OLD AGE – MIDDLE AGE
If I’d known I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself.
—Mickey Mantle
“Your age, please?” asked the census taker.
“Well,” said the woman, “let me figure it out. I was 18 when I was married and my husband was 30. He is now 60, or twice as old as he was then, so I am now 36.”
More people would live to a ripe old age if they weren’t too busy providing for it.
Do not resent growing old. Many are denied the privilege.
How do I know my youth is all spent?
Well, my get up and go has got up and went.
But in spite of it all, I am able to grin
When I think of the places my get up has been.
Old age is golden, so I’ve heard it said.
But sometimes I wonder as I get into bed.
With my ears in a drawer, my teeth in a cup,
My eyes on the table, until I wake up.
Ere sleep dims my eyes, I say to myself,
Is there anything else I should put on the shelf?
And I’m happy to say as I close my door
My friends are the same, or perhaps even more.
When I was young my slippers were red,
I could kick up my heels up over my head.
When I grew older, my slippers were blue,
But still I could dance the whole night through.
Now that I’m old, my slippers are black,
I walk to the store and puff my way back.
The reason I know my youth is all spent,
My get up and go has got up and went.
But I really don’t mind,
When I think with a grin
Of all of the places my get up has been.
In a seminar for senior citizens, a person asked a geriatrics specialist, “When do the signs of old age begin?” The doctor thought for a moment and then answered, “At conception.”
Just a line to say I’m living,
That I’m not among the dead.
Though I’m getting more forgetful
And more mixed up in the head.
For sometimes I can’t remember
When I stand at the foot of the stair,
If I must go up for something
Or if I’ve just come down from there.
And before the fridge so often
My poor mind is filled with doubt,
Have I just put food away, or
Have I come to take it out?
And there’re times when it’s dark out, With my night cap on my head
I don’t know if I’m retiring
Or just getting out of bed.
So if it’s my turn to write you
There’s no need of getting sore,
I may think that I have written
And don’t want to be a bore.
Remember—I do love you,
And I wish that you were here;
But now it’s really mail time
So I must say, “Good-bye, dear.”
There I stood beside the mailbox,
With a face so very red.
Instead of mailing you my letter,
I had opened it instead!
—Rose Mary Hogan
People grow old only by deserting their sense of mission and values.
—Mary Kampleman
You stop growing when you stop learning.
—Henry Ford
In the early church there was a saying that a man should not be made a bishop until he was fifty because then he would be beyond the disorders of youth.
Agatha Christie once said of her husband, “I married an archaeologist because the older I grow, the more he appreciates me.”
H. A. Ironside prayed, “Oh, God, keep me from becoming a foolish old man. Help me end well.”
A retired professor in his nineties is still publishing significant works. He has trouble walking, but, as he said, “It is better to die from the feet up than the head down.”
We have always needed old people to keep things from going too fast and young people to keep them from going too slow. Youth has fire and age has light and we need them both.
—The Vance Havner Quote Book
Why is it when you’re seven, today is forever and tomorrow never, but when you’re seventy, tomorrow is yesterday before you knew it was today.
—Sue Jane Purcell
Everyone wants to live long, but no one wants to be called old.
—Icelandic proverb
Henri Nouwen, a Catholic priest, asked the question, “Is my growing old making me any closer to Christ? Am I only getting older or am I getting more godly?”
Don’t think of yourself as growing old. Just think of yourself as getting one day closer to Medicare.
Amos Alonzo Stagg was the founder of football. When Stagg reached age 102, a newsman took his photo at a nursing home. As the newsman got ready to leave, he said, “I hope I can come back next year and take your photo when you’re 103.” Stagg said, “You look pretty healthy to me. I think you’ll make it.”
A friend of Daniel Auber engaged him in conversation as they descended the grand stairway at the opera. “My friend, we’re all getting older, aren’t we?” he observed. Auber sighed, “Well, there’s no help for it. Aging seems to be the only way to live a long time.”
—The Little, Brown Anecdote Book
Beethoven composed some of his most glorious musical works toward the end of his life when he was completely deaf. Milton wrote some of his most magnificent poetry during his last years of blindness. The world would have been greatly impoverished had there been no Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and no Paradise Lost.
—J. Oswald Sanders
The young and the old have all the answers. Those in between are stuck with the questions.
