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November Song: Stories of Sixteen Well-Lived Lives

November Song tells us about the lives of sixteen men. All are in or near the “November” years of their lives. These splendidly written narratives are both instructive and a great read! They are meant to be more than a mere exposition of the lives of sixteen men. While the book is, importantly, the story of these men, of who they are and of what their lives have been like, it is also, to cite Emerson, an attempt to “find the whole man.” Each of the men profiled in November Song. Including the author, lives in a Northern California retirement community, called “Rossmoor.” They are neighbors, and most have known one another for some time. Individually, each of the sixteen men profiled here is interesting and accomplished, a person of note! Collectively, they are a cross-section of the fiber that is America. Civilization is a complex organism - millions of people - each doing their part. How are roles assigned? How are the many individual contributions assembled into a cohesive entity? A city. A country. A world. To further enrich the sixteen chronicles, a number of the author’s latest essays are interleaved. One of them, about those once ubiquitous Burma-Shave roadway signs, will remind us of drives along pre-turnpike country roads. Essays about Happiness and Aging remind us of the joys found in our America, and we learn in some depth about Bhutan’s Gross Happiness Index! Another essay visits pianist-comedian Victor Borge as he relates a story about Persistence and its importance to a successful life. Yet another provides a unique “bucket list.”