When we were kids, after a fresh snow we used to tow a toboggan at night to the top of the big drumlin looming above our neighborhood. Piling onto the toboggan, which (you will recall) was almost impossible to steer, we launched ourselves off down the hill, heedless of the consequences, and screaming with delight as the expected blast of snow cascaded over our heads and into every fold, opening, and orifice on our bodies.

I don’t scream with delight much anymore, but when faced with a dilemma or critical decision, I often hark back to that experience of just letting go and dropping blindly into an unseen unknown. If I need support of a philosophical, classical, or literary nature, there’s always Tennyson’s Ulysses, eager in his old age for one more voyage: “It may be that the gulfs will wash us down….It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles…” And then there’s Don Marquis’ mehitabel the old theater cat, who sings, “theres a dance in the old dame yet wotthehell archy its cheerio my deario that sees a lady through”.

If you detect in all of that a certain devil-may-care attitude, I won’t try to argue with you. Still not quite released from the anxiety of wondering if my money will last as long as I do (and with the additional threat, if media can be believed, of Social Security about to be yanked from under us), I’m dedicated to making as much as I can of what I’ve got left.

Thus, during the past six years of widowhood, and largely with liberal dollops of luck augmenting my normally sketchy decisions, I’ve managed to accrue, in order, an elderly German roadster that runs like a top, a rescue terrier from Texas who’s an almost perfect housemate, and a very lively 77-year-old companion whose wit and positive attitude are perfect complements to mine.

The roadster, currently venturing out on only Indian summer days and getting ready for her annual hibernation, has been the visceral experience I’ve missed since my twenties. Kiki, the puppy, is with me 24 hours a day, except for visits to places she’s not allowed. The companion lives over three hours away by car, a distance that one of her divorced friends declared “Perfect!” but we can always find ways to spend time together at either her house on an island near Boston or mine in Vermont.

She’s still teaching, so three-day weekends are our favorites. This past one was perfect. With no responsibilities or deadlines, we were free to do whatever we liked. We dined at a new restaurant Friday evening, slept in Saturday till kaffeeklatsch time at Capitol Grounds, napped, and tried a second restaurant. Sunday we crossed the lake and visited a couple of old teaching colleagues on the New York shore. And so it went: conversation, music, baking an apple pie, and her successful run back home. Just two old folks savoring the sweetness of the distillate of two long lives.