—Bits & Pieces
Lord, Thou knowest I am growing older. Keep me from the idea that I must express myself on every subject. Release me from the craving to meddle in everyone’s affairs. Keep my tongue from the recital of endless details of the past which do not interest others. Seal my lips when I am inclined to tell of my aches and pains. They are increasing with the years, and my love to speak of them grows sweeter as time goes by. Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be wrong. Make me thoughtful but not interfering, helpful but not bossy. With my vast store of wisdom and experience it does seem a pity not to use it all, but Thou knowest Lord, that I want a few friends left at the end. So help me to pray more, say less. And beyond all this, let me continue to flourish spiritually and bring forth fruit to Thy glory even in old age. Amen!
Lord Beaconsfield, British statesman and novelist, summed up his philosophy of life in these words, “Youth is a mistake, manhood a struggle, and old age a regret.”
Wrinkles should merely show where smiles have been.
—Mark Twain
When John Wesley was an old man, striking testimony was borne to the radiance of his personality. “Wherever he went he diffused a portion of his own felicity. In him old age appeared delightful, like an evening without a cloud. And it was impossible to observe him without wishing, ‘May my latter end be like him!’ ”
A nationwide “Older Americans” survey conducted by the Colonial Penn Group among two hundred customers over the age of one hundred revealed that material possessions were low on the list of what they considered the most valuable contributors to the quality of life.
Most of them believed children, friends, and relatives to be life’s most precious possessions. When asked what they miss most about the good old days, personal relationships top the list, with good health and mobility following close behind. Material possessions were rarely mentioned.
—Bits & Pieces
My false teeth fit me dandy,
My hearing aid’s just fine,
My glasses come in handy—
But I sure do miss my mind.
How can I be over the hill when I never made it to the top?
—Mrs. O. E. Anderson
Look at the bright side: No matter how old you are, you’re younger than you’ll ever be again.
—Bob Orben
An old body may house a young mind. When Alexander Graham Bell reached the age of seventy-five, a friend commented, “The most remarkable thing about Dr. Bell is that he is younger in mind that most men half his age. Mentally he seems to have discovered a fountain of youth which keeps him perennially alert and vigorous.” Bell followed three rules of study: observe, remember, and compare—principles which belong to a youthful outlook on life.
—Leslie B. Flynn
When Henry Longfellow was well along in years, his head as white as snow but his cheeks as red as a rose, an ardent admirer asked him how it was that he was able to keep so vigorous and write so beautifully.
Pointing to a blooming apple tree nearby, he replied, “That apple tree is very old, but I never saw prettier blossoms on it than those it now bears. The tree grows a little new wood every year, and I suppose it is out of that new wood that those blossoms come. Like the apple tree, I try to grow a little new wood every year.”
Benjamin Ririe retired as a missionary with the China Inland Mission at the age of seventy. When he was eighty and found time hanging on his hands, he decided to learn New Testament Greek, because he had lacked the opportunity when he was younger. Ririe became proficient in reading the Greek New Testament.
At ninety, he attended a refresher course in Greek at a Toronto seminary. When he was one hundred, he was present at a meeting at which I was speaking. In his pocket was a small, well-worn Greek lexicon he used to brush up his language skill as he traveled on the subway to and from the meeting.
—J. Oswald Sanders
My middle name is Wendell; I’m named after Wendell P. Loveless, who was associated for many years with the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, especially with the radio station WMBI. He lived into his nineties and was alert to the very end. During one of our visits with him, he told me and my wife, “I don’t go out much now because my parents won’t let me—Mother Nature and Father Time!”
—Warren W. Wiersbe
Miguel Cervantes wrote Don Quixote when he was almost seventy years old. John Milton wrote Paradise Regained when he was sixty-three. Noah Webster wrote his monumental dictionary at seventy. Socrates gave his wise philosophies at seventy. Ignace Paderewski still gave concerts before large audiences at seventy-nine. William Gladstone still presented a powerful figure in political circles at eighty. Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross at fifty-nine. Benjamin Franklin helped to frame the U.S. Constitution at eighty-one. Benjamin Disraeli became prime minister of England for the second time at seventy. Johann von Goethe completed Faust at eighty-two. Thomas Edison worked busily in his lab at eighty-three. Alfred Tennyson published his memorable poem, Crossing the Bar, at eighty-three. Guiseppe Verdi composed Othello at seventy-three, Falstaff in his seventies, and Te Deum at eighty-five. Michelangelo was in his late eighties when he painted some of his masterpieces. Arturo Toscanini conducted an orchestra at eighty-seven. Grandma Moses did many of her paintings after ninety. The Earl of Halsburg was ninety when he began preparing a twenty-volume revision of English law. Galileo made his greatest discovery when he was seventy-three. At sixty-nine, Hudson Taylor was still vigorously working on the mission field, opening up new territories in Indochina.
