think that you know, there is you know, this possibility
for lifelong learning and a really broad perspective. I mean,
it can be going back to school, getting different kinds
of credentials, you know. I I'm going to have someone
(18:08):
on the show in a few weeks who was an attorney.
Actually she was a judge and then she retired and
now she started a jewelry business. I mean, something something
completely different. But I think that you know, and even
when I I think, you know, I'm not going to
say that education is wasted on the young, it's not.
(18:29):
It's just again, it's a different education. You know, you're
you know, it's a religious education. You know, getting the
barments is different thirteen and ninety and you know, as
you get the same kind the same kind of education
if you had it at you know, forty forty five
instead of twenty five, be a different experience too. You know,
(18:53):
things and look at things and ways you could you
just couldn't do when you were earlier, younger, and I
think we missed that opportunity.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
I think we do. Of course, if your kids of
the age that I think they are, then you're paying
for their education now where you recently pay for education,
and you know that that's just implausible for a lot
of families to pay for that four year education when
your kids are eighteen nineteen and there's nothing coming back.
(19:22):
You know, maybe and it's the payoff is it from
it isn't what it was was, So maybe it's it's
do a little technical training at eighteen nineteen, work on
your soul a little bit in your thirties, work on
something else in your forties. There's an opportunity there, just
not to do things a certain way just because we
(19:44):
used to do it with living.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
What right, Yeah, I think that certainly, you know, the
issue of the cost of college education comes into it
where people are you know, they're they're burdened with a
lot of student debt and then there's no job, so
that's a concern for people. And then perhaps that kind
of college education is not for everybody, certainly not. But
(20:08):
at the same time, you know, I do you know
I had sort of a classical liberal arts education, you know,
where I said, well, this is my time, you know, Okay, yes,
I'm fortunate we could afford it. But it also was
a time to explore things in broad ways that I
(20:29):
don't know if I don't have it again. So I said,
well let me, let me do this. And I think
we're sort of missing that in education. Say we were going, well,
why are we learning all this? This is no relevance
to anything, And well, in some ways you don't. But
sometimes you just you don't know what the relevance is.
You're too not to know what relevance is.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Well, you know, the broad based liberal arts education has
become a smaller part of the college experience. You know,
it involves fewer students of small shows, did body and us.
I have to say that I've had the great opportunity
to speak at a couple of lifetime learning institutions and
(21:11):
where the where the students are older, and it has
been wonderful. They come. You know, you're in this class
and there's a lawyer, and there's a scientist, and there's
a retired in general, and there's somebody else, and they've
made the point to to continue their education in areas
(21:33):
where they might have expertise or it might have no expertise.
A lot of the people are professionally accomplished, but they
put themselves in an environment where they're not the experts anymore.
And it's I think it takes a certain amount of
courage to do that, but there's great value in it,
I think.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
So, yeah, so you need to have a dose of humility,
like okay, you know, just like when you go through school,
you're a freshman and you're a senior. Then you're start
over again in college as freshman. But I think that
people do appreciate I and you know, having gone to
a number of college reunions, some of my classmates, I
(22:14):
you know, talking with them there, you know you have
opportunities to take you know, listen to lectures from you know,
various professors. Uh, And they would say like, wow, I
missed that, I missed just that exploration. You know, you're
so focused on pragmatic living, getting things done, you know,
dealing with your kids, taking care of day to day pragmatics,
(22:36):
you don't have a chance to expand your mind. And
I think that's something again that you know that that
that lifelong learning offers an opportunity. You know, I had
a I'm a member of this group called PEER, which
is affiliated with a local college here in Long Island.
I think it stands for Personal Enrichment and Retirement. So
(22:59):
people are by and large retire to join this group.
But it's a group in which people actually teach each other.
You know that you take on a subject and maybe,
as you mentioned, you know something that maybe know nothing
about it, but you you learn about it, and then
you have to teach it to your peers, and and
(23:20):
so it does become in part, you know, educational, in
part social. You know, everyone is older and so you're
looking for social engagement. So it brings back both the
educational and social aspects of love learning. That's great, Yeah,
yeah it is. And actually there have been a couple
(23:41):
of marriages that have come out of it. Anyway, So listen,
I just wanted to shift a little bit in terms
of breaking up that kind we're talking about breaking up
those kinds of milestones. One of the things you and
I have talked about too, is just sort of breaking
up of traditional ways to act, you know, the different
you know, you don't need to act or age in
certain ways, and I think that you know they're in there.
