Joe Mercurio celebrates his 87th birthday at the Whiteface Club’s Moosehead Boathouse Lodge on Lake Placid. (Provided photo)

Joe Mercurio is soft-spoken. He will wait for you to finish speaking before taking his turn, pausing a few beats longer in case a dangling thought purls out of you. My introduction to Joe might look odd on the surface, but it couldn’t be more basic — it was as simple as one person reaching out and the other person answering.

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Our introductions

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I started this column wanting to talk about things I like to talk about — philosophy, art, culture. I look to philosophy to ask questions about things that matter; I turn to art to understand how things matter to specific people; I explore culture as a connective tissue. But truthfully, all the philosophy and art and culture were just a way for me to have a meaningful conversation with you. I wanted to add something positive to the community and find my way into it. Along the way, I hoped to describe the people and places around me and share the extraordinary character of ordinary lives. It therefore goes without saying that I was ecstatic to finally receive an email from a reader. It felt like I’d been sent an unexpected bouquet of flowers; I relished the mystery of it and its meaning.

Joe wrote to me about my last column, “Choose Your Rose,” a piece about the fundamental question “what matters?” His email was short (I read it entirely without scrolling down on my phone); courteous (Joe uses formal salutations and honorifics); warm (I know his exact age and something about how he feels about it); and kind. Joe’s missive was written with the clear-eyed vulnerability of someone in their late 80s, his life rich in memories and people to miss.

I wrote back asking to talk. To my delight, Joe agreed.

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The conversation

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There is no background noise — no traffic, no radio, no other voices. The phone line is clear, a fuller sound than I am used to. He tells me that he and his late wife retired in the Adirondacks in 1999. He can’t help talking about his wife Mary a little bit more, that she was from South Carolina, that he had many happy years with her, and that she had passed. Joe likes to talk about Mary, a way to give her memory shape and presence. I imagined the photos of her in his house, how often he must look at her, how he must still talk to Mary in his heart.

“What about the column spoke to you?” I asked.

“I’m at a point in my life where I’ve got a lot more years behind me than ahead of me,” Joe said. “I’m a four-time cancer survivor, I shouldn’t even be here. There’s going to come a time when I won’t be. That’s when I start thinking about what matters to me, what’s important in my life, especially with my wife gone.

“And I realize that it’s not so much the big things. It’s the random acts of kindness that matter. The importance of being kind.

“You can’t change everything, but every day you can conduct yourself with kindness. Maybe that means holding the door open at the post office or letting someone in line with one package go ahead of you when you have a full basket. Small things, choosing those things. Just like what you wrote. And love, choosing it. Choose your rose. That matters.”

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Kindness and community

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Here’s the thing about Joe: he is a romantic, devoted to the journey and community.

In 1965, Joe had climbed all but 2 of the famous 46ers, then decided to stop climbing the high peaks when he felt he might be “peak-bagging,” a shorthand for collecting hikes as a badge of honor rather than enjoying the experience of hiking itself.

“Peak-bagging goes against my beliefs,” he said. Joe is not a 46er. He is much, much more.

Joe directed Syracuse University Project Advance (SUPA), a high school enrichment program that offers senior students the chance to study university-level courses. SUPA began in 1972 with one university-level course offered in six high schools. It now serves more than 12,000 students worldwide.

For the past 15 years, Joe was the president of the Adirondack Rail Trail Association, the non-profit organization responsible for converting 34 miles of the rail from Lake Placid to Tupper Lake into a multi-purpose trail.

“My greatest work is the trail,” he said. “It’s brought so much joy.”

Leisurely walkers, parents pushing baby carriages, runners, bikers, teenagers, octogenarians — people are happy out there.

“I don’t usually write emails,” Joe said. “But I read your column, and there was an email address, so I wrote.”

Joe, I’m so grateful you did.

Write to me to start a conversation! Don’t know what to say, try this prompt: Tell me about what you’re doing this January to have fun.