You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.Older Americans are getting a chance to do something they’ve always wanted through programs designed to make dreams — from drinking soda to skydiving — come true.Credit...James Estrin/The New York TimesWhat’s on an Octogenarian’s Bucket List? A Tugboat Ride.Older Americans are getting a chance to do something they’ve always wanted through programs designed to make dreams — from drinking soda to skydiving — come true.Credit...James Estrin/The New York TimesListen · 8:35 min May 16, 2026Updated 8:54 a.m. ETAfter more than four decades of watching tugboats from the window of her New York City apartment, Phyllis Silver put on a captain’s hat and climbed aboard one for the ride of her life.Mrs. Silver, at 80, untied the thick ropes holding the tugboat, the Capt. Brian A. McAllister, to the dock in Staten Island. Then she settled into the captain’s chair as the red tugboat cruised by the Statue of Liberty and chased a hulking cargo ship from Sri Lanka.“I give the orders so I don’t have to do anything,” Mrs. Silver told the much younger crew. “As long as we understand our positions, we’ll get along.”Mrs. Silver’s dream of riding on a tugboat came true last month through the “Golden Dreams” program at RiverSpring Living, a senior community in the Bronx that asks its 600 residents what they’ve always wanted to do, or wish they could do again.Phyllis Silver watched tugboats pass her apartment for four decades before she finally boarded one.A retired psychiatrist with Parkinson’s disease soared at an indoor skydiving center. An 86-year-old woman with a prosthetic leg glided to Nat King Cole at a private dance lesson. Another woman, who is 73, wistfully remembered her parents going to the opera and was treated to “La Bohème” at the Metropolitan Opera.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT