The old man and the seafood

When Scott and I lived on Long Island, we would drive out to New Jersey from time to time to take his grandfather "the old man" out to lunch. This was within the last few years of the old man's life. To me, he seemed humble and frail. To the people who really knew him, he had been a cocky patriarch whose confidence occasionally revealed a tyrant. His motto, I had been told was something like this: "It's not that I am much smarter than everyone else, it's just that everyone else is so mediocre."

He was an early pioneer in commercial aviation, and the old man had built up a small air fleet which, among other things, ferried film around the country for Kodak. The story of his dream's demise was that when Kodak offered him $900,000 for him to exclusively service them. He held out hoping for a cool million. The windfall never came through in the end, however. In the later years he ran a flying school until retiring on a fixed income, and his dream of great wealth was grounded.

I first met the old man in 1987 before he became a widower. Gray, lean, thoughtful in his gestures, he carried himself like a refined gentleman accustomed to formalities of an earlier era. After the love of his life died in 1988, it was clear to me that he had been dealt the blow from which he would never completely recover. I did not know him well, but it seemed to me that he ambled through his last days with his tail between his legs. While sorely missing all that he had lost, he clung to his dignity.


Not my grandfather, I had none of the grandfatherly memories of the old man so coveted by my husband and his siblings. What I remember of him is this.

Wanting to respectfully defer to the culinary wishes of the old man, Scott and I would ask where he wanted to eat. Always, we'd end up taking him to the same dilapidating diner a couple of blocks from his Hudson River apartment. At this diner was a salad bar, which included complimentary peel 'n' eat shrimp. Every time the old man commenced to eat that shrimp, he would do so as if it were shrimp cocktail sans shells. I can still see him fumbling with the shells, orange shrimp feet sticking to his lips. Invariably he'd comment about what a poor job someone in the kitchen had done.

Watching the old man struggle with peel 'n' eat shrimp saddened me. It made me realize that at some point down the road, if we wallow too deeply in past sorrows, we are all quite likely to miss the obvious cultural changes in the world around us. Would that then be the point at which we are doomed?

I think it speaks of the need of understanding just what exactly is a life well-lived.