He knew well the stories of the stalking black panther that killed the cattle and terrified the residents of Little Creek. Once when nearly asleep, Willie had heard its squall, a heart-stopping wail that sounded like an infant under torture. The boy's lungs tightened, his legs froze, the hair on his neck stood on end, and chill bumps coated his body. And at that very moment their old speckled pony stepped from the cowpath into the moonlight. She had gotten whiff of the boys and had come to meet them.
Many people fear the prospect of aging, believing it a panther.
Many other seniors choose to live, but in silent depression and fear. Statistics show that alcoholism and mental illness plague a disproportionately large number of retirees, and the average white male dies thirty to forty months after retirement. For I'm old and ill and terrified and tight. Well, it's determined by the mental choices and spiritual attitudes we embrace in mid-life, when we are thirty, or forty, or perhaps fifty. The Psalmist says as much in Psalm 71, a prayer written by a man facing critical questions about aging.