I received the following from John Ahern in Delray Beach, Florida, which is 100-percent apropos: “Here’s a quick observation on our passing scene as the ‘season’ officially kicked off last evening at the St. Andrews Club. Private clubs are the last bastion of 1960s style, as the finest restaurants accept diners in shorts (add collared shirt). Family and friends, you’d like Delray Beach. It has everything. Cool weather gave us time to see wonderful movies this week—don’t miss Darkest Hour and Greatest Showman—including I, Tonya this morning. Each one unique and superb. Our modest apartments have a new neighbor directly across the street. Three townhouses are being built and one is already sold at $2,500,000. Two more are offered at $2,650,000. It’s entertaining to watch the cement being poured, the food truck come by, the hammering beginning at daylight. This will change the neighborhood. We continue to watch our neighbors, never without their devices as they walk and talk in their own private cocoons, often with one or two dogs, living alone in small apartments, single, divorced or early widowed. Rachel the dog lady comes twice a day to walk two tiny dogs for a 37-year-old so she can work. Rachel walks 60 dogs. We keep busy, as the groups we belong to stage events: a private party, a meeting of the Circumnavigators Club and the Manalapan Yacht Club and my book club, wife Annette’s bridge groups and so on. Feel free to stop by, and we’ll simply fit you in or head down to buzzing Atlantic Avenue, five minutes away and offering 20 ethnic restaurants. There’s much talk of health as we grow older—hips, knees, sore backs, allergies, rashes, acid reflux. If you have a health problem, we have another way of looking at it. As benefits of aging, the dry cleaners no longer know us by name, we don’t garden, when we go out it’s for no more than three hours, we don’t even perspire, we’re buying less gas and fewer car washes and oil changes. I use a walking stick for balance and get more respect. It’s not all bad. Your own thoughts on your passing scene are always welcome.”

—Bud Street, 99 Locust Lane, Barnstable, MA 02630; (508) 362-3780; mlnbud@comcast.net