Party animal
Two Saturdays ago, my wife threw a big birthday party for me because it was one of those milestone birthdays. Among the 75 or so guests was my friend Ken. I met Ken in 2006 when we and two other guys formed a local Democratic club, and since then I’ve grown to greatly enjoy his company.
Ken is 84, recently widowed (a year ago), and ex-CIA. He was a CIA agent during the Korean War, and afterward, but when the Nixon administration wanted the data on Vietnam scrubbed, he resigned. He had lots to say about this at my party (evidently, he can now speak without fear of reprisal), as well as other things. Many other things. Clearly, the Democratic party is not the only kind of party that lights him up. He arrived on the dot at the announced starting time of 7 p.m., stood the entire time while drinking wine and vodka gimlets, then closed out the party at 2 a.m. This, while a buddy about my age told me after the first hour that he had to go find a chair. Ken also solicited advice from numerous attractive female party guests about how to go about dating again. Remember: 84 years old. Seven hours on his feet, while drinking and holding forth in my expansive back yard.
Early the next morning, my phone rang. It was Ken. “LEE!” he said in his booming baritone, “KEN A. HERE!” As though I didn’t know who it was. “GREAT PARTY! YOU KNOW MANY INTERESTING PEOPLE!”
“Well, you’re one of them,” I volunteered. Indeed, everyone at the party, across ideological and cultural and racial lines, seemed interested in him. You know that scene at the end of “Logan’s Run” where the pretty young people encounter their first old person (Peter Ustinov) and gather around to study him? It was this way with Ken.
“SO LISTEN!” he said. “HERE’S WHY I CALLED. LIKE I SAID, GREAT PARTY! SO WHAT I WANT TO KNOW IS, WHEN’S THE NEXT ONE? NEXT TIME, DON’T WAIT SO LONG!”
Meanwhile, I, 34 years younger than Ken, spent the rest of the day nursing my recovery.