At his birthday party Peter Cooper greeted guests with the declaration, “80 is the new 79.” Then he smiled impishly, pointed to the bar and led you to his mountain view.

At her birthday party Alice Waco asked for suggestions on what new challenges she might take on in her next decade, this also being Alice’s 80th. Most agreed it would be something extraordinary and not found on most senior activity listings.

Having friends turn oh-my-God 80 when you’re in your 60s probably isn’t that much of a surprise. But it does make one ask, how did this cool person I hang out make it so well to 80?

Peter and Alice don’t know each other but with their birthday parties on the same weekend it gave me a chance to consider what is it about aging that works better for some people than others. I’ve known both of them since they were in high middle age and they’ve always had a busy house full of friends and family. Both have quick minds and a sense of humor, get outraged about injustice, care passionately about the world and are people you hope to sit next to at a dinner party.

They both also might credit vibrant marriages for keeping their sizzle. Alice’s husband Bill was killed in a bicycling accident seven years ago when he was 79. Before that they were always “Bill and Alice, Alice and Bill,” and if you were describing them, you’d have to add that she used to be a nun and he used to be a priest and so, of course, they were made for each other.

Peter is married to Robin and when you ask her, “How’s Peter” her first response is almost always, “He’s wonderful.”

You could tell you’d arrived at Alice’s party because of the bumper stickers. Alice spent years running the Sonoma County Peace and Justice Center. When she was a teacher, she led the biggest strike in Santa Rosa (Ca.) history. If there’s a demonstration or vigil against war Alice is there with a candle, a sign and if need be, waiting to be arrested. Not all of her friends lean to the left. At her party an attorney introduced himself as probably the only Republican in the room and everyone applauded.

Peter was a TV guy in New York who traveled the world producing commercials for peanut butter and beer. He and Robin regularly return to New York to see plays, stay up late and visit his childhood buddy, director Mike Nichols.

But when Peter retired he didn’t stop, he simply changed coasts. He got involved in community theater as an actor and director, took writing classes at the junior college, held folk music concerts at his house, raised dogs, became a Californian.

Peter looks like a theater person. At one of his openings he stood on the sidewalk in black turtleneck and tiny earring, chatting up theater goers. He was likely hurting that night. His body is pretty beat up, from surgeries and a couple of car accidents, but he doesn’t talk much about that. The only time you realize he’s slowing down is when he plants himself in a good spot – at his party on the deck looking to Mount St. Helena – and instead of working the room lets the room come to him.

The week before his party Peter had finished a month’s run in the cast Stalag 17, playing the commandant. A guest who saw it told him he’d given her the creeps. He said, “Thank you.”

At her party Alice talked about the Parkinson’s she is now integrating into her life. Then she announced she’d be gone for a while, heading up to the prison in Susanville to do some non-violence training.

Sometimes I feel like our political leaders are involved in a street fight. And it’s getting ugly and scary and we’re not sure what the fight is really about. And who started it and how it will end. But one thing we do suspect is that when it’s over the blood will be on us.

Or it’s like a domestic squabble where the police are called to figure out what’s going on and in the process one of the cops gets shot. And we’re the cop.

I’ve been dealing a lot in images lately because I feel there is such little straight talk on what’s really happening in the free-for-all over the deficit, spending cuts, tax breaks, tax loopholes, entitlements, revenue increases and the debt ceiling.

We’re just sitting there waiting for the fight to end and see how we get hit.

The president likes his metaphors. He says we have to rip off the Band-Aid. He says we have to eat our peas. Tighten the old belts. I know he’s talking to me when he says that and people like me. But, is that everybody? Are the rich eating their peas?

I’ve pretty much stopped paying attention to political leaders of either side who talk about “our seniors” as if they really care. If you care about “our seniors” you don’t bludgeon Medicare and Social Security. Right now I feel like those of us who thought we could rely on both are being pushed to the edge of a cliff and some people are yelling “save them” and others are saying “jump.”

