The Old and the Restless

The Old and the Restless

Our semi-annual gathering of the BT Legends group was held last night.  There was a total of fifteen of us in attendance.  We were a group of ex-bankers, so we were not terribly diverse even though there were three women in the group.  The rest were old white guys.

Doing some approximate polling, I would say the age range was 61 to 81, but the mean was likely around 71 with the median of probably 69.  We steadfastly avoided politics as a topic, for fear that we did not want to galvanize the way the nation has gone of late.  I did my own polling and would guess that we broke in similar fashion as the country with about one third pro-Trump and two-thirds anti-Trump.  Unless I am mistaken, we would, all but one, say we were Christian with the outlier being Jewish.  The most notable demographic aberration may have been with hair.  We all had most of our hair on our heads except for one, again, who seemed to be shaving his head.  There was one moustache and one beard (mine) with the rest being clean-shaven.

The working status of the group about evenly split, with a few that would say that they are semi-retired and probably still collecting some pay or fees for serving on boards and what not.  Two had just gotten new jobs and the rest of the working population was spending more and more time considering the benefits of retirement.  With a group in this age group, it is impossible to avoid the topic of working or not working, and the most commonly asked question was probably, “so, what are you doing these days?”  That was quickly followed by, “and are you thinking of throwing in the towel any time soon?”

I would suggest that while there certainly was some degree of interest in what each other was up to and planning, the genesis of these questions was more likely about self-reflection.  Remember that scene from the original Papillon film that has Steve McQueen sticking his head out of the cell door at the infamous penal colony of French Guiana?  He turns to the cellmate to the left and asks, “how do I look, you look good?”  The truth is that he looks old and in bad need of a haircut and shave.

One of the members who could not attend was the subject of a good deal of chatter.  It was interesting to hear the stories, which I’m not sure I had ever heard.  It seems everyone thought the person somewhat hard to suffer.  The story that stuck out was the time there was some sort of two-car road trip when everyone jockeyed to try to not be in the same car as him.  It’s funny, I worked directly for that person at one point and I even spent time with him offsite and I always thought he just had a problem with me.  It turns out he was tough on everyone and everyone tried to avoid him when possible.  That said, I suspect everyone would have rather had him in attendance as opposed to absent to talk about.  He certainly would have been voted smartest among us but would have had significant points off for social grace.

One member of the group brought a picture of the last gathering of what had been called the Quarter Century Club, some twenty years prior.  There were a dozen people in the picture and the three most situated to the right of the picture were now dead, including our member that died in hospice last weekend.  We commented about all the people in the picture, several of whom were in the room and others who were absent.  The most notable observation I felt inclined to make was that it was unhealthy to go to the right in old age.  That was a little political sarcasm on my part.

We had gathered in an Upper West Side restaurant that had a wine room of just the right size.  It was a noisy room right from the start.  Add that to the failing hearing of an aging group and that made for plenty of quizzical looks across the table.  I had the pleasure of sitting to the right of a 79-year-old friend with a bad right ear.  I was forced to act as go-between with him and the 81-year-old member across the table.  It is quite interesting being an interpreter of aging bankers.

The meal took some time to arrive and everyone started to get restless without their dinners.  Naturally, my 79-year-old dance partner was the last to get his meal and got something distinctly unlike what he was expecting.  It took me back to dinner out with my mother, who would ask the waiter, “this isn’t what I ordered, is it?”  What my friend got was some linguini with a Bolognese sauce.  He had wanted more pasta and less ragu and got more ragu and less pasta.  It also had some nice sage leaves on top, which he disgustedly flicked off onto the tablecloth with a gesture of utter disdain.  When our 81-year-old colleague asked how his dinner was, I didn’t even have to wait for the answer, I just waved my hand and said, “he says it sucked!”

The final event of the evening was waiting for the bill and trying to decide how to whack it up.  Some of the members were looking at their watches commenting that it was already past nine. Some were comfortable sticking around if wine was still being served.  Others were trying to Uber their rides to Connecticut or New Jersey.  Some of us just wanted to throw a hundred-dollar bill towards our host to settle up.  Others wanted to know who had the shrimp scampi and were trying to add up who had how many drinks.  The host finally said he would just bill us all.  Some of us groaned and pleaded for him to just take our money since we didn’t want to write another check.  But bankers will be bankers, so we will get a proper full accounting by email and then dutifully send off checks as requested.  Others of us will forget to do so and claim to ourselves that we had more than adequately compensated that son-of-a-bitch over the years.

It’s lucky for all of us that we won’t gather again for 6-12 months.  It will take that long for the host to settle all the bills and/or write-off the proceeds.  It will take that long for others to decide to retire or find a loose board seat on which to sit.  It will take that long for others to build up the gumption to travel into the City again.  Let’s just hope that we don’t wait so long that we will have to look at another picture with an accounting of dead soldiers.  The old and the restless will rise again.