The Coolidge examiner., 1932-08-19

young men ana women were
twitting around him, that the atti-
tude of these younger people to-
ward him would have amounted in
words, to something like this: You
wonderful old man! Elghty-eight
years of age and in your right mind
and apparently with your wits still
about you. We think you're won
derful. We reverence you for not
being something that has broken
down and needs to be swept up in
the dust-pan.
That was precisely, come to an
alyze it, the way the world behaved.
Isn't he wonderful Look how spry
he is. Senator, are you going to
dance? Catch him mapping If you
can! Want to know the youngest
man in this crowd? Meet the Sen
atOr!
Exhibit A. Meet the Senator!
Out of question to be treated In
a way that was not special and de
ferential to his great age. How elab-
crate everybody was in manner to-
ward him.
And how elaborately. If you were
eighty-eight and spry, you tried to
keep up the hallucination of youth.
Senator, don't you ever sleep?
Nonsense, l leave it to you young
sters to need sleep. I'm never tired.
Never tired Sometimes 1t seemed
to the Senator, as he climbed into
his evening clothes, that the old
bones would sag in a heap under
him and veritably need to be swept
up in a dust-pan by a servant in the
morning. Never tired Sometimes
at dinner, surrounded by his chill
dren, grandchildren, guests, 1t
seemed to him that the room began
TO wave and the faces blur and the
lights to dim. But only for a sec
ond. Can't be caught mapping. What
was that you were saying? Bridge.
Yes, little later, but i want to
dance first. You young ones are too
set in your ways.
Isn't he wonderful! Can't keep
up with him. If ! have his pep at
fifty, I'll be lucky. Grandfather, this
is my dance. Come, that's a swell
blackbottom.
They stood on the side lines and
applauded and just for good meas
ure you gave them the double dip
and the hotsie totsyi No doubt
about 1t. the way to feel young was
to act young. Lovely 1.-the grand
child in your arms. or often as not,
somebody else's grandchild. 1t kept
you alive and going out of the doc
tors clutches TO dress every night
for dinner; dance, cards or theater.
Keep you on tiptoe. too, to force your
memory to be well oiled and your
wits nimble. None of the garrulous-
ness or forgetfulness or repetitIous-
ness of age for the Senator. The
mind has to be treated like a fire
horse, in fine fettle. Nimble. Re
sponsive. Fleet.
Many and many time, when he
felt memory slipping, the trick was
to discipline 1t. Never forget
name. Sign of bad memory. All
right In the young, but sign OF de-
cay in age. Never repeat yourself.
Sign of senility. Never doze in
chair. Never register surprise at
the new youth. Reminisce but sell
dom. Keep apace with current
events, and compare them favor
ably, If at all, with the good old
days"
1t was strange loneliness, being
eighty-eight. Crowds of progeny and
adoring youth about one. but all
the real people one had known ly-
ing in those minaret cities called
cemeteries. Practically the entire
universe with whom the Senator
had been young, and with whom he
had grown into ripe age, had folded
its hands and closed its eyes. Even
the contemporary old people were
Of a generation younger than he.
Eighty-eight gave you an isolation
beyond the explaining. You were of
one world and you had to pretend
that you were of another. And yet
1t kept you young. Oh, yes, it kept
you young.
The curious part of 1t all, al
though you could never explain that,
because there was no one left liv-
ing who could understand, was that
It was easy to be reckless with what
was left of life, because the idea
of death had become so simple.
Nothing much to dread. On the con-
trary. a vast and beautiful reunion
to contemplate. Another fantastic
aspect OF this was that so many
who were dead belonged also to the
youngsters. Men and women, doz-
ems of them who had died In their
forties and fifties and even sixties
would be as young to the Senator
in death, when the time came for
the reunion, as they had been in
life.