Darryl Cox explains why he’s not ready to retire from his 43-year-long career as a London taxi driver. Then Max talks with Madeleine Albright, the former US Secretary of State, about what she calls “the human part” of that job—the great friendships she made over her career and the importance of empathy in that role—and why she hates being 84 years old.
Know someone who should be on 70 Over 70? We’re looking for all types of stories and people to feature at the top of the show. To nominate yourself or someone else, email 70over70@pineapple.fm or call 302-659-7070 and tell us your name, age, where you’re from and what you want to talk about.
transcription
[PRE-ROLL]
[OPENING MONTAGE]
Madeleine Albright: I know this program is 70 Over 70, but I really wish I were younger. I wish I was 70…but, I am ready!
[THEME MUSIC STARTS]
William: I’m 72 years old.
Paula: I’m 75, miraculously enough.
Sandy: I am 83 years old.
Betty: I am 88 years old.
James: You know, I’m here at 92.
Lucia: I’ll be 94 in May.
Donalda: I’m 101 years old.
Darryl: My name is Darryl Cox. I’m 70 years old I live in Northwood just outside London
[THEME MUSIC FADES OUT]
Darryl: I think the key to growing old basically is--to me--is you never stop learning.
[MUSIC STARTS]
Darryl: I've been a licensed London taxi driver, uh, for 43 years, and, um I still hold the license to this day.
[MUSIC CONTINUES]
Darryl: We run the best taxi service in the world because we know where we're going. We had a unique system what’s calle, the Knowledge. The Knowledge is a driving test. It was run by the Metropolitan Police, so it's very strict. They used to issue with this book with 480 routes in it. So basically what you did, you-you went out on your bike and you learned these routes and then you would go in front of an ex-police officer and he’ll ask you to take me from Saint Mary's Hospital to Serpent Street. And you have to tell him the route in front of this man sitting across this desk, and you're extremely nervous [laughs]. It's a bit like you're in Manhattan and you got to do Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx and everything. You got to learn all that.
[MUSIC CONTINUES]
Darryl: Eventually it clicks and you-you start getting the-the-the map in your head and you can see it. They call it a line. You see the line straight away. If you want to go up from Notting Hill Gate to Battersea, I'll know the line, basically what I'm looking for. And, you know, you meet so many different people. You meet fantastic people. I've picked up, um, a few royals, really. I've been to St. James's Palace and picks up Charles and Camilla's dad after a carol concert at Christmas. And then, but you could pick somebody up in the old Kent Row coming out of the pub when they’re a little bit pissed or something and-and, you know, what I mean? You’ve gone from one extreme to the other. But it's great because you learn how to deal with all sorts
[MUSIC ENDS]
Darryl: I mean obviously, as you get older, it-it's a lot harder to go and do things now than it was previously, you know. Anybody who tells you it's great it's not, you know what I mean? It’s when you shut off, I think it is a bit depressing. But I'm definitely coming to the end of [laughs] my driving years, I think. But, what I can say learning the lot, it was a bit like going to the gym and keep your body fit ever since, ‘cause once you keep fit, people stay fit all their lives….
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Darryl: And learning the Knowledge was the way of teaching me discipline and-and exercising my brain that I've hopefully kept to this day.
Max: That was Darryl Cox, and from Pineapple Street Studios, this is 70 Over 70, a show about making the most of the time we have left. I'm Max Linsky.
[MUSIC CONTINUES]
Max: My guest this week is Madeleine Albright, former secretary of state. Madeleine left that job exactly 20 years ago, and while she’s still working constantly – she teaches at Georgetown and she runs a global consulting firm – she really misses it.
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Max: That’s not to say her nostalgia is rose-colored, that the job was easy or that she didn’t make mistakes. Madeleine seems to miss all of it -- the good and the bad. From the difficulty of decision-making during crises like the Rwandan genocide to the thrill of trying to repair ties between the U.S. and Russia in the 90s. And what struck me is that the stories and her friendships from her time in her life are still so present for her today.
