Tfurrows has a wonderful post  about story-telling [0]. The story of
his  older friend  is  very  touching, and  reminded  me  of my  own
experiences with  seniors, first  with my  grandparents as  a child,
then  in high  school  as  a volunteer  teacher  for an  elderhostel
program (I  taught basic  computer usage to  seniors -  on Commodore
VIC-20s, if I may date myself)  and later as a paramedic. The latter
was not always  under the best of circumstances [1],  of course, but
there  were  moments  I enjoyed,  generally  routine  inter-hospital
transfers  of older  patients who  were well  enough and  willing to
engage in conversation as they rode in the back of an ambulance.

I think  most of  the joy  in re-telling  is for  the teller  of the
story, not the listener.  When I tell  stories of my youth to my own
children, the act  of telling brings back fond  memories.  I suspect
this becomes a  coping mechanism for aging and as  such is perfectly
understandable  (of course  it might  just be  a failure  of memory,
later in life, forgetting who and what you have told).

When we  moved to Quebec over  three years ago, the  first people to
welcome us were a nice older,  Quebecois couple who lived across the
street. They were both about 78 at the time. Over the next few years
we became close  and would attend each other's birthdays  and go out
to dinner together. We shoveled their driveway in the winter, and we
would watch each other's houses when we went on vacation.  They both
had spent time  in the States and spoke fluent  English, in addition
to their native  French, which helped us tremendously  when we first
arrived.  The husband was an  investment advisor for many years, but
gave that life  up in his 50s  and moved to a country  farm with his
wife, where they  spent the next 20 years raising  sheep and running
an apple  farm.  Their  stories are  fascinating! Finally,  all this
reminds me of Story Corps [2].  My wife and I liked to listen to the
Story Corps segments on our local NPR affiliate when we lived in the
States.

[0] gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space/0/~tfurrows/phlog/2019-12-04_tellingStories.txt
[1] gopher://sdf.org/0/users/slugmax/phlog/2017/tales-of-a-former-paramedic
[2] https://storycorps.org/