(24:03):
People today are different in that respect.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Well, it's the worst idea that we should act our age,
isn't it that we should act We should act well,
we should act well in the society. But this idea
that you should behave a certain way, thirteen in a
different way, it's forty three in a different way, eighty
three dress a different way at thirteen and forty three
and eighty three. I think this limits us in so
(24:28):
many ways. Why shouldn't we Why do we have to
be age appropriate all the time. Why do we have
to say, oh no, I can't wear that skirt because
I'm too old to with that skirt or that jacket
as well. It's why I want to you know, we
look at the mirror. We we wanted to wear that
(24:49):
skirt because we imagined ourselves in that skirt. We were
able to see ourselves in that skirt and saw something
we liked. Now, if we're wearing that skirt to try
to make us feel younger than we are, I might
have an issue with that. I think we should embrace
our age rather than try to hide it. But if
we're wearing that skirt because we think we look fantastic
(25:11):
in that skirt, and damn it, we want to show
up our legs a little bit, you know, go for it.
You've you've earned those legs whenever they look like you know,
those weren't easy. So wear that and and and do
the things you want to do. You want to go
to that that bar, and people are younger than you
(25:32):
go to that bar. Don't don't don't let this let
the fear that you're you're the old guy or the
old gal at the bar stop me from going there.
Take up hobbies that are for young people. Take up
to do through things that you never thought you would do.
So you don't carp a soap box, Jerby, I don't care,
(25:53):
you know, like get your boy Scouts certificate and then.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Great, get that Merit badge still there. That's great. So listen,
I'm going to just take a quick break John, So, folks,
we are going to take a short break, but we'll
be coming right back and talking much more with John
Lenan of the New York Times. So don't go anywhere.
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(26:38):
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Speaker 1 (26:50):
Welcome back to forty five Forward, folks. We're talking today
with John Lenan, a longtime reporter for The New York
Times and author of Happiness Is a Choice We Make,
which we'll talk about a little bit more, and you know,
just sort of updating the book and letting people know
about it if they haven't already seen my previous podcast
on it. Why don't shift a little bit now to
(27:11):
you know, issues of aging and longevity and how that
sort of intersects with technology and accessibility, because there are
opportunities that we have now, you know, over a longer
life to do things that previously weren't possible. So you
wrote an interesting story about blind tennis. Tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Who who would think there was such a thing as
blind tennis? Right? I didn't, but I was. I learned
about it from a friend of a friend of a
friend and just how stories often happened. And her mother
was was was doing blind tennis. She's been you know,
had a very professional career and start to lose her
(27:57):
eyes on and she had to give up her house
that thousands of books she'd had in her house. She'd
been an avid reader. And she was at a program
at the Metropolitan Museum in New York seeing through drawing
this program for people visually impaired people to try to
(28:18):
enable them to appreciate the collection at the met So
already this is something I love because it's not recognizing
these limitations that that people think we have. And someone said,
I U should really try blind tennis, and she's like, yeah,
I want to know more. Tell me, were you ever
played tennis in the life, never been interested in athletics.
(28:40):
But the idea that she didn't have to say that
she was somebody who couldn't play tennis because of her
impairment and terr vision, but she could learn to play.
So there was a program in Lower Manhattan in the
Financial District called Sound of Tennis that taught tennis to
(29:04):
people with different levels of vision impairment. Some could sort
of see a ball. Some were they were all I
guess legally blind, but people some people had more vision
than others. Some had no vision of the ball at all,
and they could only follow it through sound. And they
would get out there every Saturday morning, get themselves to
(29:29):
this club in the basement in the Financial District, which
was itself a challenge for anyone who has experienced with
accessor ride or paratransit in the New York City, which
often called stress a ride. So they said that this
is the great challenge of the place because the building
had drawers on three sides, so they never knew when
(29:51):
they gave the accessor ride driver the address, they never
knew exactly where they would be keep rops, so they
had to figure out where they were and then did
her on the way home. He didn't know what driver
was going to pit them up, So there was already
a challenge before they got there. And as I said this,
some of the players really couldn't see at all, and
(30:13):
some instructor would would would kind of throw the ball
towards their racket and say okay, now push and they
would hit the ball. Sometimes they would make contact and
sometimes they wouldn't. And the woman that had led me
into the story. She ended up not playing when I
was there because she had fallen and hurt her shoulder.