[MUSIC FADES IN]
Max: I wanted to understand how she’s adjusted to that part of her career being in her past, what those years taught her, and how she’s carried those lessons forward.
Madeleine Albright is 84 years old.
INTERVIEW
Max: Madeleine Albright, thank you so much for doing this, I-I really appreciate it.
Madeleine: I'm delighted to do it. Thanks for asking me.
[MUSIC FADES OUT]
Max: I have so many things that, uh, I want to ask you, but I listened to an interview you did with Anna Sale back in May of 2020--so very early days of the pandemic--and you said something along the lines of "being in your 80s was not very fun" and I wanted to know whether you're still feeling that way.
Madeleine: Uh, I do feel that way, on the other hand, I'm grateful that I'm around and that there are things that I can do at this stage, but, uh, I really, uh, wish I were younger, you know. I know this program is 70 Over 70. I wish I was 70 again. [Max laughs] But I've always, in my career, have been kind of 10 years older than everybody because of how hard it was to get started when I was young, so I would prefer to be younger.
Max: Is that like a thing that you find yourself thinking about, or is it only because I'm sitting here asking you?
Madeleine: No, I do think about it because part of the problem is that in these days you're reminded how old you are all the time. Before the pandemic, a year ago, I had just come back from a trip. The last thing I did was to go to this Munich security conference and spend a lot of time with the people that I knew very well and able to interact and, um, I'm a total extrovert. And so, uh, I'm trying to learn to be an introvert, but I'm not doing well. And so I miss that part. And I-and I do wish that I were younger and I just don't know what decade I would pick to be. But, uh, I do think that if one has a choice, younger is better than older.
Max: Well, let me put you on the spot. If you could go back to any point in your life, what would it be?
Madeleine: Well, I think that, uh, there's no doubt in my mind that my favorite thing in life were the 90s when I was ambassador to the United Nations and then Secretary of State. It was--both of those jobs were kind of dreams come true. I'd loved doing what I was doing. My, um, daughters were adults, uh, and I had grandchildren that were coming along and I was doing what I loved. And so there's just no doubt in my mind and I-I wish that I could have been Secretary of State forever. So I loved that.
Max: How often do you find yourself thinking about that time in your life?
Madeleine: Well, actually, quite a lot, one, because it was interesting, but two also because I teach and I teach a course called the National Security Toolbox, and I always like to tell my students that it's not a current events course, that where we have to do is kind of look back at the history of a particular tool and basically, it provides me an opportunity to give examples to the students of the kinds of things that I did. And so I think about it quite a lot. And then actually I'm asked about it quite a lot. Whether there's an administration I disagree with, I'm asked or one that I agree with, I'm asked.
Max: And has your thinking about that time changed? Like, when you are in your class now and you're talking about the tools, are you still learning about diplomacy or have you figured it all out?
Madeleine: No, I definitely am learning and the thing that I like a lot is that things really do change and you have to stay on top of things. And then one of the things that I have particularly cherished is the right word in this time of covid is the extent to which the students are the ones that have adapted very, very well to all the technology. And I always say that there's no book or speech ever given that doesn't quote Robert Frost [Max laughs] So a quote that I like it goes something like "the older I am, the younger are my teachers." I find that my students grasp of what technology can do certainly are way beyond anything I can think up, but the bottom line is it does make me think about how the tools get adjusted. And recently, obviously, we have a whole section on cyber tools [sure], which wasn't there when I started teaching this. And so I work very hard to prepare my classes because in fact there's so many things that are different. So that's the reason I like to teach, actually.
Max: Yeah. I mean, is that work exciting or do you do it because you feel like you need to, you know what I mean? Like, I just feel like someone in your position could rest on your laurels pretty easily, right? Like, what's driving you to-to adapt or is that just something that comes naturally?
