Misc.
I was about to write a long post about the Institute for Local Self-Reliance report that came out earlier this year. It's called “Localizing the Internet: Five Ways Public Ownership Solves the U.S. Broadband Problem.” Plus there's a new report out from the Alliance for Public Technology called “Achieving Universal Broadband: Policies for Stimulating Deployment and Demand” that is well worth studying.
But I thought I'd spend a few minutes this evening talking about the 90-year-olds I met this past weekend. I went with a college friend of mine to visit her grandmother — almost 100 now — at a place outside Philadelphia. At one point during the afternoon I was reading in the common room when a guy in a baseball cap sat down next to me and clearly wanted to talk. So I closed the book and asked him about his life. Let's call him Frank. He's 90.
Frank came to this country from Austria in 1938 after one of his cousins sent an affidavit promising to support him. He was 21. His parents never made it out, and he learned after the war that they died in a concentration camp. He started work in Brooklyn for a glue company as an errand boy, and studied at CCNY. The bookkeeper for the glue company saw him studying hard and was impressed — she asked him if he'd like to meet one of her school friends. He did, and the school friend was named Julia, and the two married six months later. Then in 1941 he was drafted and sent to guard the Suez Canal for more than two years. He came back safely and started work in a furniture design company in midtown. He was a skiier and led ski trips for a shop on the Upper East Side, riding buses to Vermont to teach people how to ski. The Austrian accent helped convince people that he was the right guy to do this. He lived on Long Island and worked there for a long time. He had a daughter. His wife died twelve years ago of cancer. He showed me pictures of his wife, daughter, and granddaughter. About 18 months ago his daughter insisted that he leave Long Island and move into the retirement community outside Philadelphia (where she lives). He likes it, but he doesn't really have any friends. But he has people to eat dinner with. His daughter visits occasionally. The bookkeeper who introduced him to his wife is still alive and lives in Massachusetts.
That's the story. But Frank told me this story over and over again, in different parts, stressing different things, remembering the name of the glue factory and the address of the furniture store. We were there for almost an hour, as the sun lowered in the sky and the light stretched into the next room. He started again, with the story of coming here alone in 1938, and it was all as fresh and new to him as if he'd just met me. Near the end of the hour he stretched the story just a bit, saying that he'd gone to the Suez only six months after meeting his wife. But I knew better. No, I said, it was 1941, not 1939, when you went to war. I said goodbye and we both said that it had been a pleasure to talk.
At dinner we sat with my friend's grandmother and two of her friends, all three of whom are in their mid- to late-90s. One of them was having trouble remembering what she had just said, but otherwise seemed in good health. The other friend was sharp and on top of things. My friend's grandmother was mostly occupied in looking lovingly at her granddaughter and listening to the conversation.
That's it, no big conclusions here. We're all living longer, and there's probably someone who would like you to visit them.
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