Often it starts with an innocent greeting, such as "How are you?" When we were younger, the answer was usually, "Fine, how are you?" Lately however, with friends of a certain age, I find that the question will open into a extended discourse about health and aging, reminiscent of the classic Buddhist reflection on the 32 parts of the body — a report on the liver, lungs, joints, muscles, kidneys, heart — a conversation sometimes known as "the organ recital."

These days, in some circles of old folks, this recapitulation of complaints is known as "the organ recital," and, God knows, it does "divert [the] torments," at least for a bit.

Nor does he mention the fact that he served on the Leukemia Society board before he even got the disease — an eerie irony. "I don't accept the gloomy aspect of things — to heck with that," Thysell says, sitting in his office just beyond the busy toll gates of the Coronado Bridge. Too many people, he says, "give organ recitals when they get older."

Organ recitals being a recitation of all the things that are wrong with one's body.