A Spry Old Chick

Ake has outlived Cleveland and Colean, Henie and the Duquesne Garden, whose site now contains a condominium tower and a fancy restaurant. He inhabits a country that will accept any of us as citizens if only we live to reach its shores.

"I can be walking down the street and forget where I'm going," Ake says, the sunlight on his birch-bark skin. "But if I keep walking, it'll come back to me. I don't know why that is."

"It's because you're 96 years old," I tell him.

"That," yelps Ake, laughing, "is a hell of a reason."