The Book of Charlie

March 13, 2023
In this feel-good entry, Washington Post opinion editor von Drehle (Triangle) collects life lessons from an enigmatic centenarian neighbor. Eager to help his children navigate the modern world, von Drehle sought a role model who’d weathered massive cultural shifts—a “true surfer on the sea of change”—and found one when his family moved next-door to then-102-year-old Charlie White (who died at 109, in 2014). Von Drehle befriended the former doctor and listened to stories from his life, which included train-hopping across the U.S. as a teen in the 1920s and working on cutting-edge anesthesia techniques in the ’40s. Von Drehle explains how White balanced optimism and realism, as when he decided to specialize in anesthesiology (at a time when almost no doctors did so) after recognizing the days of house-call doctors were dwindling. White also embraced uncertainty when he abandoned his medical practice at 36 to serve in WWII—an acceptance of the unknown that’s important in today’s volatile professional climate, the author writes. While White’s verbatim advice is sometimes trite (“Nobody’s going to do it for you. You’ve got to do your own paddling”), von Drehle’s detailed rendering of White’s life—especially his front-seat view of (and sometimes participation in) groundbreaking medical developments—is fascinating, and the men’s friendship affecting. This has a lot to offer.