Now, one useful thing you can do with old people, in addition to borrowing money from them or getting them to do one of their old-time “dances,” so you can watch while laughing, is ask, “Looking back, what do you regret?” And they’ll tell you. Sometimes, as you know, they’ll tell you even if you haven’t asked. Sometimes, even when you’ve specifically requested that they not tell you, they’ll tell you. So: What do I regret? Being poor from time to time? Not really. Working terrible jobs, like “knuckle-puller in a slaughterhouse”? (And don’t even ask what that entails.) No. I don’t regret that.