Madeleine: Uh, well, one, I think it does come naturally, my whole life has been adapting, but I also feel challenged and I like being challenged. That has been something that has been part of my modus operandi. And I certainly, there's no doubt, I would be going out of my mind at this point if I weren't doing the things I'm doing. In addition to teaching, I-I have a global consulting firm and I'm on some interesting boards like the Aspen Institute and I'm chairman of the Board of the National Democratic Institute, um, which is in demand these days. So my greatest talent, frankly, is dot connection. It could be rationalization that I have to show that all the things I do actually are interconnected, but they are and one, um, inspires the other and I learn from one to the other. And I am curious. I do like to figure out how things fit together, and I am fairly capable of picking up something out of one basket and making it useful in another.
Max: I've got another question about that time in your life as secretary of state and how curiosity fits with that, because I think my impression of it, and my impression of you in that job was one of sort of extreme confidence and-and that you have to know where you stand. And I wonder how you balance that and being curious.
Madeleine: Well, I mean because things were changing, it did require me to kind of keep extending, uh, what I was thinking about and ask myself questions. And then the best part was that there are incredibly smart people that also work around you. And I would ask them the questions. You know, how do you come to this decision? What are the unintended consequences of what you're thinking about and what are the arguments against what you are arguing for? But I, as much as I could, would want to talk to the desk officer, the person that had really put a lot of the things together. But it did match where I was--the capabilities there matched my curiosity.
Max: It's interesting to hear you say that because, um, I-I don't want to name any names, but I talked to some people who worked with you in that time. And one of the things that a couple of them said to me was that you sometimes didn't want to prepare as much as they wanted you to prepare before big diplomatic meetings. Not that you were unprepared, but that there were briefing book, after briefing book, after briefing book and at some point you would say, I need to be present in this conversation. I need to sort of feel it out when I'm in the room. Does that sound right to you?
Madeleine: Well, I think I did both. I mean, I did do a lot of reading, [sure] but I-- because I'm a people person, I did want to feel it out. When you’re meeting with whomever you get a profile of them, you know, want to know what their backgrounds are, how they operate and there are various things where you want to get a sense of who is who. And it's funny that you use the word feel because one of the things that did happen is that, you know, most of the people that worked for me were men. And I remember saying, I'd like to-to feel how this works. And they kind of looked at me as though I'd lost my mind [Max laughs]. And then there was this fantastic moment. This was one of foreign meetings with the person that was the foreign minister of Finland. And we were at a meeting and she's on her side of the table with her men. And I'm on my side with my men. And she actually said, I feel we should do this. And I thought that they would, you know, you could just see the guys look at each other and think, "oh my God, who are these two women?" [Max laughs]
I do think that one does have to have some basic knowledge in the preparation for things, but you never can quite figure out the human part of things. And often these are very difficult situations. And what is interesting is that I don't think a lot of people kind of put together is these are your a human being and you don't begin by saying your human rights record is terrible. [Yeah.] You know, you kind of begin a conversation in terms of I'm glad to be in your country or, you know, various niceties. And what I would do always, I had this trick and I would after some of the niceties, I'd say something like, "I have come a long way, so I must be frank," [Right.] You know, and then I would say many of the things I thought. But what is interesting, when you go back and you say you talked to some people that worked with me, some of the people did prepare the talking points and you think, "oh, my God, I've got to get through these talking points, or they will think I didn't do my job," you know?
Max: Right. I'll get back on the plane and they'll be all pissed off.
Madeleine: Right, exactly, you know. So the worst part, frankly, is when you have to meet with somebody that you know is horrible. And one of the people that I often talk about is when we were dealing with the Balkans and I had to meet with Milosevic, the Serbian leader that I knew was a horrible human being who had ordered ethnic cleansing of people. And then when we used to shake hands, um, the Americans kind of automatically when you shake hands, you smile. It's very strange. It's kind of, you know. And so I went to meet Milosevic and I was bound and determined not to smile. So there are pictures of me looking, you know, totally grim [Max laughs]. And then he starts, he's trying to charm me, you know, and I was able to put them off a bit, but it is hard.
