We checked in with pals, partners, and posses among the local senior set, and learned about the importance of community of all kinds: neighbors, family, soak mates, and other connections old and new.

This story is part of our Wisdom feature. Jump to a story:

Secrets of Our Wisest Portlanders / The 50-Year Portland Friendship / Is Portland a Good Place to Retire To? / Wise Oregonians Give Us Their Best Advice / The Portland Art Gallery Where Age Is an Asset / How Much Does Living in a Senior Community Cost in Portland? / Can Third-Act Careers Work Out?

Ural Thomas, 84, and Rosie Thomas, 81, married 38 years

Ural: “Our grandbaby spends nights with us, and we play games: blackjack, poker, and Monopoly. We’ve done that with our daughter, our granddaughter, and now our great-granddaughter. And there’s this one game our granddaughter just taught us, Taco Cat—what is it?” Rosie: “Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza.” Ural: “Rosie’s a homebody, but we’re kind of never separated. No matter where I am, I call her every night, and I actually question her about what’s going on [in the neighborhood], what’s new. So when I come back home I’m pretty much right in the pocket.” Rosie: “We go on walks. We talk about things that happened way back, and then we talk about some of the people we haven’t seen in a long time.” Ural: “And we meet our neighbors. There’s always something new.” As told to Andi Prewitt

Andrea Carlisle, 79, and her walking crew

“Every day, sometimes two of us, or four or six, walk the dock together. We’ve all lived on the river for decades. We walk and talk and look at the otters and the herons, or the changing height of the river. We learn a lot about one another’s work. For example, Joan’s an animator—she won an Academy Award, actually, so when she’s working on a new piece, we ask her questions. One neighbor is a social worker with teens, one’s a painter, a Spanish teacher. I can’t think of anything we haven’t talked about. There’s a lot of laughing and curiosity about one another’s lives.” —AP

Judith Rizzio, 69, and Jim Dixon, 70, married 35 years

Jim: “Judith has a paddleboard and I have a kayak that we go out on in summer quite a bit. We have a little getaway out at The Dalles. It’s a piece of ground with a very primitive kind of shack on it—sort of luxurious camping more than anything else: no power, no water. There’s not much to do but just sit around and eat and drink.” Judith: “It’s 80 acres, so it’s not a little getaway. But we are up there alone. We play a lot of cards and dominoes—it really is just being somewhere where all you need to do is be there. Nature’s where we feel the best. And that’s a real bonding thing, especially for older couples: you have more time to just go out snowshoeing on a Wednesday.” —AP

Carol Weliky, 70, and Zelda Weisbart, 71, friends 

Carol: “We’re pretty new as friends. I had aching body parts and a friend said, ‘Oh, Zelda soaks.’ I have a somewhat flaky Shabbat practice of lighting candles, and it just felt like a nice end-of-week to have a soak each Friday morning. Zelda really likes to talk about psychological matters, so we do share feelings a lot. She has an idea of us doing an art pop-up together. She’s a clay artist and makes these really beautiful pods, two feet high, in really lovely color palettes, a lot of feminine lines. And I do these traditional wall plaques called mizrach, but they’re so fragile it would be very hard to have them hanging somewhere. We have a lot of creative energy between us.” As told to Arianne Cohen