19 • HUNGRY MONTH
February–MarchAs I grow older, more of my close friends are elderly people. I suppose I
am auditioning, in some sense, to join their club. My generation will no
doubt persist in wearing our blue jeans right into the nursing homes, kick-
ing out Lawrence Welk when we get there and cranking up “Bad Moon
Rising” to maximum volume. But I do find myself softening to certain
features of the elder landscape. Especially, I’m coming to understand that
culture’s special regard for winter. It’s the season to come through. My
eighty-four- year- old neighbor is an incredibly cheerful person by all other
standards, but she will remark of a relative or friend, “Well, she’s still with
us after the winter.”
It’s not just about icy sidewalks and inconvenience: she lost two sisters
and a lifelong friend during recent winters. She carries in living memory a
time when bitter cold and limited diets compromised everyone’s immuni-
ties, and the weather forced people to hunker down and share contagions.
Winter epidemics took their heartbreaking due, not discriminating espe-
cially between the old and the young. For those of us who have grown up
under the modern glow of things like vaccinations, penicillin, and central
heat, it’s hard to retain any real sense of this. We flock indoors all the
time, to work and even to exercise, sharing our germs in all seasons. But
vitamins are ready at hand any time, for those who care, and antibiotics
mop up the fallout.