How Saul Friedman made 'Gray Matters' matter

On Christmas Eve, America's seniors lost a great champion.

That was the day Saul Friedman, who wrote the "Gray Matters" column for Newsday's Act 2, and more recently for an online blog, died at age 81. In the weeks since his passing, I've been thinking a lot about Saul; I miss his voice. I was his editor for several years when he wrote for Act 2 and before that, I often edited his copy when he was a reporter in the paper's Washington bureau and I was deputy national editor.

As the new year unfolds, I wonder what Friedman would be saying about the heated political debates over the repeal of the new health-care law - or the proposals to cut Social Security benefits to help slash the huge national debt. The anger of seniors against big-government spending helped to fuel the Republican landslide in November. And yet, it is largely the nation's elderly whose health and financial security will be undercut by such antigovernment fervor.

Friedman had much to say about such topics. He was a passionate advocate for the elderly, but no mere cheerleader. His columns were a blend of reportage, analysis, commentary and stories - the real stories of his readers, who were in constant conversation with Friedman, informing him and being informed by him. Saul was a blogger before there were blogs.

During a journalism career spanning half a century, Friedman brought a sense of uncommon urgency to quotidian issues. He occupied a unique place among the iconic observers of aging America, including the late Dr. Robert Butler, a Pulitzer Prize-winning gerontologist who is credited with coining the term "ageism"; and Ken Dychtwald, the author of the 1989 book "Age Wave" and other bestsellers.

Like Butler and Dychtwald, Friedman was a pioneer. "Saul anticipated both the new opportunities and challenges of an aging America," Jim Toedtman, a former managing editor at Newsday, told me recently. "He forced lawmakers to take these new challenges seriously and chastised them when they didn't." Toedtman, now editor of the AARP Bulletin in Washington, noted that Friedman "regarded his formal retirement from Newsday as merely the start of a new adventure."

Friedman supported seniors with the fierce sense of social justice. Earlier in his career, he had covered the civil-rights movement; he stood up for the people and principles he believed needed to be represented. While he criticized the rush to make drastic changes in Social Security, Friedman's views were shaped as much by conservative financial experts as by liberal policymakers.

And Friedman always seemed far ahead of the curve, looking out for what seniors needed to know next. Recently, I pulled out a yellowing copy of one of Saul's columns I had tucked away in a folder. In the column, he wrote about how important it was for seniors to use computers, not just for e-mail, but for the explosion of services available. The year: 1996.

Like many who write about senior issues, Friedman was keenly aware of ageism - a facile stereotyping and condescension toward older generations. After attending an AARP convention several years ago, he wrote a column scolding a "youthful reporter" for describing the gathering as an odd combination of "glitz and grannies."

Why the stereotyping, he wondered. "Old people are diverse and more flexible than might be imagined," he wrote. "Sharp differences in style and tastes, culture, clothing, music and art always have come between parents and their children. But they've tended to fade as the young grow older and become closer to and even more like their parents."

Friedman never shied from the realities of aging. He could laugh with his readers about the shared anxieties of becoming "geezers," but he could also summon the courage to talk about the inevitable frailties of health - including his own battles with a stroke and esophageal and stomach cancers. He understood that getting old - as actress Bette Davis famously said - "ain't for sissies."

And yet, he wasn't afraid to try new things - debunking yet another senior myth. For his 77th birthday, he decided to have his left ear pierced and wear a diamond stud. "At my age, I'm no longer expected to wear a tie, but neither am I expected to wear an earring," he told readers in a 2009 column. "But why not, if that's your pleasure?"

In his later years, Friedman said he came to see "that age is not an affliction, but a time of wonder." On Christmas Eve 2002, he wrote in his column. "Older people need spiritual security as well as Social Security. . . . As the theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel said, 'Older persons need a dream as well as a memory.' "

Indeed, Saul will long be remembered for how he inspired a generation to dream.