Everlasting Autumn (or is it Spring?)

     "I am sick and tired of looking at fannies," he said to me.  
     Really though, the timing was nothing short of miraculous.  At the exact moment Jack Basic was explaining to me how young gentlemen need to stop sagging their pants, a group of 20 nude bicyclists passed by us on the road (on their way downtown for the 10,000-person annual Naked Bike Ride [keeping Portland weird is a full time job for its residents]).  I honestly thought he was going to faint.

     Jack Basic is the kind of name that deserves to be said in its entirety, and it belongs to the 92-year-old man who lives down the street from the parish.  He moved into that house when he was 5.  Yup, that's right, the man has spent 87 years living in the same home (unless you subtract the year he spent in college 3 miles down the road, which neither he nor I count because he hated it and left as soon as he could).  
     The very idea of spending 87 years in one place is terrifying to me.  Seriously, I am afraid to even think of it.  My mind begins to try and form scenarios of myself at his age waking up or getting the mail or cleaning the kitchen and I begin to feel sick with fear at even continuing the daydream.  I shut my mind in a frenzied terror at the mere thought of such a life.
     But let me tell you, Jack Basic does it right. 

     Our acquaintance began out of pity.  Yah see, the parish is having a rummage sale.  This is a different way to say garage sale, except instead of one garage its every garage in the parish.  We've filled the school basement (seriously, the ENTIRE basement) with donated articles, and it's going to be my job to organize, price, and sell these items.  
     Great.
     Organization and salesmanship; these are a few of my least fav'rite things [to be sung in your best Julie Andrews inyourhead voice].
     So I'm sitting there waiting for people to drop stuff off, reading a book, when I hear this noise.  Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle.  I look around the corner and Jack Basic is hobbling toward me with a suitcase.  He hands it to me, and says he has to go back for more.  Can I drive you?  No, you'd like to walk?  Ok, I'll see you soon.
     45 minutes later.  Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle.  Hi jack, another suitcase?  Oh, you have more?  You have to let me drive you this time.  No?  Well alright.
     25 minutes later, I finally get it in my head to meet him halfway.  I set off down the street.  7 blocks down, I find him leaving his house.  I intend to take the stuff from him and let him go back inside, but he insists that we walk all the way to the parish.  
     That's when the naked bikers arrive, and we become instant friends.  You can't just share something like a posse of people with bike seats jammed up their bare bottoms without becoming a person's best friend. 
     Our conversation continues, and somewhere around block 5 he invites me to lunch.  Of course I'll come.  

    Jack Basic is a legend around here.  The local grocery store threw him a 90th birthday party in the store.  We went by so he could show me off to the ladies there.  We pretended that I was his son, cuz you know, EVERYONE has a son that's 70 years his junior. 
     All-in-all, we spent almost 5 hours together.  We chatted about life, he complained to me about teachers he had in school 80 years ago, we traded book suggestions (he told me how committed he was to reading everything worth reading before he dies), he explained why he decided to start learning piano last year, we argued about Chesterton, and of course we got ice cream together.  This man is a legend.  

     92 years.  What will I be like if death stays away that long?  Will I still read every day?  Will I decide to pick up the piano at 91?  Will I remember my grade school teachers?  Will I still be willing to play tricks on my friends?  Will I still walk 7 blocks over and over again because I think someone might want the coffee maker I bought 30 years ago for a party and only used once?   Will I be able to befriend a young brat fresh out of college who's still juvenile enough to think he can change the world?  

     I suspect that Jack Basic still believes he can change the world.  After the thought occurred to him somewhere on the streets of northwest Portland all those years ago, the thought never died.  So perhaps it's not very juvenile at all.  If his time-tested mind still yearns to learn and grow and love as newly and freshly as it did 85 years ago, then perhaps mine can too.  Perhaps this is how Jack intends to change the world: by giving a little bit of himself to me.  
     Whatever it is, I like it, and I like my new friend.