By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO—Rick Kamen, a San Diego-based naturalist and author, says when some people become old, they assume that because their work years are over, their lives no longer have meaning.  But this idea is absolutely wrong, he says.  In actuality, they've entered the third stage of their lives, coming after "childhood" and "adulthood," the stage that Kamen calls "elderhood." He said that elders absolutely have a purpose: to dispense wisdom in the form of their stories.


Rick Kamen

When Kamen is not helping elders to write their stories, he serves as a docent both at San Diego's Torrey Pines State Park and at the Museum of Man in Balboa Park.  He said his ideas concerning the function of elderhood grew out of his ruminations about why things occur in nature as they do, and led to his co-authoring a book with his father, Jack, on his father's life.

Reflecting on "natural behaviors," Kamen cited the examples of plants flowering and putting out seeds. Such behaviors may not help the individual plant, but of course they are necessary for the continuation of the species. Certain human behaviors similarly may be coded into our DNA to help the species, Kamen suggests, among them "learning" during childhood, "working" or being "productive" during adulthood, and "storytelling" during elderhood.

"Elders pass their wisdom to younger people through stories in all traditional stories and aboriginal societies," Kamen said. "Our modern society separates elders from the people who need their stories. It hurts the society and the young people, but not as much as the elders. It prevents them from doing what they're best at and enjoy most." 

Because modern society often doesn't allow elders to fulfill their new function—to be our society's  teachers and story-tellers—the elders become frustrated.  Instead of recognizing that they have passed into a new and important stage of their lives, they instead keep ruing the fact that they can no longer be as effective doing the things they used to do as adults.

Kamen, 54, said that an elder who cannot reconcile himself to having completed adulthood  is similar to an adult who cannot deal with having finished childhood.   

Approximately eight years ago at Torrey Pines State Park, there was a day devoted to traditional Native American crafts and customs.  There were exhibits on herbs, pine needle baskets, and other handicrafts. In addition, there was a presentation by an elderly Native American speaker. 

"The stories were very interesting  about when he was growing up, and how they did things differently," Kamen recalled. "But what amazed me was the smile.  I saw him before, and he just looked like an old man sitting there, but all of a sudden he lit up when he started talking. I could tell that this was what he was supposed to be doing: He is really good at it, he enjoys it; the kids in the society needed these stories."

Kamen said stories from elders "not only give the kids their heritage and define who they are, they show the kids how to think like elders.  When the kids grow into adults, they know how to act like adults."  Unfortunately, he said, "TV substitutes for elder stories like candy substitutes for fruit. Candies may be more seductive but they don't provide what we're hungering for."

The experience prompted Kamen to reflect on his own elderly father, who resided in Los Angeles.. "I realized that my father really needs to tell those stories, but he had no kids around to listen to those stories," Kamen recalled. "At that time I was calling him up every week to see how he was doing and we really didn’t expect him to last very long.  'How are you doing?' I'd ask. 'Lousy,' he'd answer... So I thought let’s try this, see if it gives him a little bit of a boost...."

Kamen told his father that he wanted to get his stories down on paper, so that they could be passed onto his grandchildren. "What amazed me immediately was that his mood just jumped up, his voice sounded like he had gotten 10-20 years younger...I know the storytelling energized him... It jumpstarted his mood and will to live, resulting in his being with us seven additional years."

Clearly his father was happier as each week Kamen took notes during their telephone calls, wrote up a story, sent it to his father for additions and corrections, and by such process gradually completed a book of stories about growing up in a working class Jewish family in New York City in the early 20th century.

The Kamens called the collection of Jack's stories Heirloom Stories from the Harnessmaker's Son. When Jack told about his own father, Benjamin Kamenetsky, he described him as a "very important man" because he had been  a harnessmaker.  In that  harnesses were necessary to keep horses tied to wagons, certain businesses in the 1910s would have been impossible without them.

After completing the book, Kamen began evolving the concept of helping other elders. He describes each of their stories as an "heirloom" to be passed down through the generations to members of their family.  He operates the website, www.heirloomstories.com urging elders to tell their stories. 

No one should accuse Kamen of trying to get rich on the idea, as he charges elders only  $95 per completed story, each of which tends to run several pages.  Given the time he spends interviewing, writing, adding, editing, correcting, etc., Kamen probably does not make much more than minimum wage for his efforts.  But,  he says,  that's not the point. The idea is to help elders to fulfill the story-telling function of "elderhood."

If you were to come across a story told by your grandfather's grandfather, would you treasure it as an heirloom? You may not be able to find such stories from past generations, but elders of today can leave such stories for future generations, Kamen suggests. If they are able to, they can write them down; or, they can tell the stories to a writer such as himself.

And then, Kamen adds, think of the math.  Suppose an elder has two grandchildren, and they each have two children, who in turn have two children.  Eventually as the stories are passed down from generation to generation, the elder's stories will become treasured by an exponential number of descendants.  In essence, Kamen declares, the elders, "will make themselves legends."