Max: I sort of love the image of you shaking Milosevic's head and just thinking to yourself, don't smile. Don't smile. Don't smile. Don't smile.
Madeleine: Yeah, no, definitely, yeah.
Max: I mean, that's part of why-that's part of why I was so excited to talk to you is just trying to understand, you know, you were just saying, like, you have to make it natural. But these interactions by their very, like, nature are totally unnatural.
Madeleine: Yup, no they are.
Max: They're like bizarre human theater, you know. And so how did you do that? How do you make them natural with someone who's not an awful, awful human being and war criminal? Like, what's the thing you wanted to know about someone so you could have a real conversation?
Madeleine: Well, I mean, I did like having the background about people before I went, you know, kind of what their history was, if they were professional diplomats, where all had they served. Because I do think, you know, you can say, you know, I heard that you served in New York or that your son goes to an American college or whatever. You do try to kind of find something and the interesting part, and I think it's probably hard to believe, is you actually meet with a lot of these people more than once. You get to know them in a number of different ways. A lot of the major powers and various people you really do see. Then also you might have known the people from before or they reappear in your life later.
Max: Yeah.
Madeleine: Sergei Lavrov, who's the current foreign minister of Russia, was the representative at the UN. And we spent a ton of time together and it was at a time that we were trying to get along with the Russians and a number of different ways. We have some arguments, but we got to know each other very well. But anyway, just to tell you, you probably don't know. But a lot of the stories about my PIN collections and things that began while I was at the UN, so I went to Russia. He was already foreign minister. I was out of office and he greets me in the hall and he looks at my pin and he said, ‘So what does your pin mean?’ And I said, well, it's about our bond. So he kind of looked at us strangely. And then we went and sat down in a room with the shiny table and all of a sudden before we begin our whole meeting, he says "I figured out what your pine meant, it's James Bond.” And I said no. And he said, “well, then it's what you think of our pipelines” because it was a knot. And I said, “No, it's not. It is a knot a friendship given to me by your successor” you know. So that brought out all the various kind of that--that's not a normal conversation for people to have. [Right.] But, um, it does help if you've known each other and you can push back on things.
Max: Did you ever just like go hang out with these people? Like, did you ever just like go get a drink and shoot the shit?
Madeleine: Yeah, [Max laughs] well, you wouldn't shoot shit, but you go have a-you go have a drink. I mean, the part that happened, you did have dinners and things all the time, but it's very interesting that you ask about all this because most people don't think about the importance of the personal contacts…
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Madeleine: And whether, you know, people or not. And it does make a difference.
[MUSIC FADES OUT]
[[MIDROLL]]
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Max: There is this other aspect of your job as secretary of state that I wanted to ask you about and-and the human side of it for you.
Madeleine: Okay.
Max:You were faced with some choices while in office that feel to me basically impossible, where there were no good options. I mean, I'm thinking about Rwanda and Kosovo. What was it like for you to be in a situation where you had so much power and control and yet didn't have the power or control to solve problems? How do you engage in that kind of situation where there's no good options?
Madeleine: Well, and Rwanda is the best example. And I think what happened was when I got to be ambassador to the U.N. it was in ‘93. And there already were issues that we were dealing with with the war in Iraq, then problems in Bosnia, a number of issues in Haiti, a number of things that were going on, and they were all hard. But I think the thing you need to remember is that even as secretary of state and certainly as ambassador, you're not in charge of all the decisions. The decisions come up through a system where the president has agreed on something. And so there was a question about what we were going to do about Rwanda. Now, the thing that I always say is that all the things that came out later were not necessarily things we knew at the time. But I do think that we knew that there was a limited amount that we could do given all the things that were happening around. I happen to have thought that we should have done more. But I was an instructed ambassador on things and I could see how people were at the UN were reacting to the fact that we were prepared, uh, were not prepared to kind of have a larger mission there.