(30:36):
Her daughter said to her after she would you could
never schedule anything on a Saturday with her because she
was so in love with the tennis lesson. His daughter
would say, Mom, I was tennis today. What did you hit?
Who did you hit? Sometimes you say, well, I hit
the ball, and sometimes she would say, oh, I hit
the instructor. So it was just part of the part
(30:59):
of the thing. But it gave her something, you know.
It was just a lesson to all of us that
there are these things we think we can't do, and God,
we can do a lot of them. Not maybe not
in the ways that we might totally imagine ourselves in
our fantasies of doing them, but that's no reason for
(31:20):
us not to.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Do that right, right, and this gives us that opportunity.
I think that one of the things that I have
been looking at and I do a lot of things
that I deal without age, what I call aging successfully.
And there is a lot of intersection with you know,
with physical challenges as we get older, so there's an
overlap in terms of you know, needs for people who
(31:45):
are older, and those for people who are frail and
elderly and have somewhat of a disability in that sense.
And you know, I think that we miss the opportunity
to recognize what we can learn about how to age
well by those who were, you know, dealing with certain disabilities.
(32:07):
You know, a certainly as we age. You know, vision
is an issue, hearing is an issue. I have some
of these things. And one of the things I loved
about your book, you know, of happy is a choice
you make, is that you dealt with people who are
eighty five and older and you know, it wasn't easy
(32:28):
for them, but they just lived and they and they
accepted these challenges. And I think that and not only
now can we not just accept them, but we can
do something about them. There are technologies that can really
enrich our lives, you know, much longer than previously.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
One of the you know my book is also the
subtitle of this Lessons from a Year among the Oldest Old,
And it was really about the lessons that I learned
from that, and one of the most important and early
lessons I said, they all had things that they lost,
all had things that they couldn't do that they used
to do. But none of them define themselves by that loss.
(33:08):
Only other people define them that way, maybe with their doctors,
maybe their kids, who said.
Speaker 5 (33:13):
Mom can't walk like she used to, and that was mom,
and she sometimes forgets things she does notne of the
memory she used to have, instead of thinking that she's mom.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Did a great job with their plants today, or or
you know, dad had a really thoughtful conversation to them,
And I know, I think that's something that we can
learn from people who, you know, let's face it, are
experts at loss at a certain point dealt with it enough.
(33:44):
Maybe a lot of the people that I talked to,
because they were over eighty five, a lot of them
had lost spouses, they'd certainly all lost parents, of course
they were they were. They were expressing that they've lost
some of their mobility, they've lost their memory, they lost
son of their eyes. Study not all a bit in
the cases of the people that I dealt with, although
(34:06):
in the case of mobility is some lost more than others,
and they get up every morning and say, like, life
isn't what I've lost. Life is what I can do.
That's what defines me. That's right, Hang just as it
did when I was seventeen and couldn't do some of
the things I did when I was fifteen.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Yeah, I think there is a lot of life that's enriching.
That's that's you know, it forms you in ways that
you couldn't appreciate when you were younger. Certainly, you know,
you talked a lot in the book about, you know,
the issue of gratitude for what you have as opposed
to what you've lost. And one of my colleagues coined
(34:44):
this term. I haven't heard it except from her, and
I think, you know, this person, Viggie Eller, who has
also interviewed you, and that is, you know, we talk
about as we get older and somebody who looks, you know,
good at we're you know, physically strong in adept as
(35:04):
they get older, we say, lord, they look at them
and you call it even So, let's say you're in
your seventies and you look like you're in your fifties supposedly,
and you say, well, you're that person is really ageless,
and she says, well, why don't we change the term
to age full and embracing our age? We are full
of our age whatever age that is as opposed to
(35:26):
you know, defining it as you don't age, we do age.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Also, I don't like the idea that when people are
eighty something and they're not frail, we say you seem
really young, because then it seems that young is not
fail and oldest frail, Old isn't frail. There are people
that are frail when they're older. There's people who are
not frail when they're older. There's people who are frail
when they're younger, and there's people who are not frail
(35:51):
when they're younger. Frail is fail, old is old. Those
are the different ways sharp is sharp. You know, cognitive
decline is cognitive decline that's not aging. So it might
have an age related component to it, but that's not
what eighty looks like. Aighting looks like everything it eighty
(36:14):
looks like, you know, Gloria Steinem and it looks like
your uncle who's not getting around.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
And I think there are some actually cases where people
you know, will say they if they start taking care
of themselves in different ways when they're sixty five, you know,
I do know some people say, well, I'm in better
shaped now than when I was forty five, you know,
and they literally are you know, so so let's let
(36:40):
me just have a little bit of a reprise where
people who weren't familiar with with what you did with
happiness is a choice you're making. Just just describe that
story a little bit what you did with that.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
So it was a life changing experience for me, which
was the last thing I expected. It began with a
year long series in the New York Times. I just
thought I would follow six people over the age of
eighty five for a year and see where their life
took them. And I thought, well, this is going to
be again. I thought this would be a tale of
(37:08):
the loss, and somebody's going to lose their hearing and
and their life would go down. Somebody's going to lose
part of their memory. Their life's going to go down.
