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. . - In the central place of every heart there is a recording chamber; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, and courage, so long are you young. When the wires are all down and your heart is covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, and then only, are you grown old. --Douglas MacArthur (1880—1964) American general. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul. . . . You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair. --Douglas MacArthur (1880—1964) American general. "War Is No Longer a Medium of Practical Settlement of International Differences" Address at an American Legion in Los Angeles, California [26 January 1955]. and see: Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life. Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a body of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust. Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being's heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing child-like appetite of what's next, and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the Infinite, so long are you young. When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty. --Samuel Ullman (1840—1924) American businessman and poet. "Youth" http://www.prmvr.otsu.shiga.jp/library/master/SamuelUllman/Youth.html These words, written by Samuel Ullman of Birmingham, Alabama at the age of 70-plus, are credited with inspiring a generation of Japanese citizens, businessmen, and government leaders who were faced with rebuilding their country after World War II. Ullman died in his chosen hometown in 1924 at the age of 84 never knowing that his poetic essay would be quoted by politicians and generals, appear in Dear Abby and Ann Landers columns, and be read and loved by people all across the world. [...] In his seventies, Ullman wrote the poetic essay, "Youth," which became a favorite of General Douglas MacArthur. MacArthur placed a version of the poem on the wall of his office in Tokyo when he became Supreme Allied Commander in Japan, and he often quoted from the poem in his speeches. General MacArthur's influence gave the poem popularity throughout Japan and provided the people of that nation with spiritual energy to pursue rebuilding their own lives and that of their nation. http://www.alabamamoments.state.al.us/sec31det.html - After 60, it's just patch, patch, patch. --Mary Martin (1913—1990) American actress, dancer, and singer. Growing old is something you do if you're lucky. --Groucho [Julius Henry] Marx (1895—1977) American film comedian. - When I was young I was amazed at Plutarch's statement that the elder Cato began at the age of eighty to learn Greek. I am amazed no longer. Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long. --W. Somerset Maugham (1874—1965) English novelist, playwright, and short-story writer. An occasional glance at the obituary column of _The Times_ has suggested to me that the sixties are very unhealthy; I have long thought that it would exasperate me to die before I had written this book, and so it seemed to me that I had better set about it at once. When I have finished it I can face the future with serenity, for I shall have rounded off my life's work. --W. Somerset Maugham (1874—1965) English novelist, playwright, and short-story writer. _The Summing Up_ [1938], ch. 3 - - Old age is far more than white hair, wrinkles, the feeling that it is too late and the game finished, that the stage belongs to the rising generations. The true evil is not the weakening of the body, but the indifference of the soul. --André Maurois (1885—1967) (pseudonym of Émile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog) French author. _The Art of Living_ [1940] Growing old is no more than a bad habit which a busy man has no time to form. --André Maurois (1885—1967) (pseudonym of Émile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog) French author. _The Art of Living_ [1940] - The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (1880—1956) American journalist and literary critic. ^ Ludwig von Mises (1881—1973) Austrian economist. At the age of eighty-eight Mises was asked how he felt upon getting up in the morning. 'Amazed,' he replied. --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and André Bernard [2000 ed.] ^ - Believe me if all those endearing young charms, Which I gaze on so fondly today, Were to change by tomorrow and fleet in my arms, Like fairy gifts fading away! Thou wouldst still be adored, as this moment thou art, Let thy loveliness fade as it will And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart Would entwine itself verdantly still. It is not while beauty and youth are thine own, And thy cheeks unprofaned by a tear, That the fervor and faith of a soul may be known, To which time will but make thee more dear! Oh the heart that has truly loved never forgets, But as truly loves on to the close, As the sunflower turns to her god when he sets The same look which she turned when he rose! --Thomas Moore (1779—1852) Irish poet, satirist, composer, and musician. "Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms" When Time who steals our years away Shall steal our