In our town there was an old man who would come out of his house and
take his daily walk along the sides of the streets in the town. There
were not many sidewalks, so he shared the street with the cars, but in
the backstreets the cars went by slowly. He was a tall, thin old man
with a slight stoop – the father of the doctor in our town. He held his
cane in one hand and a cloth bag in the other, for the mail, and he
walked briskly but with such small steps that he did not advance very
fast.
He seems to be gone now. The warm weather has returned, but he does not
appear on the streets. In the cold weather there are no old men on the
streets. Now that the warm weather has come, a few old men have
appeared, but we see them only in the centre of the town, walking a
short distance along a sidewalk to enter a shop or standing at a street
crossing. One of them is fleshy and bearded, in shorts and suspenders,
dark socks and sturdy shoes. Another is bone thin and totters, swaying
to one side, resting a hand against whatever bit of wall is nearby, or
leaning far back to open a shop door.
Another old man, before the doctor’s father, used to walk past our
house. He had good balance and a longer step. He wore a tam-o’-shanter
at an angle on his handsome head. His white beard was short and curly.
He had lived in the town all his life, unlike the doctor’s father, and
he would stop to tell us where the sidewalks used to be and who had died
a violent death, in which house. We no longer see him these days.
Another old man, once a week, would stand dressed in a suit and
overcoat by his gate, in polished formal shoes. He was out early,
waiting to be picked up by his son.
We see these old men on the streets of our town, and we see others in a
nursing home, where they have been left by their families. The nursing
home is itself like a little town, with its own chapel, barbershop, gift
shop, and community meeting room like a town hall. There are the
offices of the administrators, and there is the hallway like Main
Street. There you may meet the others in the town and stop to talk with
them. Some of the residents, though, spend the whole day going up and
down the hall. They have given up stopping to chat, if they ever did,
and as they pass you, they stare hard at you, almost with hostility, or
else look straight ahead with vacant eyes.
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