Max: And how did that feel?
Madeleine: Terrible. You do sometimes feel that while you have a lot of power, you can't make all the decisions on your own. I mean, one of the questions that always is out there, would you resign over something? [Mhmm] And I always think to myself, because you can only resign once so nothing ever happened that I would have resigned over, but it does make you feel kind of deflated. [Yeah.] And then you have to try to explain why it happened the way it did. And that is hard. I had very serious arguments, for instance, with Colin Powell, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs from when I was arguing for getting more troops to do something in Bosnia. And I did feel deflated. Here I was a mere mortal female civilian arguing with the hero of the Western world who had just won the Gulf War. So, you know, it kind of puts you in your place.
Max: I think the part that I'm interested in is like when you had that fight, you know, somewhere in the West Wing with Colin Powell and then went home that night and were brushing your teeth and looked in the mirror, where were you at?
Madeleine: Well, I felt that, uh, I am somebody, for better or worse, that goes over everything. You know, why did I say something that way? Uh, would it have made a difference if I'd said something else? And I don't know how useful that is. I mean you can overdo, frankly, especially on things that you can't undo, but you don't lose your human part, you know.
Max: Yeah. I was really hoping you'd say it's really good to always just pour over things.
Madeleine: No. [laughs] Well, I can't help it. I do always pour over things. But I, I sometimes think that it may not help the situation. One doesn't stop being the person one is. The thing that happened with me that most people were surprised about, including my own family, was that I actually have a sense of humor. Being able to deploy humor at a certain time is a very useful arm of some kind.
Max: I feel like there are not a lot of people who reach that level in politics who are willing to make fun of themselves.
Madeleine: Well, I do know how to make fun of myself [both laugh].
Max: You were saying that you've got to stay connected to the human part and I want to ask you about that, too, because in your memoir, you wrote about feeling like you had a twin, that there was this other Madeleine Albright that the world knew, that was getting invited to give speeches and sitting at the most important tables in the world. And that that Madeleine felt like some other person to you.
Madeleine: Well, there's always the imposter syndrome, but more it was like that there is this character, Madeleine Albright, and then there's me, you know, who actually has had a fairly normal life as a mother and somebody who does the dishes occasionally. And, uh, you know, I have farm and, um, various things and then I'm a normal person. And I didn't get to be the Madeleine Albright, you know, until in my late 50s. And then I stopped being that other Madeleine, you know, the character Madeleine Albright.
Max: What was the gap between yourself and the character?
Madeleine: Well, I'm not larger than life and literally not anymore, because I keep shrinking. [Max laughs] And there would be all kinds of things that happened for the Madeleine Albright character. And, uh, then there was me.
Max: Did you like the Madeleine Albright character?
Madeleine: Mostly [laughs].
Max: I got to ask, though. Madeleine, what-what was the part of the character that you didn't like? I guess maybe another way of asking what I'm trying to ask is like, did you feel like you could be yourself in that job?
Madeleine: Well, after a while, I thought I could, you know. When I wasn't kind of tongue-tied in terms of only following the talking points or thinking, well, that is not the way that we thought this discussion would go. So I have to go a different way and I know what I want to do and say, you know, but the truth is it goes back to what we were talking about before. I loved being secretary of state. And I loved the idea that I was the first woman secretary of state and I'm a refugee. So I loved that no matter what, I will always be a footnote in American history. And I'm so proud to be an American. Not long ago, I was at a dinner and I was supposed to describe myself in six words and I said, worried optimist, problem solver, grateful American. And they all go together. [Yeah.] I love to give out naturalization certificates at ceremonies. And the first time I did it was July 4th, 2000 at Monticello. And I figured since I had Thomas Jefferson's job, I could do it. So I gave this man his naturalization certificate and he walks away and he says, "Can you believe it? I'm a refugee and I just got my naturalization certificate from the secretary of state." And I went to find him and I said, "Can you believe that a refugee is secretary of state?" And that is the kind of thing where I love the character and in some ways is not just a character, but it's me.
