SENIOR MUSE
May is Older Americans Month (fka Senior Citizens Month). Back in 1963, when the month was established, I was “a young man full of idealism and vigor” (as Barack Obama joked recently at the White House in a different context), a year out of the army with the rest of my life ahead of me. Now here it is 2016, some 53 years later, and I still have the rest of my life ahead of me. Amazing.
So much for the glass-half-full outlook. In the other hand, the glass is half-empty:
COME TO THINK OF IT
Old age is a sad estate.
With it comes wisdom,
But it comes so late.
Now recall innocent youth.
Ignorance was bliss,
But less than truth.
Why can’t life be in reverse:
Born knowing the score,
Blameless in the hearse?
The old joke about old age is that there’s not much future in it. Maybe so, but I like to think ‘outside the box.’ One thing for sure: Old age is no place for sissies. –Bette Davis
Well, never let it be said that this blog is no place for good quotes. Most of the following goodies aren’t funny, but then, old age isn’t exactly a barrel of laughs either. So, until further adieu:
Old age isn’t so bad when you consider the alternative. –Maurice Chevalier
Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that can happen to a man. –James Thurber
A stockbroker urged me to buy a stock that would triple its value every year. I told him, “At my age, I don’t even buy green bananas.” –Claude Pepper
Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late. –Benjamin Franklin
Forty is the old age of youth; fifty the youth of old age. –Victor Hugo
There’s no such thing as old age; there is only sorrow. –Fay Weldon
Whatever poet, orator or sage may say of it, old age is still old age. –Sinclair Lewis
A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity, and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight. –Robertson Davies
Not even old age knows how to love death. –Sophocles
By the time you’re 80 years old you’ve learned everything. You only have to remember it. –George Burns (who, in case you forgot, lived to age 100)
And now for the BIG (double) FINISH:
Cynthia Jobin 12:34 am on May 5, 2016 Permalink |
I enjoyed listening to both renditions of the Farewell Blues.
I like Mark Twain’s take on the fear of death: — ‘I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience…’
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mistermuse 7:33 am on May 5, 2016 Permalink |
Thank you, Cynthia. I hadn’t read that Mark Twain quote before (or, if I did, I forgot it in my old age). 🙂
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eths 1:45 am on May 5, 2016 Permalink |
Losing a son last year made me look at my life differently. I feel really lucky to be 81 and in good health and to look forward to each day, particularly now that I’ve found the blogging world.
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mistermuse 7:48 am on May 5, 2016 Permalink |
I can empathize, as I lost my only sister this year. As for your blog, I read it (ir)religiously and I look forward to it each day — or at least each year (just kidding – I wholly recommend it). 🙂
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eths 5:46 pm on May 5, 2016 Permalink
I am sorry about your sister. I hope you are doing well.
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ladysighs 7:43 am on May 5, 2016 Permalink |
Thank you for informing me that May is Old Age Month. I think. 😦
One of those things I’d rather not think about, but now that I know about it I can’t stop thinking about it.
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mistermuse 8:10 am on May 5, 2016 Permalink |
Ladysighs, I’d apologize, but I’d like to think this post inspired your excellent blog post today along the same lines (I’m sure you wrote yours before you saw mine, but that’s just a minor detail). 🙂
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arekhill1 2:47 pm on May 5, 2016 Permalink |
Old or young, keep in mind the words of the philosopher–“Nobody gets out of life alive.”
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mistermuse 6:11 pm on May 5, 2016 Permalink |
Some people are lucky to get INTO it alive….which seems ironic, when you consider that none of us asked to be conceived, much less born. To paraphrase Rick (Humphrey Bogart) in Casablanca: It seems that fate takes a hand.
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Carmen 6:56 am on May 6, 2016 Permalink |
mister use-
I get that comment from a few of my students when they realize I’m the same age as their grandmothers. They’ll blurt out, “You’re OLD!!” I always come back with, “Compared to whom?”
It’s all relative. . 🙂
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mistermuse 7:10 am on May 6, 2016 Permalink |
It’s all relative until we kick the bucket….and then it’s all relatives (at the funeral). 🙂
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Don Frankel 5:29 am on May 7, 2016 Permalink |
I swore I commented on this but then maybe I just came into the room where I have the computer and stared at the screen and forgot why I went into this room. What’s this post about again?
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mistermuse 8:34 am on May 7, 2016 Permalink |
Welcome to the club, Don. It’s the only club I know of where, once you’re in, there’s only one way out. 😦
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Carmen 8:49 am on May 7, 2016 Permalink
Methinks you two exaggerate. . .there’s lots of mustard left to cut with the pair of you! 😉
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mistermuse 9:20 am on May 7, 2016 Permalink |
Carmen, your comment cuts the mustard, whether we exaggerate or not. 🙂
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blindzanygirl 12:17 am on May 6, 2020 Permalink |
Love those quotes mistermuse. Looks like I have dug right back into your blog. But it was worth it!
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mistermuse 12:48 am on May 6, 2020 Permalink |
To think that when I wrote this post, Trump wasn’t even the Republican nominee for U.S. President yet. They say time flies when you’re having fun, but judging by the past 3 1/2 years, time flies even when you’re not having fun.
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blindzanygirl 12:50 am on May 6, 2020 Permalink
Lol mistermuse. True!
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