pleasures too, The mem'ry of the past will stay, And half our joys renew. --Thomas Moore (1779—1852) Irish poet, satirist, composer, and musician. Song, from _Juvenile Poems_. - Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age. --Jeanne Moreau (1928— ) French actress. - Middle age ends and senescence begins the day your descendants outnumber your friends. --Ogden Nash (1902—1971) American writer of humorous poetry. How confusing the beams from memory's lamp are; One day a bachelor, the next a grampa. What is the secret of the trick? How did I get so old so quick? --Ogden Nash (1902—1971) American writer of humorous poetry. _You Can't Get There From Here_ [1957], "Preface to the Past" I myself am more and more inclined to agree with Omar and Satchel Paige as I grow older: Don't try to rewrite what the moving finger has writ, and don't ever look over your shoulder. --Ogden Nash (1902—1971) American writer of humorous poetry. _There's Always Another Windmill_ [1968], "If a Boder Meets a Boder, Need a Boder Cry? Yes" - The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills. --Richard John Needham (1912—1996) British-born Canadian writer. - kap posts to USENET newsgoup in 1999: [. . . ] Instead, I shall tell you how quickly I am aging. One day last summer Andrew, one of the terrible two grandsons, and I took a bus down to the [Las Vegas] Strip and had breakfast at the Rainforest Cafe in the MGM Grand, followed by a monorail ride and some fountain gazing at Bellagio. We ended up at Excalibur because at the age of five he wanted to do something childlike. Imagine! So we played games in the arcade. Anyway, they had a phony fortune teller who could guess your weight, age, or month of birth for $2. If she was off by a certain amount, 2 years for the age, you won a glass worth maybe a quarter. We had her pick Andrew's month of birth....which she hit on the nose! "I'll fix her," I told Andrew, "I'll have her guess my weight" ....unbelievably, she was within 2 pounds and beat us again! Rats! As one of my favorite hobbies is banging my head against the wall, I took out another $2 and had her guess my age. She looks me up and down and writes her guess on a pad. She asks how old I am. "Fifty-three." She shows me her guess. Forty-seven. "Ah ha," I gloated; for six dollars I have won a twenty-five cent glass! And, I look six years younger than I am! I have hit a daily double in the victory department. Over Christmas I remembered that story when Margaret and I visited the Strip with a few of her friends from work. We saw the wonderful water show at the Bellagio, (a must for visitors) a skating exhibition at New York, New York, and the pseudo dragon battle at Excalibur. Phony as a three dollar bill but great fun anyway. Thirsty and tired, we trekked over to the nearest watering hole — in the arcade at Excalibur. Does history really repeat itself? I advised the assembled mass of seven, "Watch this." "I'd like you to guess my age," I told the new fortune teller (the old one probably fired for giving away too many glasses.) ...The good news is, I won again! However...she guessed my age as fifty-one meaning I had aged four years in only six months. Which means that if you don't get to Las Vegas before 2006, and I continue to age at an eight-fold rate, we won't be able to walk many of the paths at Red Rock because I'll be one hunded and two. I guess the point of all this is that we probably should break all of our mirrors and not be reminded of age. Gals, *not* the rear- view mirror in your car! Or the message is you should send me money so I can get a face lift. But that's a stretch. kap - Youth has no age. --Pablo Picasso (1881—1973) Spanish painter and sculptor. Dame Fortune is a fickle gipsy, And always blind, and often tipsy; Sometimes, for years and years together, She'll bless you with the sunniest weather, Bestowing honour, pudding, pence, You can't imagine why or whence; —- Then in a moment — Presto, Pass! — Your joys are withered like the grass. --Winthrop Mackworth PraedJames Whitcomb Riley (1849—1916) American poet. "The Old Swimmin' Hole" [1883] Time rolls on and youth is gone, And you can't straighten up when you bend; But stiff back or stiff knees, You stand straight at Tiffany's: Diamonds are a girl's best friend. --Leo Robin (1900—1984) American songwriter. (Jule Styne, music), in _Gentlemen Prefer Blonds_ As she gets older a woman gets more feisty — more radical. Men play more golf. --Anita Roddick (1942— ) English businesswoman. CEO and Founder of Body Shop. A man is not old as long as he is seeking something. --Jean Rostand (1894—1977) French biologist and philosopher. She took to telling the truth; she said she was forty-two and five months. It may have been pleasing to the angels, but her elder sister was not gratified. --Saki [Hector Hugh Munro] (1870—1916) Scottish writer. _Reginald_ [1904] I'm growing fonder of my staff; I'm growing dimmer in the eyes; I'm growing fainter in my laugh; I'm growing deeper in my sighs; I'm growing careless of my dress; I'm growing frugal of my gold; I'm growing wise; I'm growing — yes, — I'm growing old! --John Godfrey Saxe (1816—1887) American poet. _I'm Growing Old_ I have often noticed that a kindly, placid