The McDowell times. [volume] (Keystone, W. Va.) 1904-1941, 1941-03-07
By KATHLEEN NORRIS

III 1l1C vi ClllllOol CNClY
- woman. 1t comes when
the children grow up, graduate
from college, depart to lives of
their own. And when at the
same time, youth and beauty
say an eternal good-by to her
mirror.
Oh, she's not old! She's forty,
or forty-two, or perhaps only
thirty-five or eight. But life sud
denly goes fiat for her. She
moves through the familiar do
mestic round duly. The daugh-
ter is away at school; Bill goes
off to the office; Jean faces a
long stupid day.
OF course she may go out to the
kitchen and talk meals with Carrie.
Cold beef and the broccoli and the
last eclair; that will be plenty of
lunch. The Nillers are coming to
dinner, so they must have something
nice. Carrie makes suggestions,
and Jean approves. She looks in the
hall closet; yes, there are cards and
scores. She telephones Ethel; is
Ethel going to the club? She looks
at the list of movies in the papers
and the radio programs; nothing
thrilling.
Papa lived to be seventy" thinks
Jean. Gam going to have thirty
wears more of thiS2p
Middle Age Has Its Joys Too
Now, middle-age has a job, just
as youth has. Good times and get
ting married and first homes and
first babies are all very well, but
they only belong to certain years of
life. You can't carry the thrills and
glamours of early wifehood, early
motherhood, into the forties and you
only make yourself ridiculous if you
try. But the forties have their own
satisfactions and joys if you will
take the trouble to find them, and
one of the most inspiring of them
all is a plan.
A plan for old age. And by old
age l mean the late Fifties, the
Sixties and the Seventies, which
don't seem like old age at all when
you get to them. They seem just
like-well, living, like any other
time of life. Comfort and friends
and mental security and even beau
ty mean as much to you as they ever
perhaps more. To be able to
do as you like at sixty is just as
pleasant as it is at twenty. To have
a small farm, dog or two, d
cat or two, flowers to train, friends
TO come I'm TO barbecue lunChoOns on
Sunday is to still be expressing your
own personality. just as you did as
young wife To travel when you
feel a great need to see the Cana
dian lakes or Mexico City, to send
friends preserves made of your own
fruit to pu'tcr about in the strip of
your own woods, to dress your white
hair as bccomingly as your darker
hair ever was dressed and to wear
the comfortable brocades and vel
vets becoming your age-all this is
very keen delight.
Plan Together.
And all tbs is especially delight
ful if you take the old partner of
your yu.u Jys and sorrows along
with Nul ]. ou want to put a thrill
into q marr &c, that has gone
little stale a. monotonous. try dis
Gus ms y0u plan with the man of
the house Co.. ght. Ask him where
and hoW hc would like 90 live when
you both got really old; farm, sea-
side, wuun.Hs2 How about chick
ems or SQUAD or raising fine kittens
or puppies How about having
your own atables, corn and let
tuce and tor toes? Thousands and
thousands OF miles have had their
own vegetable patch, their own Der
rics and fruit. and enjoyed the lux
urlcs Of the table for almost no out
lay at all How about cruising
around IN TIC car, now that the
weather is Getting warm, and just