And someone's going to fall and break a hip or
become less mobile, and their lives's going to go down.
And what I found over the course of the year
is sort of what I said before. Is it that
(37:29):
people had a lot of the problems that I that
I expected, but those weren't the governing factors in their lives.
Their lives were elsewhere. Their lives were there their time
with their children, or their time caring for their playouts,
or or their their cantankerous relationships with their neighbors, or
you know, whatever they might be. Or they were romantic
(37:51):
involvement because one of the people had, you know, was
in a couple with somebody she met in Nersica. So
it was following them for a year. And then when
the year was over, I was supposed to be done
with and I found that something was missing from my life.
I didn't know what it was. What was it? What
was missing from my life? And it was it was
(38:13):
what I was learning day to day from spending time
with people who were experts in living or lived a
light the lib likes and new things that I didn't know,
and that might be historical periods, or it might have been,
you know, wisdom. I like to think that older people
are necessarily wise, because they're not, you know, a dumb
(38:34):
old person who's probably had done one person. We got old,
but there was something I missed. I started to explore that,
and they thought I needed to get back in their lives,
and I thought I would write a book about the
lessons I learned from them, and I ended up following
them in the Times and partly in the book, but
(38:55):
also in the book, but in the times until the
end of their lives.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
All yeah, and you say, so it changed you. I
think that we don't. We don't you know, as journalists.
I think you know, there is a certain sense of
objectivity you want to be you know, observe, But it
does change you. I mean, you are participants, even if
you're and I think that actually, you know, I had
(39:20):
someone on my show last week about uh. She she
did surveys and voters. She did a book called Our
Common Ground, which you can listen to on my podcast
as well. But so she she said that in talking
(39:40):
with voters, you know, the the tradition is, well, you
don't get you don't get involved with them, but in fact,
you know, she did get involved in relationships with them,
and in fact, you know, by doing so, they she
felt that they were actually more honest with her about
what they really believed and who they voted for and
did not vote for why. And I think that that's
(40:01):
some sudden that to me, is a lesson about writing
about people that you know, you're, yes, you're you're not
intimately involved with them, but you're in a relationship that
you can really understand their lives and they can really
open up to you and and you know, provide stories
that otherwise your readers wouldn't wouldn't have. And I think
(40:23):
that's what one of the things I did I do
appreciate about your writing, John, is that you know you're
here an elegant, eloquent writer, and and you're certain warmth
of that. I you know, a lot of writing today
seems sort of a cerbic, and yours is objective but
also involved and respectful of your of your subject, and
(40:49):
I think that comes out in your writing.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Well. I think we owe that to the people. I
asked a lot, you know, in this series and the
Times and in the book, I asked a lot of people.
I asked a lot of them, ask them to let
me into their lives, and it's a really important part
of their lives. And in parts of their lives where
maybe they found vulnerable, maybe they felt mortal in ways
(41:11):
that they were not necessarily comfortable with, or they thought
that there was things that they didn't do and maybe
they had progressed. I asked them to share that with me,
so I you had to honor that. But of course
my work life, I've often written about people who went
(41:31):
through terrible experiences, and I felt like I don't have
to live that experience with them, but I really have
to horg on it. I have to. I have to
take into account what it's like and hate they respected it,
And so I try to do that with anybody I
write it on. I think we all should, and most
(41:53):
people do. I find that there's that that kind of
starky stuff is very loud, so we might think that
it's more of that world than it is, and and
it attracts us. It's like a shiny little thing, so
we might be drawn to that. Think of the think
of like my colleagues who review restaurants. They know that
(42:14):
panning a restaurant is going to get a zillion views
and saying, oh, the stick was really quite good. There
is not like it's it's not gonna work the same way.