good- humor is the companion of longevity, and, I suspect, frequently the leading cause of it. --Sir Walter Scott (1771—1832) Scottish novelist and poet. In John Gibson Lockhart _Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott_ , p. 593 [1901]. - DOLLS, by Robert William Service (1874—1958) British poet. She said: "I am too old to play With dolls," and put them all away, Into a box, one rainy day. I think she must have felt some pain, She looked so long into the rain, Then sighed: "I’ll bring you out again; "For I’ll have little children too, With sunny hair and eyes of blue And they will play and play with you. "And now good-bye, my pretty dears; There in the dark for years and years, Dream of your little mother’s tears." Eglantine, Pierrot and Marie Claire, Topsy and Tiny and Teddy Bear, Side by side in the coffer there. Time went by; one day she kneeled By a wooden Cross in Flanders Field, And wept for the One the earth concealed; And made a vow she would never wed, But always be true to the deathless dead, Until the span of her life be sped. More years went on and they made her wise By sickness and pain and sacrifice, With greying tresses and tired eyes. And then one evening of weary rain, She opened the old oak box again, And her heart was clutched with an ancient pain For there in the quiet dark they lay, Just as they were when she put them away… O but it seemed like yesterday! Topsy and Tiny and Teddy Bear, Eglantine, Pierrot and Marie Claire, Ever so hopefully waiting there. But she looked at them through her blinding tears, And she said: "You’ve been patient, my pretty dears; You’ve waited and waited all these years. "I’ve broken a promise I made so true; But my heart, my darlings, is broken too: No little Mothers have I for you. "My hands are withered, my hair is grey; Yet just for a moment I’ll try to play With you as I did that long dead day… "Ah no, I cannot. I try in vain… I stare and I stare into the rain… I’ll put you back in your box again. "Bless you, darlings, perhaps one day, Some little Mother will find you and play, And once again you’ll be glad and gay. "But when in the friendly dark I lie, No one will ever love you as I… My little children… good-bye… good-bye." - In a dream, you are never eighty. --Anne Sexton (1928—1974) American poet who won the 1966 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. - To me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I ey'd, Such seems your beauty still. --William Shakespeare (1564—1616) English dramatist. _Sonnets_ [1609], Sonnet 104, line 1 To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. --William Shakespeare (1564—1616) English dramatist. _Macbeth_ [1606] Act V, Scene VI CHIEF JUSTICE. Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age? Have you not a moist eye, a dry hand, a yellow cheek, a white beard, a decreasing leg, an increasing belly? Is not your voice broken, your wind short, your chin double, your wit single, and every part about you blasted with antiquity? And will you yet call yourself young? --William Shakespeare (1564—1616) English dramatist. _Henry IV_ [1597], pt. ii, sc. ii They say an old man is twice a child. --William Shakespeare (1564—1616) English dramatist. _Hamlet_ [1600—1601], act ii, sc.ii - Am I the person who used to wake in the middle of the night and laugh with the joy of living? Who worried about the existence of God, and danced with young ladies till long after daybreak? Who sang "Auld Lang Syne" and howled with sentiment, and more than once gazed at the full moon through a blur of great, romantic tears? --Logan Pearsall Smith (1865—1946) American-born man of letters. "Last Words" _More Trivia_ [1934] No man loves life like him that's growing old. --Sophocles (496?—406 B.C.) Greek dramatist. That man never grows old who keeps a child in his heart. --Sir Richard Steele (1672—1729) Irish-born essayist and dramatist. The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough. --Rabindranath Tagore (1861—1941) Bengali poet, short-story writer, song composer, playwright, and painter who won the 1913 Nobel Prize for Literature. That vague, crepuscular time, the time of regrets that resemble hopes, of hopes that resemble regrets, when youth has passed, but old age has not yet arrived. --Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (1818—1883) Russian novelist, poet, and playwright. _Fathers and Sons_ [1862] ch. 5 Tr. by Harry Stevens. I'm very pleased with each advancing year. It stems back to when I was forty. I was a bit upset about reaching that milestone, but an older friend consoled me. 'Don't complain about growing old — many, many people do not have that privilege.' --Earl Warren (1891—1974) American jurist, the 14th Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court [1953-1969]. ^^ In 1978 Sussex police launched a hunt for a 'six-foot, dark-haired youth of about 20' who failed to mug a five-foot, 74-year-old grandmother. The youth sprang upon Mrs Ethel West while she was walking through Chichester Cathedral cloisters. The result should have been a foregone conclusion. Surprisingly, however, when Mrs West grabbed the mugger's wrist, he cried, 'Oh God! Oh no! Stop!' Encouraged by these pleas, she put him in an arm lock at which the mugger cried, "Oh no! Oh Christ!" and ran away. 