That third act can be much better than retirement

Some words to remember from the Fourth of July; Chapman walking tour today

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When we match up during noon-time basketball at the YMCA, there are players half-my-age who don't want to guard me.

It is too much work.

I run too much.

My boasting has a point. I never thought I'd be playing basketball at age 67.

There are others on the court even older than me. Look at the pickle ball courts around the region, look at the folks jogging and cross country skiing. This may be the most fit generation of senior citizens in history.

People ask me if I'm retired all the time.

"Sort of," I tell them.

Instead, I tell them I have started my third act. After all, author Gertrude Stein said, "We are all the same age inside."

I buy into that 100 percent.

Since leaving employment as editor of The Post-Star four years ago, I've written three books and a play. While I used to write nearly 100 columns a year for the newspaper, I'm now writing more than 150 in this newsletter.

I did a couple dozen public events last year - more than our current congresswoman - and was named a trustee at the Chapman Museum in Glens Falls. Like so many my age, we don't know how we every had time for our previous jobs.

There is less stress, fewer headaches and the reality I can do what I feel like doing most days.

But if I don't take an afternoon or early evening nap after playing basketball, I'll sleep through television that night.

When I sit too long, I'm stiff and make odd noises.

But if you call me spry,  you will be met with a challenge to meet me out on the basketball court.

After qualifying for Medicare a couple years ago, I was required to take a "cognitive screening" during my annual physical. The nurse asked me to remember three words, then draw a clock with the hands pointing to a designated time. Then, they ask you to repeat the three words.

I have to think for a few seconds before drawing the clock and I've never gotten all three words.

When my wife and I talk about actors and actresses in television shows, we can never remember their names. We can tell you what awards they have won, what movies or shows they have been in, but it takes awhile before a name appears.

One of the advantages of having lived with someone for more than 40 years is that when you ask, "Did you get the thing," the other person knows exactly what you are talking about.

It's all part of aging.

The neurons in our brain just aren't firing as fast anymore.

When my mother was in her 80s, I remember being shocked she didn't know what year it was, or who the president was, yet could still carry on a lucid conversation and tell you the details of movies form the 1930s.

Our country is facing an aging question.

What is too old to be president, or a judge or a senator.

That probably depends on the person, but what do you do when our leaders don't know when it is time to leave.

President Biden has lost his train of thought while giving speeches, or answering questions. Sen. Mitch McConnell, one of the most powerful men in the Senate, has frozen up during press conferences without explanation in recent years.

And who knows how man octogenarians in the Senate are just laying low so they won't embarrass themselves.

The current Congress is one of the oldest in history. That makes sense because most of us are living longer and getting better medical care.

Sen. Diane Feinstein was 90 when she died last year.

Consider the ages of some of the other senators: Chuck Grassley is 90, Bernie Sanders is 82, Mitch McConnell 82, Jim Risch of Idaho 80, Ben Cardin of Maryland is 80, Angus King of Maine is 79, Dick Durbin is 79 and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut is 78.

Sixty of the 100 senators are currently over 60. The average age is 64 so most of them are also being asked to draw the hands of a clock each year.

In the House of Representatives, where our own Rep. Elise Stefanik just turned 40 Tuesday, there are 29 members over the age of 70, including Albany's Paul Tonko who is 73.

There are also 11 members over the age of 80, including 85-year-olds Eleanor Holmes Norton of the District of Columbia, Harold Rogers of Kentucky and Bill Pascrell Jr. of New Jersey.

The Capitol doesn't need a cloak room, it needs a place to nap.

By comparison, the Supreme Court members are spring chickens with only Clarence Thomas (75) and Samuel Alito (73) over the age of 70. That gives them plenty of time to give even more immunity in future years, rendering our basic rule of law inconsequential.

New York state requires judges to retire by the end of the December in the year they turn 70, although judges  on the Court of Appeals and state Supreme Court can apply to an administrative review board to continue to serve. Now than I am 67, that seems much more like agism than it ever did before.

But let's get back to presidents.

The Constitution set minimum standards for serving in the House (25), Senate (30) and presidency (35), but not any upper limits. Alzheimer's and dementia were not something that had been defined in those days most didn't live long enough to see their mental acuity diminished.

When Ronald Reagan ran for president at age 70, I thought he was too old. There is some evidence he was already suffering from Alzheimer's in the waning days of his presidency.

As much as I admired John McCain and his policies, I thought at age 72, he was too old to be president as well.

The last two presidents have been the oldest in our history.

The reality is that we live in a world where visual images are paramount and the president is always on stage and the job is more demanding than ever. It's a young person's game.

In the past, we could count on the voters to decide when someone was past their prime, but unlimited campaign donations and the gerrymandering of congressional districts means the deck is stacked for incumbents. They are re-elected in the House of Representatives at a 98 percent clip. That should be shocking.

It's pretty clear there will be no reforms for campaign finance in the near future, and the courts seem incapable of addressing gerrymandering consistently. Term limits would solve the problem and even Elise Stefanik committed to serving no more than five terms after she was elected in 2014.

The young Elise saw the problem. Elise at middle age does not.

So where does that leave us?

Biden is 81. Trump is 78.

It's democracy in diapers vs. dictatorship and detention centers.

As a fellow senior citizen, I know I have lost a step - probably two - on the basketball court, but I believe I am writing as well as ever. Some of us do get better with age - to a point. I hope I know when it's time to get off the court.

Unfortunately, It's clear too many in Congress do not.

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Words to remember

Heather Cox Richardson, the historian and Substack columnist extraordinaire, published these words on the Fourth of July. We should all remember them.

"But just as in the 1850s, we are now, once again, facing a rebellion against our founding principle, as a few people seek to reshape America into a nation in which certain people are better than others. The men who signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, pledged their “Lives, [their] Fortunes and [their] sacred Honor” to defend the idea of human equality. Ever since then, Americans have sacrificed their own fortunes, honor, and even their lives, for that principle. Lincoln reminded Civil War Americans of those sacrifices when he urged the people of his era to “take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

We have taken the cause for granted for too long and people - like those in the supreme Court - are taking advantage of it.

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GF walking tour today

The Chapman Museum will be holding a "Downtown Glens Falls Tour" Friday at 11 a.m.

The tour explores the major historical events and figures that shaped Glens Falls and made it one of the most prosperous cities in New York.

Tour begins at the Chapman Museum and costs $15 for non-members. Make sure to reserve your spot by calling 518 793-2826.

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Kind words

This past week, a readfer shared these thoughts about my recent books:

"On Monday last week I went to Ace Hardware and bought all 3 of your books. By Friday I had finished the first one, pausing only to walk the dog and wipe tears that came as I was reading some of columns. Wow, what a book! I'm sure people tell you all the time things that came to memory when they were reading a specific column. So bear with me: I was on the Queen Mary when somebody said a cruise ship had sunk somewhere. That would be awful, I thought, somewhere on a sea, a big ship like we were on....until I looked up and saw the face of Larry Cleveland telling us about the Ethan Allen. It took the starch out of me for the rest of our cruise. And you did such a great job of covering that...pictures and all! Today I start the second book, can't wait to get into it."

It's great to hear people are still discovering the books.

Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and is currently adapting his second book "The Last American Newspaper" into a play. He currently lives in Queensbury, N.Y.