So even that's that's what we deal with. But we
can always treat people. And you know, I came to
realize that these people had given me so much. It's
(42:36):
really Uh. It helped me appreciate my mother because I
was in the mid fifties the in my mother was
in the mid eighties, and I would see my mother
regularly she's living in a building for older adults in Manhattan,
and uh, you know, I would think about the things
I could do for good, but I never thought about
(42:56):
what she was giving me. And maybe I thought of
the things that she get anyone that's going up. But
I thought that period of time was over. Now it
was my time. And I realized that what I was
getting from these people who were you know, we're strangers
to me or just like near for new journals the world,
we're giving me so much. And I helped me appreciate
(43:18):
what I was getting from my mother. It's you know,
our are you know, get together as were less. What
can I do for mom? Then well let's have a
great lunchting, you know, like what it just changed it.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
In the last part part of our show, before we conclude,
I wanted to talk a little bit more about just
your career as a journalist and just some of your
observations about your profession. A lot of people talk about
and I feel to talk about us, you know, and
sometimes I'm a little bit like, well, here, you don't
(43:56):
really know what's happening and what we're thinking. You might think,
you know, both you and I have been through some
really big changes and relatively short time in our profession.
You know, when I started out in the late sixties
and an intern, you know, we still had you know
it now known as hot type. You know, actually men,
(44:18):
I think maybe some women, but mostly men actually getting
articles and setting them up and locking them in pages
and then sending them off. And you know that there
would be five editions, five star editions, and people would
stay there until my shift started at one in the
(44:39):
afternoon until eight at night, and then the people took over.
So the profession has really changed a lot. What are
your thoughts about that. I mean, you've been through a
lot of those changes soon.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
I have. And I think that the thing that changed
that troubles me the most is the loss of local
press since the ad done Craigslist, which took away, which
killed classified ads for newspapers right which a lot of
smaller papers will lied about. The New York Times fortunately doesn't,
but a lot of papers did, and a lot of
(45:13):
communities have lost their local news. And so I think
it's made it easier for people who are criticized in
the news to say the news is horrible, the press
is terrible, because now when you think about the press
it's somebody far away. It's not the neighbors who were reporting.
You know, we're going to that you know, town council
(45:36):
meeting and reporting back on what happened there, because even
other time to do that, it's are busy. So I
think that that uh, you know, diminution of the local press,
that idea that the newspaper guy with proviting your story
or the people who live in that store, has really
made it possible for people that to demonize the press
(45:58):
the ways they did. And I think probably we've fallen
and we've made mistakes, and we've contributed to the low
reputation you have now. But but but we do have
a low reputation now, and we need to be mindful
of that at the same time. You know, I look
at Money News organization. Uh, these stories that are happening
(46:19):
right now, right this second. It's a new thing. I
was when I started there, pictures were only in black
and white, and if you wanted to read about the
planes that hit the World Trade Center on September eleventh,
you would read about them on September twelfth. Now now
you would read about it ten minutes later. And it
(46:41):
involves an entirely new level of competitiveness, but it also
gives people a commission immediately and that immediacy as he's ups.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
And dobs, right right, Yeah, I think your last common
is is really to remain that there are ups and downs.
Certainly you want information as quickly as possible, especially in
crises and disasters, but often the first accounts are not
correct or are first drafts, and that's not in fact
(47:14):
what happened. And and I think that's so that's one
of the unfortunate things about that those first impressions stick
and that sometimes it's hard to change. That's no, that's
not what happened, you know. And I'll just you know,
one example that came up recently that was you know,
(47:34):
and again I think it's the immediacy of being able
to go on you know, podcasts or you know, a
TV show or blog or something. Again can can alter
things in ways that are unfortunate. So there was an
incident where there's it I guess it got a lot
(47:55):
of you. So there was a game of Philadelphia Phillies
game which you probably know this. There's a scene there
was a scene in the crowd where I don't know
if it was a foul ball, there was a ball
that was hit into the stands, and uh, the scene
you see is that a man takes the ball and
(48:19):
he goes over and he gives it to his son.
I presume it's his son. The son likes it and
he said, this is great. And then you see a
woman come over and confront him and they have a
you know, short argument, and and he gives her the ball.
