Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1917-08-06
TWELVE
GROWING OLD
By DOROTHY ok
The Worlds Highest Paid Woman
Writer.

- ERHAPS the greatest shock that
- any of US ever get is when We
first have it borne in upon us
that TO a 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 ii. that w are subject to
rheumatic twinges, and that we have
come TO favor" our left knees 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 careful
about our diet, and have other signs
and symptoms that we could call age
in another.
But we still feel young and cherish
the fatuous belief that we look young,
and, so II 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
yellow leaf.
The chief reason that we so dread
age is not because It brings the END
of life in an appreciable distance, but
because We so ate to pass into the
class OF those who are pensioners
upon the good nature and forbearance
OF all with whom we come in contact
1t is 80 terrible to think Of becoming
one of those whose personal charm
and interest are gone and who are
endured either from a sense of duty
or from desire for graft.
For 1t is undeniable that most old
people are unattractive. They are
tiresome TO talk to, boring to listen to,
full Of crochets and whiIns and mar.
rowness, and slovenly in dress, and so
II is no wonder that we shudder as
we see ourselves approaching the era
of senile frowsiness.
That is why when woman begins
TO perceive. crows feet forming about
her eyes she grabs her pocket book
and rushes to the beauty specialist.
and why when a man begins to find
difficulty In tying his shoes he takes
up golf and commences to bant. They
are trying to keep young.
Alas, after Ne are fifty the art Of
keeping young is lost art, and We
would do better II we devoted our
energies and thoughts to studying tn
art Of growing old gracefully.
We talk q 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 it
may blunder? Yet age has its faults
no less than youth and is just as
liable to fall into evil habits.
We assume that age is state OF
perfection, but the truth is that 1t is |
only too often a time of utter selfln. |
diligence and selfishness, and that is |
why old people are so often an afflic. |
ton 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, anu |
not for the prospective requests in |
our viii, should recognize the faults /
that beset age and try to guard against |
them. f. = T."
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 must SOW
his wild oats, says the drunken round |
er. Old people have q right to their |
ways, declare the fossils who make |
martyrs of their families and block |
public progress. Neither excuse ex-
cHses, but youth, at least, admits its
fault, while age accounts its weakness
unto itself fer virtue.
Why then should We not guard
rfIrealvas against fho foundations of 1
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 II is so easy to de,
generate into the stocking feet and no
corsets state of ease at home, and
from that the descent into the it