The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-07-31
Dorothy Dir Says
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer

Growing Old.
Perhaps the greatest shock that any
of US ever get is when we first have
it borne in upon US that to cold and
appraising public we seem old.
Of course we know that we have
had more birthdays than we like to
count. We realize. when we stop to
think of it. that we are subject to
rheumatic twinges and that we have
come to favor our left knee when
we walk. and that we come down
steps carefully one at a time instead
of taking them by. leaps and bounds,
and that we have to be a little care
full about our diet and have other
signs and symptoms that we would
call age in another.
But we still feel young and cherish
the fatuous belief that we look young,
and SO it is a solar plexus blow when
we realize that we have not escaped
the common human doom, but have
ourselves passed into the scar and yell
! low leaf.
| The chief reason that we SO dread
age is not because it brings the end
i of life in an appreciable distance. but
| because we so hate to pass into the
class of those who are pensioners
upon the good Lature and forbearance
| of all with whom we come in contact
1t IS SO terrible to think of becoming
one. of those whose personal charm
and interest are gone and who are en-
dured either from sense of duty or
from desire for graft.
For 1t is undeniable that most old
people are unattractive. They are
! uresone to talk to, boring to listen to,
I! full of crochets and whims and mar
trowness. and slovenly in dress, and so
1t is no wonder that we shudder as we
see ourselves approaching the era of
senile frowsiness
lThat is why when a woman begins
to perceive crows feet forming about
her eyes she grabs her pocketbook and
| rushes to the beauty specialist, and
why when a man begins to find diff
ncuIty In tying his shoes he takes up
golf and commences to bant. They
are trying to keep young.
Alas, after we are fifty the art of
Keeping young is a lost art, and we
! would do better if we devoted our en-
ergies and thoughts to studying the
art of growing old gracefully.
We talk a great deal about the
faults of the young and urge them
TO correct them, and about the pitfalls
into which youth is liable to stumble
and against which we warn it
But whoever speaks of the faults
OF age or the dangers into which 1t
may blunder? Yet age has its faults
bic to fall into evil habits
We assume that age is a state OF
perfect1on, but the truth is that it is
only too often a time of utter self
Indulgence and selfishness and tina,
is why old people are so often an af-
Fiction grievous to be borne by those
who have to live with them. And this
is why those of US who wish to be
loved and cherished for ourselves, and
not for the prospective requests in
our wills, should recognize the faults
that beset age and try to guard against
j them. rgs
OLD people excuse certain weak
nesses IN themselves on the ground OF
age Just as youth excuses its follies in
the same fashion. A boy mus SOW his
Old people have a right to their ways
declare the fossils who make martyrs
of their families and block public
progress. Neither excuse excuses, but
youth. at least. admits it's fault, while
age accounts its weakness unto itself
for virtue.
Why then should we not guard
ourselves against the temptations OF
age, even as we guarded ourselves
against the temptations of youth? We
might begin with the first temptation
which is to be comfortable instead OF
smart in dress. 1t is easy to degener.
ate into the stocking feet and no cor
sets, state of ease at home, and from
that the descent into the it-doesn't-
matter Observation-Disclosures ole
habit, that makes so n--ny elderly
people look as if they were candidates
for the rag bag and the bath tub.
At no other time in their whole lives
10 people need good clothes and good
| grooming so much as they do after the
beauty of youth has fled. Sweet-and-
twenty can be attractive ir spite of g
, kirnona and down-at-the-heels slip
pers, or picturesque in & negllgee shiri
and sneakers, but sixty-odd needs al
, the attractions that exquisite neatness
and the best dressmakers and tailor.
can throw about it.
The next weakness of age agains
which we should guard ourselves i:
garrulousness. Why should any SAINT
3 person permit himself to talk too
| ! much any more than he would drinl
too much? We all know when oul
) tongues are running away witt us ant
if we have any intelligence at all We
put the emergency brakes on and stoI
| them.
i Why should we not keep tab on our
{ selves as we grow old and refrain from
telling the same story over and ovel
2 again? The mere fact that a story ii
our favorite story is sufficient warn
ing in itself to make us shut oui
: teeth on it when we are tempted Il
l relate it. There are also other warn
ings not to be mistaken, the bored and
. lack-lustre eye, the perfunctory at
! tention, the forced laugh All of thes'
are indications that the listener ha
heard the story a thousand times be
9 fore and that il we don't wish to quail
fly in the ancient mariner class it i
time, in the slang of the day, to cal
{ that particular narrative.
81 Another fault of old age that w,
! should guard ourselves against IS il
living in the past, and reminiscini
} about our own personal affairs.
is cruel fact, but it is fact, tina
nobody on earth takes the slightes
= interest in things that happened to u
forty years ago, or cares 4 Wnccl
about what we lid at the battle o
Gettysburg, or how we nursed on
little johnnie thru the whoopinl
t cough. Yet old people will maunde
h. al