Max: Yeah, that's an incredible moment and I can imagine that that job is just like a stack of incredible moments after incredible moments and I don't even mean it in an imposter syndrome way, but having this feeling of like I can't believe this is where I am. Can't believe this is what I get to do. And I wondered, reading your memoir and thinking about talking to you today, what the, like, 11 year old girl who came from Czechoslovakia and showed up at Ellis Island, what do you think that 11 year old girl would think of, um, 83 year old Madeleine?
Madeleine: Well, I think that that 11-year old girl who had come in on the SS America passed the Statue of Liberty, would be thinking "she turned out pretty well and she made a difference." And so I hope that that's what she would think and that the things that I like to do are the things that I need to do and that the ones that I need to do, I like doing. And so I hope she'd be proud of me.
Max: And what else can you ask for, really? The things you like to do are the things you need to do.
Madeleine: I think it worked, you know. And I really do think the things I'm doing now are the best combination of using what I learned to keep going and doing different things to make a difference.
Max: You're connecting the dots.
Madeleine: Connecting the dots.
Max: Do you ever think about slowing down?
Madeleine: No. Retirement, as far as I'm concerned, is a four letter word. Absolutely not.
Max: Wait, what's the four letter word?
Madeleine: Just think about it [both laugh]. You'd have to blot it out.
Max: Do you still feel like you have a twin?
Madeleine: Uh, sometimes, yes. In Heathrow Airport, I was picked on one time to be the person that they decided had to open everything in the suitcase and I'm there on the floor taking everything out and I never did this. But I said, excuse me, but do you know who I am? And the guy said, no, but we can find a doctor who can help you figure it out. So I couldn't help but laugh. [Max laughs] But-but as secretary, I didn't often say I was secretary of state, you know? And so sometimes it would have helped, but sometimes it doesn't, but I-I loved it, you know. And I do think if I'd had my druthers, I would have happily stayed forever.
Max: Yeah. This is a pretty meta question, but do you feel like you're, um, yourself right now in this conversation or are you playing the character?
Madeleine: No, I'm myself, I am myself. This is what I'm like, you know, talkative.
Max: I'm glad to hear it. Did being in those rooms and realizing the people on the other side of the table were just people that like it's all more complicated and messier and more human than people who haven't been in those rooms might think? Did that help you feel optimistic about the world and about humanity, or did it scare you?
Madeleine: For the most part, it did make me feel better about things, that there was a way that people worked their way through problems. I do think that, however, there were some people that did scare me and that given their backgrounds, that the chances of them making a decision that I thought was going in the right direction was not going to happen. So the question is how long were they going to be around? But on the whole, I really do think that understanding that there were human beings on the other side made a big difference in terms of how they saw things. And then the way that I heard some of them describe things--there's no way to describe to you how much time we spent, uh, a group of us during the whole war in Kosovo. And I invented something really new at that point, which will make you laugh, the international telephone conference call [Max laughs]. And so, uh, we were talking about what we should do in Kosovo and there was a question about whether there should be a bombing pause over, uh, Easter. And there was somebody who felt that we should and then truly one of my best friends now is the former German foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, he said, “why would we pause to honor one religion while we're killing people of another religion?” And that was such a deep feeling, and then also when we were talking about some of the ethnic cleansing, he said "that's what the Nazis did" and there's nobody else who could have really said that. And so those were the kinds of things where people you develop a sense of trust and friendship to understand how people can say things like that and understand them in the background that people have.
Max: When you hear something like that in a moment with that many lives are at stake, how do you find a way to move forward and not be, sort of, paralyzed by the enormity of it?