'If I hadn't been carrying my shopping, I would really have put him on his back,' said Mrs West who took a course in judo when younger. 'Before my husband died I used to practise throwing him at Christmas,' she explained. _The Folio Book of Humorous Anecdotes_ Introduced by Edward Leeson [2005], "Age — Mostly Old" ^^ Old age is a special problem for me because I've never been able to shed the mental image I have of myself — a lad of about 19. --E.B. [Elwyn Brooks] White (1899—1985) American essayist and literary stylist. "New York Times" [11 July 1969] - My old lady died of a common cold. She smoked cigars and was ninety years old. She was slim as paper with the ribs of a kite, And she flew out the kitchen door one night. Now I'm no younger'n the old lady was, When she lost gravitation, and I smoke cigars. I feel sort of peaked, an' I look kinda pore, So for God's sake, lock that kitchen door! --Tennessee Williams [Thomas Lanier Williams] (1911—1983) American dramatist. "Kitchen Door Blues" [1946] - The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes. --Frank Lloyd Wright (1867—1959) American architect. Like birds, whose beauties languish half concealed, Till, mounted on the wing, their glossy plumes Expanded, shine with azure, green and gold; How blessings brighten as they take their flight. --Edward Young (1683—1765) English poet. "Night Thoughts" [1742-1745] II, l. 589 - 'Cranky? Who's Cranky?!' After decades in the workplace, men might have their toughest job ahead of them By Ellen Graham in _The Wall Street Journal_ June 26, 2006 It's finally happened. My husband has turned into a grumpy old man. The symptoms emerged gradually, blossoming just shy of his 70th birthday. It was as though the internal censor that kept Don's temper reasonably in check all these years had suddenly gone missing. This formerly mild-mannered guy, who once plied even the Long Island Expressway with Zen-like serenity, developed a particularly short fuse at the wheel. Taking a wrong turn, whether on baffling interstate exit ramps or dark, deer-infested country roads, could trigger road rage. He also began flying off the handle when he misplaced (pick one) his glasses, his keys, his checkbook or, especially, that critical tax document he had in his hand only a moment ago. If aging, in part, is about declining powers, men seem to take it harder — and more personally — than women. I know, that's a sweeping generalization. But think about the stereotypes: sweet little old ladies, but grumpy old men. I wonder: Do men, after decades of work, still have their toughest job ahead of them? How do our husbands, and brothers and uncles and fathers, make peace with aging? Don't Look Back What I call Don's "elder combustion" typically involves some sort of age-related personal lapse, such as forgetfulness or poor night vision. The flames of fury are further stoked by evidence that things in general are going downhill fast: an incomprehensible or missing road sign, say, throws him miles off course. Or a foul-up by a bureaucrat sends him combing through his files for documentation that is invariably missing. In other words, while the complexities of modern life demand that we keep pace — at warp speed, at that — men quickly fume when it seems that they aren't quite up to the task. Some of this, clearly, is a long-suppressed rebellious streak — a response to decades of shouldering responsibilities, kowtowing to authority and suffering fools. As my unrepentant husband says, "I've paid my dues — now I can lose it if I want to." He concedes that his parents and grandparents didn't become curmudgeons as they aged, but he has an answer for that, too. "They died younger, before they got cranky," he says. "They went through the Depression and a World War, and everything after that seemed easy." My grandfather, however, lived long enough to become, if not exactly cranky, exasperating at times. A prosperous small-town merchant, he worked in his dry-goods store until the day he died, during an afternoon nap after walking home for lunch. A near-perfect life — and death. But when he reached his 80s, he became, as my parents put it, "set in his ways." One time they went to great pains to plan a trip with him to Newport, R.I., where my mother had always wanted to tour the robber-baron "cottages." When they arrived after a two-day drive and tried to buy tickets for the tour, Grandpa balked. He refused to step inside the Vanderbilt mansion because the price of admission was, to his mind, extortionate. It took all of my parents' persuasive powers to coax him not to spoil the whole point of the expedition. Grandpa, whose notion of a fair price was cemented somewhere back in the 1920s, unadjusted for inflation, fell victim to a common pitfall of age: resistance to change. All in all, it's probably wiser not to look back. Otherwise, we torment ourselves with invidious comparisons, boring everyone with memories of the good old days. But do men pine for those days more than women? After all, it was a guy — the poet Dylan Thomas — who urged old folks to "rage, rage against the dying of the light." Those words were written for another guy, Thomas's