One of my good friends is, in his words, older than oxygen. He lives across the street in a senior’s home and I always saw him out for walks. I have a rule - w

One of my good friends is, in his words, older than oxygen. He lives across the street in a senior’s home and I always saw him out for walks. I have a rule - when I see someone enough for them to become a familiar, I introduce myself. So I introduced myself to him and now he sends me a text message a few times a month for a coffee. He was getting close to getting reined in by a scam. It was a Canadian party pulling the same shit as MAGA. He said something really interesting. You’re young and nobody listens to you. You just get dragged around, told where to go and what to say. Then, you hit around 40 and suddenly everyone listens to you. They will stop what they’re doing to cater to you. But then you turn really old, your wife dies and all of a sudden, you have nobody to even drag you around. You’re totally by yourself and day to day, it doesn’t matter if you live or die. He knew it was a scam and knew when it got too expensive so decided to walk. But it was human contact. And as he says, loneliness is worse than being broke. The best part of being friends with him is how the staff treats me at our spot. It’s a pub he used to go to with his wife when she was alive and the entire staff knows him very well. Whenever we have coffee, one of the servers inevitably looks at him, points at me and says “Ray, I see you’re doing your good deed for the day.” Without fail, his eyes twinkle and he replies, “If I don’t teach this young peckerhead a thing or two, we’re all doomed.” I’m not sure there is a moral, but if you happen to see an older adult regularly, stop and talk. You may protect them from scams. You may end up with a close friend. If you’re really lucky, you may even get called “peckerhead.” Edit - Me spell not good.