Madeleine: Well, I-I think you have no choice, frankly. You know that if you don't do something, and especially if you're the United States, you do think about the effect that this has on real people. Yeah, two years ago, I went back to Kosovo with President Clinton to celebrate the end of the war and I have never been to a place where there were so many American flags and so many signs that it was "Thank you, USA! Thank you, USA! " and it just made you realize that as hard as the decisions have been and the people were lost, that it was right to do that and that you were doing it for real people. And I have met so many of them in the refugee camps. I mean, the people part of this is obviously the dynamic that makes everything work.
Max: Sounds to me like those moments were energizing for you. And you've said that you would have been happy to be secretary of state forever. Has it been hard to have the stakes ratchet down? And that's not to say I know you're doing an incredible amount of work, but has it been hard to adjust over the years and --
Madeline It is hard, especially if you're a people person. So the thing I've done because I loved the people I worked with as the other foreign ministers, even though we might disagree, you may laugh, but I created a group of former foreign ministers. Its official name is the Aspen Ministers Forum. Its unofficial name is Madeleine, and her Exes [Max laughs]. And we have now been gathering for over 20 years. I've added people that were not my counterparts at that very time, but we have great meetings.
Max: Yeah. What are-what are those hangs like?
Madeleine: Well, we talk without our national positions. We make a little fun of each other. Uh, but it’s great. It’s terrific.
Max: Are those conversations nostalgic or are they stuck in the present?
Madeleine: No, they're present. I mean, what we do is partially because we have trust in each other from the past people really state what their views are [Max laughs] and have a good time.
Max: It seems like a party that would be pretty fun to be a fly on the wall for.
Madeleine: Yup. [laughs]
Max: But is it hard now to not be at the table, but be hanging out with Madeleine and her exes?
Madeleine: Well, I mean, it's inevitable. So, you know, I don't try to think about things that can't be, but what is hard is when you know what the role of the United States can be. I had a very hard time during the Trump administration [yeah], you know, reading about the things that Secretary Pomepeol was doing or not doing, uh, and thinking, "oh, my God, you know, how could he say something like that". I am not having a hard time now, but I really do think--I'm not crazy. I know, you know, life moves on and if it weren't for this last year of kind being isolated, I would be perfectly fine. But I'm--I am realistic. Believe me, I don't think of myself as, um, anything but what I was. It's just that I really loved the job [yeah] and that's what I want to convey with it. Not that I think I could have been forever, uh, but it’s life, you know?
Max: Well, I mean, I think that's part of what I'm trying to figure out in these conversations is like it's life means really different things to different people and one of the things that I think I'm trying to figure out is what you've been talking about, which is making peace with what you can control and what you can't.
Madeleine: Definitely.
Max:You feel at peace with that. You feel like you're--
Madeleine: I'm trying you know. There's a song, you know, which says, I'm going to live until I die. I'm going to laugh until I cry.
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Madeleine: And that seems to describe how I feel.
Max: It's a good way to put it.
Madeleine: Yeah.
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CREDITS
Max: 70 Over 70 is a production of Pineapple Street Studios and it’s produced by Jess Hackel.
Our associate producer is Janelle Anderson. Our editors are Maddy Sprung-Keyser and Joel Lovell. Research and additional reporting by Charley Locke.
Our mixer is Elliott Adler, and Jenna Weiss-Berman and I are the executive producers.
Our theme song is Like a Dream, by Francis and the Lights, and the music you’re listening to now is by Beverly Glenn Copeland who is 77 years old. Original music by Terence Bernardo. Additional music by Noble Kids, and music licensing by Dan Knishkowy.
Our cover art is by Maria Kalman, who’s 72 and our episode art is by Lynn Staley, who’s 73 and also my mom.
Thank you, Darryl Cox, and thank you, Madeleine Albright.
I'm Max Linsky. Thanks for listening.
[MUSIC FADES OUT]