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Show Family Weekly/March 9, 1969 The Tragedy Behind Today’s Author of “Only in America,” “For 2¢ Plain,” and his autobiography “The Right Time,” to be published next month HEN Harvey Haddix of the Pittsburgh Pirates pitched 12 perfect innings against the Milwaukee Braves some years ago, it was big news not because he lost in the 13th inning—but because Harvey was 33 yearsold. I had a friend whose sole ambition was to become the youngest memberof Congress. Well, he not only didn’t win the election, he didn’t even win the nomination. Now he’s campaigning again, and his theme is that we need “experience,” “calm wisdom,” and “moderation,” all of which he suddenly developed when he passed 35. Twice now he has trapped himself by his own myth—the myth of age. The real iron curtain is the age curtain separating the young from the middle-aged and the middleaged from the old and the old from the young—a curtain composed largely of myths. Part of my inspiration comes out of the realization that I, although pushing 66, still deliver more than 30 lectures a year at variouscolleges. I get no veneration because of myage. It is not as easy as it sounds. In one Southern university, for example, a group kept heckling me. “What's a northern Jew like you doing telling us Southerners about our way of life?” they kept asking. Finally, I barked, “I'll tell you what I’m doing down here. I’m trying to establish a Jewish fraternity to preserve the Christian ethic.” A great majority of the students laughed loudly and applauded me. At a girl’s college I asked several of the students whether there was any relationship between the academic revolution and the sex- 4 Family Weekly, March 9, 1969 ual revolution. One of the girls pursed her lips and said, “The C-minus students are interested in the academic revolution. The boys who wantto be doctors, physicists, or engineers are interested in the sexual revolution. The Phi Beta Kappas always mean business.” Students do not always regard me as antique. But when we talk later, they do sc regard their fathers that way. I do not want to take up cudgels solely for the old. We practice dreadful irequities among the young.I think of all the graduateschool deans dashing recklessly about now that the draft boards are instructed no longer to issue deferments to graduate students. There are cities in this country built specifically for the old. When the residents leave their hotels and rooming houses in the morning, their first topic of conversation always is the success of the morning’s bowel movement. They will discuss this until noon: “I takefigs every night” or “My doc- Whole communities have been built around the myth that the old can’t live with the young. tor in Des Moines gave me something, and I have written him a letter telling him he should patent it—it is so wonderful.” This is typical of the many retirement centers in Arizona and Florida where the aged live, where the newspapers run 12 pages of obituaries, where the streets are all ramped, where benches proliferate steadily. Thisis what we do with the aged: we shove them into this incubator where they live vegetablelike for the small joys of isolated life, fretting about all the annoyances of the day. “My daughter-in-law hates me and keeps me from seeing the children,” is a remark you might hear more than once in any of theircities. They spend their lives looking out of the window—their daily post as soon as they awaken. The mail often is the big event of the day. Then they will run to the mailbox and takeletters not addressed to them, which they will not openbut hold forthe vicarious and momentary thrill of possession and for the joy of saying, “Mrs. Smith, I have a letter that came for you.” This enforced isolation often brings about sad change. Some of the old in these retirement centers are terribly worried about children and dogs. Both mean noise. They investigate carefully before they rent or buy to make sure there are no children and no dogs on the block. An empty house or apartment is cause for deep concern (“We may get someone with children.”). The happily giggling child is an object of hostility as though they object to his youth and would deprivehim ofit. There are clubs for them based on point of origin, the Iowa Club, the Maine Club, the New Jersey Club. They hold singing contests after the Saturday-night lecture on “The Salt-Free Diet.” Each club concentrates on songs like “My Wild Irish Rose,” and “Let MeCall You Sweetheart.” PRES 20 SEE INAS By HARRY GOLDEN Weare a nation of age myths, says this famous” young andold from = |