Earl Newman is one of your Zorbasque sorts of aging-defiantly men. He's a silkscreen artist who has made designs for the Monterey Jazz Festival for almost 50 seasons. He has done hundreds of posters for the Newport Aquarium, Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, every Summit event and to sell at a long string of fairs. He draws as naturally as most people chew chocolate.

This week we are between his 77th birthday and my 78th. I often pull rank on him. We frequently get together to affirm things we believe to be true, like "attitude is everything." Both of us are in good health, though a little raveled out at the sleeve and pitifully lacking interest in extreme sports. We believe we are mentally intact or even improved over more impulsive times. It amazes us our "children" are middle-aged people. How did that happen?

We like that our friends are not defined by their gender, age or financial status, but by interests, creativity and enlivening conversation.

Like most ancient specimens, we speculate about What Comes Next and what we want from this undefined stretch of borrowed time we've been granted. We're both in our 70s, closing in on 80. Surely a mistake has been made. We're clearly older than springtime and under no illusion that nature has forgotten we're here and ripe for plucking. What are we to do with this gift of time and opportunity?

Earl says he wants to live to 100, at least. He still wants to draw and print a thousand more posters, contribute to the community, dress up absurdly for parties and chase more girls (however slowly.)

Me, I'm conditional. I don't want to lose my capacity to marvel at nature's ingenuity, laugh without restraint, be useful here and there and feel good. For me, when it's time to go, I don't want anyone getting between me and the door to reach an arbitrary number of years or spare themselves inevitable adjustment. My turn.

Further, I don't want to croak empty of ideas, creative fervor and lacking dreams. If I could finish all I can think of now, what would I have to look forward to the next time around? I believe death is an event on the spiral existence, just as winter is a season that will be followed by spring. It's a good thing to have seeds ready to sprout. I'm not going to learn to drive a dawg sled this lifetime or get really good at ceramics or go scuba diving. But, hey! Next time, watch me!

As we sat in front of his woodstove, nursing smallish glasses of the Good Stuff, gossiping cheerfully about the folkways of the neighbors, Earl raised a fascinating question. "I wonder what I would do, if I couldn't see." Remember, the man's acute eye, coordinated with his facile drawing, has been identity, living and pleasure for a lifetime. Earl, blind?

Establishing, for all time, that attitude IS everything, he speculated, "Maybe I'd get a guitar and see if I could do that." Demonstration: adaptability of mind and intention.

For myself, the thought of being isolated by hearing loss is the equivalent of his imagined blindness. The idea of being deaf to the nuance of tone plus missing emphasis in the speech of others is paralyzing. To lose the sound of river voices as I fall asleep or rain on the roof would be profoundly lonely. Music means little to me, being paradoxically tone-deaf, but the distant whistle of the train and quick banter of friends are precious things.

What would I do? Write more stories whether anyone publishes them or not. After all, they are backed up in me like salmon waiting for the right conditions to finish their journey. What else? Pet and play with my dawgs, of course. Perhaps, learn to lip read. Bless the Shy Guy's presence in my life.

Both Earl and I believe we are more than our senses, white hair and good fortune in health. Life is lived in the moment and this one is good.

Peg Elliott Mayo invites comment at uncommonideas@rivervoices.com She writes from the Coast Range and is an author and mentor.