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Show Family Weekly December 10, 1967 How to Grow Old and Dice It It's great tc be dive, says r this noted author, and to those who i to enjoy their advancing years, she offers AT A banquet honoring his 85th birth-Ada- y, the late Somerset Maugham, following an evening of tributes and encomiums, advanced to the podium.. "Ladies and gentlemen," he began, "thank you for your inspiring celebration of my birthday. Let me say that old age has its compensations ..." Here he paused, but at such length that unease began to spread through the banquet halL Was the occasion proving too much for the old, gentleman? Was he ill or panicked? The stepped protectively to his side. "I was just wondering," proceeded Maugham at long last, "what those compensations are." Pshaw, Mr. Maugham, your witty tongue must have been in your cheek. You were exciting and full of the compensations of age even after the years had begun to gnaw at you physically. I feel that it's good to be alive, and I'm sure that Mr. Maugham had the very same feeling. It is so good to be alive that most of us will go to any length to stay that way, even those of us to whom life has not been so kind. though we may be, Godfearing or this life on earth is the only life we know. Faith notwithstanding, kings and peasants alike are reluctant to die.. But just how old is old? Is it as old as your arteries or your state of mind? Industry settles it dogmatically 65 is old. Step aside, ladies and gentlemen, into retirement! For further information, any Insurance company will chart (beware supply you with a of that phrase "life expectancy") free of charge, and a prognosis of the number of years remaining to you, as adjudicated by statisticians. Indeed, these mathematicians must be kept jumping ' these days, as man's life expectancy promises to extend to 70, and ultimately, much beyond. About when do the problems of happy longevity set in? Remember how full of years your mother seemed when you were seven and she was 27? Then, when you were 27, you referred to your r neighbor, aged 66, as "old man Brown." Comes your own 65th birthday, and you join a national movement protesting 65 as too young to be the pronounced age of retirement True, we begin to die the hour we are born, and 70 has long been accepted as the maximum number of years we are alloted in this interlude A - 4 Family Weekly, December 10, 1967 . . -- M -- i it poverty-depresse- d, long-tim- wolf-whistl- . cy . tion courses in high schools, colleges, and universities attest to the need and demand for them. subDaytime and evening courses in jects are offered free or at nominal fees. Simultaneously, millions of American men begin to shudder away from the onrush of their 1m1li ll it . f MML tlim il 65th year, their age of retirement, and to shy vt UTVf oral fwn mr away from the beginning of the decline and fall of the physical and mental vitality that too often accompanies the cessation of lifelong 9 to 5 known as life. But with science working feverishly routine of work. at increasing longevity, even the Bible may have when How does one live longer and like to be annotated. relegated to the side lines? But why like it on It is truly remarkable that in this frenetic those terms? Oppose it by packing as many new age of child counseling, marriage counseling, interests into postretirement days as you have and that, counseling been obliged by industry's dicta to discard. counseling is conThere is a great big, disorganized, war-tor-n spicuously absent from the scene. world of displaced persons, deprived youngsters, If ever there was an era hysterically dedicated to the aggrandisement of youth, we are in it disadvantaged masses needing e as from you you step way of your Ladies, what are your criteria for living longer t life can be the vacuum of retirement, and liking it? When the still follow unless you watch that step. you down the Btreet? When your hair still takes to dye? When your body still feels lithe? Correspondingly, an opposite number of wives One of the major industries of the world, cos- - " And themselves confronted with the disaster of an aimless man around the house Golf, garden- metics, has been created to combat your crow's feet sagging chins," graying hair, and drying uig, cruaawuru puzzies, inventory wi uwi uuic skin. Those of you who can afford it can even stack of municipal bonds, or peeling potatoes for have your faces "lifted" and telltale areas of the the wife can hardly substitute for the executive office life he has known over the years. march of time tucked up under your hairdo. Millions of American women, expensively batl ms is not solely the male s problem. Kotn men middle-age with the and women, displaced for one reason or another, tling bulge, spread, graying stand an increasing chance of living longer but hair, and arthritic limbs are concentrating on the human envelope. All the time, however, the :will they like it? basic answer to their dilemma, how to live longer Obviously, not everyone will. Scenes like these and like lurks within themselves. I am by no are all too common a man out for an afternoon means underestimating the magnitude of the Btroll without apparent destination; a problems confronting the more mature woman in widow, pensioned and with $25,000 from her late this age of the supremacy of youth. husband's life insurance, sitting in a hotel lobby Displaced by retirement widowhood, and the droning her time away ; a displaced man on a nest children from the of of the home, departure park bench, watching life go by; a retired schoolteacher dozing through the second run of a leaving her unneeded, the mature woman faces ' dreary Western movie. her own set of problems physical, social, and economic These heavy boulders in the road do Don't let growing old affect you in that way. not necessarily preclude detours around them. It needn't e Part- - or jobs for women of maturity True, in health can be (but not necessarily so) . are not only available but actually in demand: tne legacy of age. Infirmities are worth fighting. salesladies, hospital "Gray Ladies," receptionists, Eyes and ears have a stubborn habit of wearing read - out prematurely, but cataracts are operable and baby sitters, companions to the era in veterans' hospitals, floor receptionists in hearing aids commonplace. A wonderful therapy high-ris- e hotels.. independent of medicine, which is all too often The nationwide development of overlooked and need not wear out before the span By FANNIE HURST God-lovi-ng , a bit of sound advice: think young far-flu- ng toast-mast- er next-doo- are failing into-wha- es it - . full-tim- chair-ridde- n, adult-educa- -- |