Grandparents’ Lend Their Ears on Friendship Benches

Angela Jasper, 75, embraces Robin Baxter, 63, one recent morning at the Washington, D.C., senior center where they meet a few times a month. “Good to see you,” says Jasper, a retired math and special education teacher in the city’s public school system, who has a voice soothing enough to lower anyone’s blood pressure.