Old Man Country

Thomas R. Cole is the McGovern Chair and Director of the McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics at University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston. Cole graduated from Yale University (B.A., 1971), Wesleyan University (M.A., 1975) and the University of Rochester (Ph.D., 1981). His work has been featured in The New York Times, NPR, Voice of America, PBS, and at the United Nations. He has served as a consultant to the President's Council on Bioethics, as an advisor to and speaker for the United Nations NGO Committee on Ageing, the Union for Reform Judaism, and various editorial and foundation boards. Cole has published many articles and several books on the history of aging and humanistic gerontology. His book The Journey of Life: A Cultural History of Aging in America (Cambridge, 1992) was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Among other books, he edited The Oxford Book of Aging, which was noted by the New Yorker as one of the most memorable books of the year. Cole'sinterest in the life stories of older people has taken him into biography and film-making. His book No Color Is My Kind: the Life of Eldrewey Stearns and the Desegregation of Houston (1997) was adapted into the film, The Strange Demise of Jim Crow, which was broadcast nationally on over 60 PBS stations and internationally by the State Department. Cole's film Still Life: The Humanity of Anatomy, was an official selection at the Doubletake Documentary Film festival in 2002. In 2007, he co-produced Stroke: Conversations and Explanations, a prize-winning film about the invisible world of stroke survivors.

"Our culture too often defines our lives as a journey of three parts, the final one running from age 65 until death. But as Thomas Cole makes clear there is a "fourth age," encompassing those over 80, and it's growing at four-times the rate of the U. S. population as a whole. Intertwining elegant snippets of his personal recollections with riveting interviews of well-known 'fourth age' men, Cole pushes us to reconsider the holistic nature of our lives. Not just an important book, but a revolutionary one as well."

• Chapter One: What My Fathers Couldn't Find Chapter Two: Setting Out on Life's Journey PART ONE: AM I STILL A MAN? Chapter Three: George Vaillant and American Manhood Chapter Four: Red Duke, the Cowboy Surgeon Chapter Five: Sherwin Nuland: The Old Man Who Was Young and Strong PART TWO: DO I STILL MATTER?Chapter Six: The Moral World of Paul Volcker Chapter Seven: Denton Cooley and the Legacy of 100,000 Hearts Chapter Eight: John Harper Gets by with a little Help from his Friends PART THREE: WHAT IS THE MEANING OF MY LIFE? Chapter Nine: Hugh Downs: TV Broadcaster as Modern Day Cicero Chapter Ten: Sam Karff and the Power of Stories Chapter Eleven: James Forbes: Old Man by the Riverside PART FOUR: AM I LOVED? Chapter Twelve: Dan Callahan: Love in the Old Age of Ethics Chapter Thirteen: Walter Wink: Nonviolent Resistance and Dementia Chapter Fourteen: Ram Dass and Me INTERLUDE: WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? Chapter Fifteen: Gleanings for the Path Ahead References