father. A strong-willed man, the older Thomas suffered through a long illness toward the end of his life, and his son implored him, in his poem, to soldier on. Don does rage. But his demons are less metaphysical than earthly. When our Internet service died a while back, Don got trapped in a closed conversational loop with our provider's automated help desk. I could hear him replying to a computerized voice that was attempting a diagnosis. He described our problem, oh, maybe 20 times while the voice kept insisting, "I did not understand your response." Finally I heard my husband cursing, not quite under his breath, at which point a living, breathing technician magically came on the line and got him reconnected. Maybe it was coincidental. But I bet the automated answering system was programmed to recognize four-letter words, prompting a computer somewhere to command a real person to pick up the phone, quick. Role Reversal I know I'm mellower now than during the Stress Years of juggling motherhood and career. Certainly I'm better rested than back when I was the one forever drawn into skirmishes with sales clerks or telemarketers, while Don chuckled at my Type A temper. Now those roles are reversed, and it's not difficult to see why. "I get cranky when things that used to be so easy are so much harder," Don says. In his younger days, for example, he had a keen memory and sense of direction, so he never had to depend on maps or lists like the rest of us. Today, without those crutches, senior moments strike with irritating regularity. My memory, on the other hand, was never that sharp to begin with. I'm always armed to the teeth with lists, and shrug off less frequent lapses. Nor do I sulk as much over signs of encroaching frailty. Don's realization, for example, that he can no longer lift the 100-pound sacks of chicken feed he hefted as a teenager puts him in a foul humor. Never having toted a burlap sack of anything, I don't feel the loss. Maybe such gender differences partly account for women's longer life expectancy. Keeping His Cool If a little grouchiness is understandable — and even possibly constructive — too much of it can be tiresome. I've made such an issue of Don's irascibility that lately he seems to be trying harder to keep cool, though he stoutly denies it. At least he's made a genuine attempt to circumvent the missing-paper syndrome by reorganizing his cluttered office, paying bills when they arrive in the mail and filing papers promptly. And sometimes, this grumpy old man surprises this sweet little old lady by laughing off blunders that are so bad they are funny. Like recently, when he lost the ignition key to his fishing boat, and couldn't find the spare or any record of the key number he needed to order a new one from the manufacturer. Meanwhile, the boat's battery went dead. He bought a new one, and while loading it into the car, he set the bag containing the boat's registration and other critical documents on the pavement and drove off without it. Naturally, by the time he realized the bag was missing, it had vanished from the boat dealer's parking lot. Still without a clue how he was going to replace the ignition key, he occupied himself for several tedious weeks getting copies of the documents in the lost bag. One day, he happened to confess the whole sorry debacle to his brother — who, it turned out, had the spare key all along. Fishing season was half over by the time Don sorted it all out. Yet, aside from some sheepish looks, he refrained from uttering a discouraging, or unprintable, word. Maybe he was simply too embarrassed. I, however, prefer to think he's had a change of heart. The poet notwithstanding, he may have decided to go a bit more gently into that good night. - No matter how old you are, you're younger than you'll ever be. --anon. - The other day a young person asked me how I felt about being old. I was taken aback, for I do not think of myself as old. Upon seeing my reaction, she was immediately embarrassed, but I explained that it was an interesting question, and I would ponder it, and let her know. Old Age, I decided, is a gift. I am now, probably for the first time in my life, the person I have always wanted to be. Oh, not my body! I sometime despair over my body; the wrinkles, the baggy eyes, and the sagging butt. And often I am taken aback by that old person that lives in my mirror, but I don't agonize over those things for long. I would never trade my amazing friends, my wonderful life, my loving family for less gray hair or a flatter belly. As I've aged, I've become more kind to myself, and less critical of myself. I've become my own friend. I don't chide myself for eating that extra cookie, or for not making my bed, or for buying that silly cement gecko that I didn't need, but looks so avante garde on my patio. I am entitled to overeat, to be messy, to be extravagant. I have seen too many dear friends leave this world too soon; before they understood the great freedom that comes with aging. Whose business is it if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4 a.m, and sleep until noon? I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of the 60's, and if I, at the same time, wish to weep over a lost