By Vern Holmquist
Old age, I don’t recommend it to any one. Oh, we all want to live long lives, but I believe there is a big difference between survival and living. Survival by itself is not that desirable. Living to me is when you can look at a flower and see the beauty in it. That’s what it is there for. Or to enjoy beautiful music. You might have to dig through a big pile of rock and roll to find it, but there’s still some out there.
Living is when you can still smile back when a child smiles at you. Living is when you can feel the beat and have the desire to dance even if you can’t get up and do the dance. Living is when you can look at a great piece of art or hear a sad story and can shed a little tear. Live every day of your life.
Now as to old age, I’ll be 94 in a few weeks so I can talk from experience. Can’t turn back the clock and we have to accept the fact human parts simply wear out. Seeing and hearing become more impaired. Our motor parts don’t get us around as well, and even our skin wears out, gets thinner. Yes, we simply start to shut down, we just don’t give up.
There are ways, not to forget growing old, but to compensate. We have memories and can sort the good ones from the bad. And if we look back, the bad ones may not be as bad as we thought at the time they occurred. We can look back at some stupid things we did and have a good laugh at ourselves and remember, above all, tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
We have a lot of good things to look forward to… Homer Days, the arts festival, Sidewalk Shindig, new crops and Oktoberfest, the celebration of harvest. I’d better end this and get out of my chair. The padding on my butt is not what it used to be. Don’t cry for me, Argentina.
