Strana 18
Wednesday, December. 30, 1953
VESTN1K — WEST, TEXAS
WHAT'S YOUR IDEA ABOUT AGE? How old do you think you are? I didn't ask how old you. are—I asked how old you think you are. This question came up. one . day not long ago when I was reading about the new serum that allegedly will keep us all alive until we are 150 years old. I began to wonder how many people would really want to live to be 150. Let's see, it's 1953 now; when I'm 150 , years old, it will be 2058! And that's a thought that gives me pause. What would it be like? If we all lived to such an age, would life be different? With all that future to look forward to, we'd have more time to get things done. Do you suppose we'd actually do more? Or would we. say: "Well . . . lots of time for that . . . . Do it tomorrow"? We'd probably all take longer to grow up— though now, with only about half of 154 years to live;. a lot of us never do grow up: But of course everything would be different if we knew we had a century and a half guaranteed. Just think, when we turned 50, we'd only •-be getting started. Just getting out of school, maybe. • The first thing that occurred to me when I thought of that longer lifespan was that the world would progress by leaps and bounds, with our great inventors and writers and statesmen all living longer, able to produce longer, able to teach others longer. But while I was considering that angle of the question, I recalled that many of the great things I human beings have done were accomplished by youth. Benjamin Franklin at 26:Wa,s the best and biggest printer in Atherida; he was doing all 'the government printing for Pennsylvania, Delaware,-Maryland and New Jersey. He had founded the first. German-language newspaper. in this . country and was editing the magazine that 'has since become The . Saturday Evening Post. All this he had accomplished by the time he wag '26. • Thothas Jefferson was only 33 when he drafted the Declaration of Independ-: en,ce.Charles Dickens was 24 when he began The Pickwick Papers, and 25 when he wrote Oliver Twist. Isaac Newton formulated his Law of Gravitation at the age of 24. Cyrus McCormick invented the reaper when* he had just- turned 23. Samuel Morse was 21 when he conceived the idea of the telegraph, and at 22 he became internationally famous when one of his paintings placed among the first nine out of 2,000 pictures submitted for an exhibition at the Royal Academy in London. There are impressive facts and figures, but there is another side to the argu-
old. Jimmy Durante managed, but he' had a hard time. Then, in February"; ment which is more impressive. Benja- 1944, his wife died, and Jimmy was-.left'• min Franklin didn't stop at 26. All his alone. So he turned to his old tonie,' long life he went on producing — books hilarious, boisterous comedy, with a. new pamphlets, inventions, ideas. And when intensity. First, the night clubs • again, he was over 50, as his far-seeing eyes and then radio and television. His secbegan to fail, the ingenious genius in-' and triumph was a landmark in the hisvented bifocal lenses. He was getting too tory of shoW business. It was if a 'great old to climb up his library ladder for a ,clown had suddenly been born again, book on the top shelf, and so he devised and people found themselves thinking; the claw-hooked pole that is still used "You're never too young, or too , old. . today in libraries and grocery stores. Ambrose Sperry, the inventor, began Immanuel Kant was '74 when he wrote: his career at the age of six. You think' his finest philosophical works. Verdi was that is too young 'for being an invenior? 80 when he produced Falstaff and 85 Well, young Ambrose didn't know 'that, when he wrote Ave Maria. Michelangelo and he invented' a remarkable horsecompleted his greatest work at 80. At radish grater for his aunt. At 70, on his 90, Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes death bed, he was still inventing. It was wrote some of his most brilliant judicial a July day in 1930, hot as only NeW' opinions. At the same age, George Ber- York can be hot, and the hospital room nard Shaw was still going strong, his wit where the old man lay was Stifling. and pen as sharp as ever. And the grand Someone thought of a tub of ice with a old man of music, Arturo Toscanini, is fan blowing across it, and this helped' fond of saying in a tone that belies his some. But it was still dreattfully hot. 80 years that the modern idea of ald age Ambrose Sperry opened his tired eyes is warped. One day not long ago, he and whispered feebly, "If you put some was at a party, and at midnight one of water in the tub, it will give more cool his friends rose to leave. Toscanini pro- ing surface." They tried it, 'and it did: tested: "Wait a while! Soon the old folk And just before he died, the old man Will go, and we'll have fun!" opened his eyes again and smiled. I Maybe Toscanini is right, and our called him an "old man." He was not ideas about age are all wrong. If so, we young. But he was not too old'. should revise them. We'll be forced to, Youth is often quick to reject the laif science gives us a second three-scoreand-ten to live. It always did seem bel "too young," but maturity too Often rather silly to me when I heard some- meekly accepts "too old." And yet the one say: "Even though John is over 60, world is constantly enlivened and enl-' wo7 he's pretty spry." And now that I've had riched by the example of men and enough birthdays to realize that 60 is men who just haven't time to be too old' also going to happen to me, too, I realize for anything. One of the best of these that such attitudes are completely ab- examples is a soldier and statesMan. who, in addition to new politieal honors,* surd. There used to be a little song called has recently won new laurels as "They-re Either Too Young Or Too Old," painter and essayist while he has been and a lot of people I know echo its sen- adding to his fame by publishing vol-timents in an unsentimental sense to ex- umes of reminiscence (Which have plain their own failures. Too young for moved critics to call him "the greatest responsibility. Too old to learn new historian of the twentieth centhry").' tricks. Too young to understand. Too old Yet Sir Winston Churchill was 79 last to change. Nonsense. It is possible to be November. too faint-hearted, too lazy, too unimagiWhen Carrie Jacobs Bond, the Womnative for many of life's adventures; an who wrote "The End of a Perfect. but for most of them, you're never too Day," was 84, the most interesting thing young or too old. about her was not her very interesting, There was a time some 40 years ago past, but her program for the future. when Jimmy Durante's mother said that She had a complete and crowded her 17-year -old youngest son was too schedule for the next 25 years, and. young to go into show business. But there was nothing "old" in . it. Among Jimmy proved that he was not, and in other things, she wanted to write, a few years he was a top star. He had sect and produce a motion picture—bat. been a sensation as a comedian for years not until after she had gone around the when the depression hit the night-club world in a trailer! In her opinion, life circuit. For the next ten years, Jimmy was dull if nothing had happened in the had a hard time; jobs in show business last five minutes, and right. up to the were scarce, and they said he was too end she devoted her very considerable (By Ted Malone)
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