It’s particularly telling when members of Congress talk about “our seniors” as if they aren’t one of us. The average age of both houses of Congress is 58, which is old enough to be long on the AARP mailing list and to move into a retirement community. You’d think they’d relate but they don’t. Is it because nearly half of Congress are millionaires? So they don’t personally worry about safety nets. And so all the talk is about getting rid of programs rather than figuring out a way to save them.

Here’s another image. We like to say we’re all in the same boat but this one feels like the Titanic.
The rich are on top and the rest of us are in steerage. And when the ship starts to take on water, the people in steerage are the first to drown and the people upstairs keep dancing. But then the whole thing goes under. And even the rich are looking around for the security of a life boat.

Sometimes when Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey got up to speak I would hold my breath. She’s not a smooth talker, sometimes speaking haltingly like she’s trying to gather her thoughts. But as tentative as she could be in her delivery, she was always strong in her convictions.

Still, I’m happy about Lynn announcing this week that she will not run for an 11th term in the House of Representatives. For one reason. She can cut back on the speech-making and the mocking of her fumbles by media critics. One of her supporters standing next to me when Lynn made her announcement said, “Can you imagine taking on a job where half of it required you to do something you hated doing and knew you weren’t very good at?”

That was about the time the coastal California wind swept through Lynn’s Petaluma backyard, tangled her speech notes, she lost track of what she was about to say, then shrugged and said, “Well, you know.”

Smooth talking is definitely an asset in politics but it isn’t everything. Washington is full of silver tongued slicks in a suit. Dick Cheney is good with words. Anthony Weiner was a definite wit.

Actually Lynn does quite ably in one-on-one talks. Rachel Maddow closed one interview with Lynn, saying, “always a pleasure to hear your straight talk, Ma’m.”

Yes, straight talk. Not flowery. Not clever. Not mean. No winky-winks.

And always a brave heart. In doing exactly what her constituents wanted. Never wavering.

Lynn has opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and American involvement in Libya. She’s delivered nearly 400 speeches on the House floor in support of bringing U.S. troops home. She voted against the USA Patriot Act, saying that it recklessly violated civil liberties. She once proposed the government establish a Department of Peace with cabinet status. In 2006, she gave antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan a ticket to George Bush’s State of the Union speech.

She initially voted against the $700 billion financial bailout because she said it wouldn’t do enough to provide jobs. She pushed for a stronger public health care option than was eventually adopted in the Affordable Care Act and waited quietly while rowdies at a town hall meeting in Petaluma shouted her down when she said, “our health care system is broken.”

Nancy Pelosi has called her the “conscience of the Congress.”

Lynn went to Washington when she was 55 in 1992, the famous Year of the Women when a record number of women joined the House and Senate. It was not lost on those who gathered in Lynn’s back yard that coincidentally the same day she announced she would be leaving Congress another congresswoman, from Minnesota, announced her bid for president, even though about the only things the two have in common is their gender and their job title.

For example, Lynn Woolsey fought against privatizing Social Security when George W. proposed it. Now Lynn is re-engaged in the current Republican assault on Social Security. The Minnesota Congresswoman has bragged that were her GOP crowd in control they could get rid of Social Security over one long weekend.

Lynn’s good pal and colleague Congresswoman Barbara Lee credits Lynn for never being shy about connecting her personal experiences to her political beliefs. Lynn is the first member of Congress to have once been a single mother on welfare, so of course she supports social safety nets. When you ask her about choice she tells the story about her grandmother, pregnant with her first child and almost to term when something went wrong and the doctor told her husband there was no way to save both his wife and the baby. And he chose his wife. And two years later Lynn’s mother was born.

Lynn, who has promised to continue her anti-war efforts and work to protect the California coast from offshore oil drilling, is the real thing. Nancy Pelosi has called her the “conscience of the Congress.”

That’s certainly worth more than glib talk from suits in wingtips.