If you want creature comforts, you’re not going to go to an Elderhostel.

Walt and Hortense Friedman are spending the week in a nonprofit Elderhostel program studying ecology and geology at the USC Catalina Marine Science Center. The subjects are new to them, but this is not their first Elderhostel. The Friedmans live in Van Nuys.

When I walked into my first Elderhostel meeting, I thought, “Oh, God, there’s a whole bunch of old people here. They’re all old fogies.” I was 65, and some of them were in their 80s. But they’re active, informed, educated, outgoing people. They’re not rocking chair, go to the park and play checkers kind of people.

That was about five years ago. We just came back from San Francisco State on Sunday. That was our 13th Elderhostel.

I was attracted to it because I like San Francisco. It’s always fun to go there, and they had three good classes. One was on the Constitution, and it was very timely with all of this talk about whether Ollie North and Poindexter ignored the Constitution and Congress. The second class was art appreciation, a kind of rambling but interesting discussion about sensitivity. The third class was taught by a young woman who is a singer, composer, arranger, producer who traced the development of musical comedy.

We met a couple at San Francisco State who had been to 53 Elderhostels. They were two little, frail people, and I didn’t know how they could stand that much dormitory food.

We stay in typical college dormitories, two single beds and you share a bath with a whole bunch of people. It isn’t the greatest. All life is full of trade-offs. If you want creature comforts, you’re not going to go to an Elderhostel. It’s cheap; $215 a person a week includes food, lodging and classes. You can’t beat that.

When you go to an Elderhostel, you show up on Sunday afternoon and register. Classes start Monday. We arrived at Ramapo College in New Jersey after an early morning airplane flight and a long bus ride from Kennedy Airport. By the time we got there it was 8:30 at night, and we were pooped.

We went to the dorm, and the rooms were filthy. They were just the way the kids had left them without cleaning them up. Dirt, garbage, scrap paper, it was awful. They had given the kids a chance to paint the rooms and get part of the tuition free, but they didn’t know about drop cloths. So when they painted the ceilings, everything was covered with drops of paint.

If we had had a car, I would have left. I would have said, “No way am I going to stay in this pigpen.” We were stuck, so we decided to make the best of it until morning.

Then we went to the toilet, and the toilets were clogged up. It was a debacle. By morning, they had a crew fixing the toilets. They came in with mops and swept the place, and it looked very presentable. As it turned out, they had some of the best classes that we ever had. We had three marvelous teachers. If we had walked away from it, we would have missed three great classes.

The big difference in any class is the instructor. If you’ve got a guy who has been doing it for 30 years and is bored and he’s just reading his notes, you’re going to fall asleep. In Elderhostel classes, because we have so much life experience and most of us are not afraid to speak up, the classes are stimulating. People interrupt the instructor, “Sir, I beg to disagree with you.” And the instructors love it. Instead of having 40 students taking notes and worrying about the midterm, you get a class of people who are listening and challenging. Respectful, of course.

When Elderhostel is over on Saturday morning and we have our last breakfast, it’s pack up and go time. It’s hugging and kissing time. Everybody is saying, “We’ve got to keep in touch. It’s been so nice meeting you. I want to hear from you again.” Sometimes you’ll say, “When you’re in town, come and see us.” Very often you’ll get a call, “Remember, we met you three years ago?” Three years ago? I don’t even remember these people. And then they show up and you recognize them. It’s a very warm thing.