love ... I will. I will walk the beach in a swim suit that is stretched over a bulging body, and will dive into the waves with abandon if I choose to, despite the pitying glances from the bikini set. They, too, will get old. I know I am sometimes forgetful. But there again, some of life is just as well forgotten, and I eventually remember the important things. Sure, over the years my heart has been broken. How can your heart not break when you lose a loved one, or when a child suffers, or even when a beloved pet gets hit by a car? But broken hearts are what give us strength and understanding and compassion. A heart never broken is pristine and sterile and will never know the joy of being imperfect. I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turn gray, and to have my youthful laughs be forever etched into deep grooves on my face. So many have never laughed, and so many have died before their hair could turn silver. I can say "no," and mean it. I can say "yes" and mean it. As you get older, it is easier to be positive. You care less about what other people think. I don't question myself anymore. I've even earned the right to be wrong. So, to answer the question, I like being old. It has set me free. I like the person I have become. I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here, I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be. And I shall eat dessert every single day. --author unknown - Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think! Enjoy yourself, while you're still in the pink! The years go by as quickly as a wink, Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think! --1950s song My doctors have forbidden me to chase women unless they are going downhill. --Octogenarian, quoted in _Harvard University Class of 1919 Bulletin_ [May 1978]. My mother used to say: the older you get, the better you get — unless you're a banana. --Rose, "The Golden Girls" [television show] The day we stop playing is the day we start growing old. --_Twilight Zone: The Movie_ [1983] "Kick The Can" episode --- At a dinner party, several of the guests were arguing whether men or women were more trustworthy. "No woman," said one man, scornfully, "can keep a secret." "I don't know about that," answered a woman guest. "I have kept my age a secret since I was twenty- one." "You'll let it out some day," the man insisted. "I hardly think so!" responded the lady. "When a woman has kept a secret for twenty-seven years, she can keep it forever." --- The strong young man at the construction site was bragging that he could outdo anyone in a feat of strength. He made a special case of making fun of one of the older workmen. After several minutes, the older worker had had enough. "Why don't you put your money where your mouth is," he said. "I will bet a week's wages that I can haul something in a wheelbarrow over to that outbuilding that you won't be able to wheel back." "You're on, old man," the braggart replied. "Let's see what you got." The old man reached out and grabbed the wheelbarrow by the handles. Then, nodding to the young man, he said, "All right. Get in." ----- antediluvian [an-tih-duh-LOO-vee-uhn], adjective: 1. Of or relating to the period before the Biblical flood. 2. Antiquated; from or belonging to a much earlier time. noun: 1. One who lived before the Biblical flood. 2. A very old (or old-fashioned) person. Synonyms: ancient, antiquated, archaic. Ex.: Customs like fox hunting or men's clubs are denounced as barbaric, patriarchal, and antediluvian throwbacks, whereas the truly barbaric, patriarchal, and antediluvian traditions of various stagnant indigenous cultures are viewed with reverence, nostalgia, and envy. --Jonah Goldberg, "Who Are We to Judge?" _National Review_ [21 September 2001] dotage [DOH-tij], noun: Feebleness of mind due to old age; senility. Ex.: Pointing out that Cicero learned Greek in his seventies and Socrates took up playing the lyre in his dotage, Dad liked to say he would indeed someday consider retiring, when and if he finally got old. --James Dodson, _Final Rounds_ hoary [HOR-ee], adjective: 1. White or gray with age; as, "hoary hairs." 2. Ancient; extremely old; remote in time past. Methuselah [muh-THOO-zuh-luh], noun: 1. The name of a biblical patriarch said to have lived 969 years. 2. An extremely old man. opsimathy (noun) [ahp-'si-mê-thi] (Literary) Late learning, learning late in life. A person who takes on learning late in life is an "opsimath" ['ahp-si-mæth], as a "polymath" (poly "many" + math) is someone of encyclopedic learning or polymathy [pa-'li-mê-thi]. senescence [sih-NEH-sun(t)s], noun: The state of being old; the process of growing old; aging. It is related to senile. The adjective form is senescent. end page | GAMBLING - GARDENS | GARFIELD - GENERATION GAP | GENEROSITY -GENTLEMEN | GEOGRAPHY - GERSHWIN | GHOSTS - GLASSES | GLOBALIZATION - GOALS | GOD & GOING HOME | GOLF | GOOD DEEDS - GOODBYES | GOODNESS - GOVERNMENT | GRACE - GRATITUDE | GRAVEYARDS - GROWING | GROWING OLDER - PAGE 1 (A-L) | GROWING OLDER - PAGE 2 (M-Z) | GROWING UP - GULLIBLE | | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The End | The Reviews | Photos | |
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