And the observations of you know, people talked about it,
the you know, sports pundits whatever said, can you look,
(48:42):
that's a Philadelphia fan grabbing the ball, you know, from
a kid, you know. And in fact, what happened if
you dug a little dueper watched the whole thing, spent
a little time, he realized that she was upset because
the ball was hit in her section. It was right
in front of her, and this guy from the section
over came over and grabbed the ball, basically depriving it
from people who are legitimately in that section. The wall
(49:04):
was there, so, you know, but but now this woman,
you know, I'm sure no one ever saw that, and like,
look at that that Philly fan boy, oh boy. And
so that's I think the unfortunate thing is we don't.
The immediacy also does not allow us for reflection and
for you know, thoughtfulness, and and again to your your stories,
(49:26):
they're they're thoughtful. You know, you think about them, you
spend time with them, so you know you're writing. Reminds
me of a lot of thoughtful writers in my canon
of people like Joseph Mitchell and Bill Zinzer and some
of them, you know, are the you know, the new
(49:46):
journalists of their age. But I think they're basically they
they took the time to really explore things, and I
think that's that's the piece of journalism I'd like to,
you know, keep in there.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
I hope.
Speaker 6 (49:56):
So I'm not worthy to be considering that company, but
I am very fortunate that I get time to what
tease jos I do, and I get editors who have
time to d them, and we think about what it
is we're slaying, and uh, do we need to go
back to this person?
Speaker 2 (50:15):
So did they really see what we think they said?
Was not the important thing here? Or was there something
more important that we're missing? Get a chance to go
back to the interviews and think did I get right?
Instead of looking at it in print the next day
and said he didn't get that light. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:37):
Yeah, so this horror has gone quickly. We could do
it whole other Yeah. Any last thoughts, John about what
you're what you like to do going forward?
Speaker 2 (50:50):
You know, it's it's what I like to do. I'm
sixty five. I'm sorry, I'm sixty six. As my son
had to remind me the other day, I can do
what I do. I mean, you know, there's things that
other people can do that I cannot do. That well,
there's certain I'm not a digital native, but I'm never
(51:10):
going to be a disualinad. So there's certain digital skills
that I probably could learn, but I might not. There's
certain things that I can do that some of my
colleagues that can do things that I can't can't do.
And it's a wonderful thing to be able to go
(51:30):
out there and meet interesting people. Some of them are
ninety and some of them are thirty or twenty seventeen.
It's just a trying to gift that I'd give it
and I get to share it with like I really
what like as you do with your podcast, get to
share it with a really wonderful community who sometimes show
(51:52):
how wonderful they are on their feedback.
Speaker 1 (51:54):
Yeah, yeah, And that's one thing. I'll just mention this
before we close. But I do think that's, you know,
you know, some of us, you know, print natives, you know,
sort of lament the digital quality quality. That's a lot
of us like to hold things in our hands and
read them. But that's one thing that I do appreciate
about well in your case the New York Times digital edition,
(52:18):
which I get in, which is that you do get
the opportunity to engage your readers in much more immediate ways.
And I like reading the articles and then and then
the comments of which are are you know, aren't the
usual kind of you know self right to this common?
But there's a lot of interesting information about it and
a lot of interesting engagements. So I think, you know,
(52:39):
we should, you know, embrace the digital age in terms
of how it can enrich print. So that's what I'm
going to try to do. Okay, anyway, So listen, John,
and thank you for a very thoughtful and thought provoking conversation.
People have questions or comments, they want to get in
touch with you or or read more about you.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
How would they do that? It's my last name Leland
at NYTimes dot com and I'm always happy to hear
from people.
Speaker 1 (53:08):
And I think if if correct me if I'm wrong.
So I think that if people go to ny Times
dot com slash by slash John desh Leland, they can
see some of your stories. They can look at archive
of your stories.
Speaker 2 (53:20):
Take your work. Because of the that's the code you
need to put in.
Speaker 1 (53:23):
But yes, yeah, I mean I think if you just
google it you can find it as well. But I
mean there is a way that they can. And that's
what I've done the last few days and I've enjoyed it.
And read me once again, folks, this is Ron Roell
forty five Forward. Thank you for spending this hour with me.
If you have questions for me, you can email me
(53:45):
at Ron at forty five forward dot org, send me questions,
comments about the show, sign up from a monthly newsletter,
or just tell me what you think. So until next week, folks,
keep moving forward. Forty five Forward
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