“You take good care of yourself and when…if…you get the privilege of living as long as I have you will be glad you did”

Today I met a man named Feliciano.

I can’t complain about my day job. I lifeguard at a luxury hotel to pay the rent, my undergrad education, and for my acting classes. The pool I lifeguard at is on the fourteenth floor rooftop and has one of the most breathtaking views of the great expanse that is New York City.

As I sit passing the time nose deep in a good book, an old man casually walks out to the pool deck, book in hand. He smiles at me and gently asks,

“Do you have a place I could sit and read in the shade?”

There are no umbrellas at the pool, even with all the available knowledge and pure data about skin cancer and the depleting ozone layer people still love to fry up on that rooftop. The only shade comes from a small overhang which I sit under.

I say to the old man, “ No, but I don’t mind standing, take my seat.”

“He replies, “Thank you. You’re very smart. Like me.”

“Whys that?”

He says, “You’re the only person at this pool who is not purposely exposing themselves to the sun trying to get a tan. An outlier. You take care of yourself, and when…if…you get the privilege of living as long as I have you will be glad you did.”

I am pale as they come…Russian and Dutch by birth…Of course I am in the shade I don’t really have a choice. I take this man in. He has a bright smile full of pearly whites, a head of white hair, not too much balding. Thin in a healthy way. He’s excited to be alive. He can’t be over 65 I think to myself. So I ask,

“How old are you?”

“Guess, and be honest, don’t try and flatter me”.

I say 68. He looks at me, pauses, and takes me in for a moment. That wise grin of experience begins take over as he cooly says, “85.”

85 looking some 20 years younger. This is a man I want to talk to. It was scorching hot today. One of those days the sun feels like it has inched closer to the Earth . . . 86 degrees and humid making my auburn curly hair look like a bird’s nest atop my head. He asks if I want a drink and orders two tonic waters and lime. He introduced himself as Feliciano from Argentina and we toasted to being the only two guys sitting in the shade reading by the pool. For the next 20 minutes we had great conversation. We talk about how he moved to New York City in 1957 as a broke 28-year-old, made his way through hard work. We talked about Jersey boys, Clint Eastwood, theater, and literature. He notes work ethic and great conversation as two things that are rare in today’s world.

“The majority of those Wall street guys, those people are little cogs in a machine, living in cubicles for $100,000 a year. The most courageous thing you can do in life is to do what truly makes you happy. It’s good to see a young man reading.”

Feliciano is a Photographer. Here is a link to his work http://felicianophotography.com/

-EC