Old age occurs the moment you realize there isn’t something wonderful about to happen around the corner. In some people this occurs very soon; in others, not at all.
The advantage age has over youth is that youth knows nothing about being old, whereas the old know all about being young.
—Bits & Pieces
Dan Rather said to a man who is 106, “What’s your secret to a long life?” He rocked for a long time and then finally said, “Keep breathing.”
There are three stages to life: youth, middle age, and “You’re looking good.”
The first sign of old age is when you hear snap, crackle, and pop and it isn’t your cereal.
Old age is that time of life when you know all the answers and nobody asks you the questions.
When I was in the sixth grade, an elderly lady in the community visited our one-room schoolhouse to help us prepare for a Christmas program. She was energetic but quite wrinkled. After she left, one of the students said, “Boy, I never want to get that old!” The teacher, who overheard him, asked, “So you want to die young?” The youngster said, “No.” To which the teacher responded, “Well, it is going to be one or the other.”
—Herbert Vander Lugt
At age twenty, we worry about what others think of us. At forty, we don’t care what they think of us. At sixty, we discover they haven’t been thinking about us at all.
—Jack Falson
Life really isn’t fair. You eat properly, exercise and take good care of yourself for sixty years—and what’s your reward? Old age!
To me, old age is always fifteen years older than I am.
—Bernard Baruch
Never regret growing old; many are denied that privilege.
Age is a matter of mind. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.
Henry Ford, who lived to eighty-four, was asked late in life how he got so much done. He said, “I never stand up when I can sit down; and I never sit down when I can lie down.”
When Konrad Adenauer, still chancellor, was approaching the age of ninety, he succumbed to a heavy cold. His personal physician, unable to be of very much help, had to put up with Adenauer’s impatience. “I’m not a magician,” protested the harassed doctor. “I can’t make you young again.”
“I haven’t asked you to,” retorted the chancellor. “All I want is to go on getting older.”
—The Little, Brown Anecdote Book
Old age is when everything finally begins to click, including your joints, knees, etc. It’s when everything that works, hurts.
Old age is when you look forward to a dull evening. Or it’s when you get out of the shower and you’re glad the mirror is fogged up. It’s when your back goes out more often than you do.
How do I know my youth has been spent?
Because my get-up-and-go got up and went!
But in spite of all that I am able to grin
When I think where my get-up-and-go has been.
“Old Age is golden,” I’ve heard it said,
But sometimes I wonder when I go to bed;
I put my ears in a drawer, my teeth in a cup,
My eyes on a table, until I wake up.
E’re sleep dims my eyes, I say to myself
Is there anything else I should lay on the shelf?
You know you’re getting old when …
resisting temptation is not as hard as recognizing it.
you know your way around, but you don’t feel like going.
you go into a record store and expect to see records.
you’re seven around the neck, thirty-eight around the waist, and 126 around the golf course.
—Jim Murray
Everything is farther away than it used to be. It is even twice as far to the corner and they have added a hill.
I have given up running for the bus; it leaves earlier than it used to.
It seems to me that they are making the stairs steeper than in the old days. And have you noticed the smaller print they use in the newspapers?
There is no sense in asking anyone to read aloud anymore, as everybody speaks in such a low voice I can hardly hear them.
The material in dresses is so skimpy now, especially around the hips and waist, that it is almost impossible to reach one’s shoelaces. And the sizes don’t run the way they used to. The 12s and 14s are so much smaller.
Even people are changing. They are so much younger than they used to be when I was their age. On the other hand, people my own age are so much older than I am.
I ran into an old classmate the other day and she has aged so much that she didn’t recognize me.
I got to thinking about the poor dear while I was combing my hair this morning and in doing so I glanced at my own reflection. Really now, they don’t even make good mirrors like they used to