The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1912-10-06
NOTHING so UNIQUELY
AS GRABBED OLD AGE
ny FRANCES sHAFFER.

| Grabbed age'-did you ever meet It?
1t is nothing. ordinarily speaking. more
than grabbed youth, grown older, a bit
| more sour, a bit sharper of feature and
| OF tongue, more unlovely. more unloved.
just fulfllment of earlier promise.
But 1t was my misfortune to run across
II awhile ago. and every minute while
was in the disagreeable presence a bit of
advice kept ringing In my ears
The time to prepare for lovable old age.
with the grabbed all out of the story,
Is in the heydey Of youth, when habits,
mannerisms. characteristics and ALL are
more or less in the making.
Depressing to Every One.
I cannot tell you how awful 1t was.
how depressing. how shocking. how
everything that was bad.
1t was a woman, and her sharp. snap
py tongue sent the shivers up and down
ones very spine. She had not a pleasant
word to say. not a line of her face re-
Taxed into a heartening smile, and not a
thing spoke of anything but a sour old
woman.
1t would take some one who had known
her long and well to venture an opinion
whether the manner, the voice. the ex-
preston, the words and all came from
the heart, but when a kindly listener
one else added, oh, but what a wayr
For the chill was long in leaving under
the balmy, softening effect of a different
atmosphere.
The Pity of 1t.
And We went away thinking of the
home foIks-yes. and the grabbed soul
herself, for it must be a dreary. unhappy
experience to be within sound of that
-nEn h. gsvt,. .ha, ri 81
vironment they help to make. And II
must be a sorry way to spend the closing
days of ones life, Just throwing out
gloomy shadows.
1t must be that the woman herself
could have grown sweeter had she tried.
could have been less grabbed. less dis
agreeable and forbidding. But the rest
the father, the mother, and tie young
folks-what Of them? They are sort of
helpless and 1t is an unwholesome atmos-
phere for anybody but for the young
well. Ii will either kill Or cure, for
grabbed age is bound 10 leave its
mark one way or the other.
Some. susceptible to influence, easily
swayed by the types they meet, will grow
nearest at hand And others, those boys
and girls who are naturally courteous and
sweet at heart. will find the sharp tongue
and the sour face so hopelessly forbidding
that they will do their best to cultivate
something better and truer.
Stranger. Feel the Influence.
The stranger in such an atmosphere,
ever so briefly, feels the blight of the dis
agreebIe influence and thinks of the pity
of a home where so much crabbedness Is
in evidence all the time. And the stran-
ger goes away wondering what age may
bring to her. and more than that what
she may bring to age.
We are not anxious to see the years
slip away, not jealous to picture our
selves with whitened hair. lessened vi
tally and quite out of the running. But
because age may be very beautiful or
as repelling, and because We can help
turn the tide one way or the other. it
is the wise among us who take stock
of our tendencies and watch how We
are drifting. For 1t is not commonly be-
lieved that folk grow sweet, compan-
ionable and lovable with the years I'M
less there is a goodly start in that pleas
ant direction in the days before youth |
has taken flight.
Background of Grabbed Youth.
Grabbed age generally has a back
ground Of grabbed youth. II It is bad |
at the beginning 1t grows worse as time |
goes by, and II is awful to find oneself |
overtaken by sour old age, awful for |
oneself and ones associates.
Happily. most of the folk We know |
have very pleasantly and lovably drifted
toward the close of their years, and
they show us how beautiful old age may |
be when the spirit keeps sweet and |
young. as 1t can and does. And when
we get a glimpse of the crabbedness that
sometimes afflicts men and women we
realize the real duty of preparing for
sweet, companionable old age. For 1t is
a pity just to be tolerated when one
might be loved.