Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-02-20
KEEPING UP 1.-THE RoY.n
How to Clear tho Cobwebs Out of tn
 Brain-Keen Exhilaration.

How to Clear tho Cobwebs Out of the
 Brain-Keen Exhilaration.
 Nowadays, elderly men, in greeting one another, are very fond of the phrase, "How do you do, old boy!" It is good sign that the title is so popular. There has been too much foolish discussion in books of physi- ology as to the date at which one ceases to be @ boy and becomes a man. Dates can never settle the question. IL is settled by the far more pertinent query, how long in life can you continue to enjoy dancing, rowing, rum ming, swimming, coasting, etc.a Now, care full investigation establishes the fact that the American of today can keep up his keen in- terest in these things just about twenty years longer than the fathers did. Fifty years ago the average man of 45 was ashamed of not looking old. Cutaway coats and derby hats would have seemed as unfitting for such a stage of existence as the motley garb of a harlequin. If he did not stand on his dig nifty aud abjure childish sports he folt he would lose all authority over his children. One dash with them on a double runner down hillside would, he believed, finish him for ever in their eyes. So, of course, the boy dies young in him.
 What change of scene is witnessed to- day, particularly in the newer sections of the country. Let any one take, for example, @
 
 see what is going on in cities like St. Paul and Minneapolis No matter what his age, inevitably will he fall in with some middle aged judge or colonel who will say: "I want you to go out with me tonight to the tobog- gan slide; it's grand fun, I tell you" So out he goes, and in due time finds himself on the very edge of dizzy precipice of glare ice. The first invitation to go down he declines as respectfully as he would an invitation from a maniac to jump off Bunker Hill monument with him. Soon, however, the contagion grows irresistible. The judges wife and the colonels aunt tell him what glorious sensa- tion it is, and, almost before he knows it, he is on the toboggan and whizzing like a rife bullet through empty space. Losing his breath for a mo,uent, he recovers it as the toboggan strikes the level ice of the lake at the bottom, and then, as he flies across the smooth moonlit surface, the boy of 10 leaps to life in him once more, and he will not believe he is day older. Then, when ] at last the party gets back home again, ex- | hilarated with the wild motion, the laugh | ter, the glowing exercise of the pull up hill and the exposure to a fine temperature of zero or under, he says: 'This is the way to l clear the cobwebs out of the brain and get | into fine working trim against tomorrow" The glory of the boy is that he likes fun, l and woe be to the man who ceases to like it, l or, at any rate, to feel that his own capacity for keen exhilaration is dead and gone. As the cares of life increase, and the spirits be- l gin to flag, then comes the time when some external stimulus should be on hand. Nc old fellow can do the thing alone. He would be ashamed, moreover, to go out with troop 1 of schoolboys, and be treated, perhaps, as the bald headed prophet was, without single bear on duty to call upon for redress. No, he must have grown up people to enjoy the l fun with him. Give him such for company set his blood tingling with the wintry air and the lightning swift motion, light up the scene with the brilliant colors of the dresses of the toboggan club, and fifteen minutes will
 be enough to persuade him that the age al which the boy need degenerate into the hum drum, dried up, old man must lie somewhere far out of sight of 60.-Boston Herald.