At the senior citizen French class today, attendance was sparse; I understand, from a session I attended on becoming an instructor, that it tends to run at about 60%. Based on what I’ve seen, that’s partly due to their busy lives; I know that at least two of the people who are usually there were out of the country. Sometimes it’s health problems; my friend Carol showed up today after having missed the first four or five classes, and said her physical therapy was making things hurt. She fractured her tailbone a year or so ago, tripping on an irregularity in her back yard. The instructor himself was missing a couple of weeks ago because his car was snowed in and he couldn’t dig it out, being frail and elderly himself (the instructors are paid in only memberships to the program themselves).

I didn’t want to miss class, even though I’m having a nasty bout of asthma, because I didn’t want to miss the homework assignment. That was a dumb idea and I should have stayed home. Instead, I left class early when the coughing got too bad, and picked up a few groceries at the store on the way home. Then I sat in my armchair feeling absolutely miserable. But I don’t like missing class.

While I was in class, one of the members, Howard, went up to the board to write a sentence, and on the way he did a little jig. Then he clicked his heels. The instructor asked him how old he was. “89,” said Howard. “Next week’s my birthday.”

“Don’t do that again,” said several people in the room, genuinely alarmed, because Howard is slight and bent and we were all sure he was going to fall. You don’t want old people to fall. Even if we can click our heels, there’s no guarantee we’re not going to lose our balance afterwards, and old people who lose their balance break things. Then, like Carol, it takes a year they don’t have to recover.

I remember when my 80-year-old neighbor across the street, Mrs. Bush, went on a cruise. She had a marvelous time, and then she came back, got sick, and died. Although getting a bad case of the flu is not the worst way for an old person to die, I would not want to catch the flu on a cruise. But that’s just me. I don’t like even the idea of cruises. If I’m going to pass away from an infection, I would rather do it from going to French class, apparently.