Older Men

The Rev. Michael Manning's new business card identifies him as a priest in Hamilton Square, N.J. What he might add is that the parish he will serve as associate pastor, starting on Friday, lies an easy drive from where he once practiced medicine on Staten Island and people called him Dr. Manning.A newly ordained priest, he is, in his words, "the doctor who's been through seminary," a man who traded a physician's coat for a Roman collar.That transformation makes Manning, 46, a member of what the church calls its "Class of '97," the approximately 500 men being ordained as priests this spring across America.

While women may have achieved a grim parity with men in contracting the AIDS virus worldwide, experts in the United States remain concerned about the disease's rebound among young gay men. Today's epidemic has not brought the devastation seen in the 1980s and early 1990s, when AIDS cut a swath through the gay community. But health officials and activists say they are alarmed by high rates among gay teen-agers and young adults - some of whom were not alive during the urgent safe-sex campaigns of those days.

Many men will experience prostate enlargement as they get older, some to the point that it will cause urination problems. Dr. Michael Naslund, director of the Maryland Prostate Center at the University Maryland Medical Center, said there are many options for treatment, including surgery, drugs and lifestyle changes. What is the prostate and how does it function in the body? The prostate gland sits beneath the bladder in men. The primary function of the prostate in a young man is to produce some of the fluid in the ejaculate and to transport urine and sperm out of the body through the urethra.

After carefully sorting through the nominations submitted to me as candidates for Lie-of-the-Month, I am ready to announce a winner. The envelope, please.First place goes to the recent Esquire magazine survey that asked American men the following question: "In a romantic relationship, how many years younger than you would a woman have to be to make you feel uncomfortable about the age difference?"The answer? Ten years younger.That means -- in case you're missing the point -- that a 40-year-old man would feel uncomfortable with a woman under 30; a 50-year-old man with a companion under 40; and that a 60-year-old male would prefer not to date a woman under 50.Are we laughing yet?

B ill Lehman watches the cars go by. A red pickup truck heads south on Second Street, disappears, then returns heading north on Second Street. "That red truck will be back," Lehman says. Sure enough, the same red truck passes Lehman seven times in 20 minutes on the same residential block in South Baltimore's Brooklyn neighborhood. Lehman calls out the plate number as Jessica Mazan jots it down in her log and Jessica's mother, Nancy Mazan, grabs her binoculars to confirm the sighting.

For years, doctors have urged older men with early-stage, low-risk prostate cancer to "watch and wait" -- skip treatment until tests showed the cancer was growing aggressively. Now, a study suggests there's a significant benefit from treating men older than 65 surgically or with radiation therapy. "We found that men who had either a radical prostatectomy or radiation therapy within six months of their prostate cancer diagnosis were 30 percent less likely to die than those who did not undergo treatment," said Yu-Ning Wong, a medical oncologist at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia and lead author of the study.

Be quiet. Listen to the sound of bumping poker chips coming from the other side of this double door.SESSION IN PROGRESS says the sign outside the "Top of the Oaks Room" at the North Oaks Retirement Community, where Eddie lives. Eddie Krizman, 80, had a "setback" this year, so the guys come here for their weekly poker game. Sometimes they deal for Eddie, but he wins on his own.Outside the room, the world fumes. Inside, the world plays. Cantaloupe, Pepperidge Farm cookies and Shasta root beer are an Eddie's tradition.

In a quiet block in Southwest Baltimore, a warm wind blows plastic bags along a sidewalk. Boarded-up rowhomes line the streets. A pile of mattresses rests on a trash heap in someone's former backyard. A lonely placard reads, "Stop shooting - start living. " The images reflect the lost optimism of a neighborhood that lost more than 40,000 residents between 1980 and 2010. But a few yards down a side alley, there's a place with a different feel. Scores of locals sit chatting in a tree-shaded garden, their conversation mingling with the tinkle of wind chimes.

I was told that cruise lines are interested in older men to serve as "gentlemen in waiting." I've just turned 65 and have a lot of time on my hands.In an effort to balance out the preponderance of women on some cruises and to provide dance partners, at least nine ship lines provide hosts, who also socialize at meals and to pitch in with some chores.Most lines recruit through Lauretta Blake, the Working Vacation, 610 Pine Grove Court, New Lenox, Ill. 60431; (815) 485-8307, fax (815) 485-7142.

Mature adults in countries where men and women hold equal status had more satisfying sex lives than those in male-dominated societies, according to a study billed as the first of its kind to document and compare sexual behavior and satisfaction among middle-aged and older people worldwide. Surveying 27,500 men and women between the ages of 40 and 80 who live in 29 countries, researchers at the University of Chicago found that people reported the greatest sexual satisfaction in Western countries including Austria, Canada and the United States.