Age Can Play Queer Tricks on One's Mental Processes

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

of the Minneapolis Tribune editorial page staff

published by the StarTribune

date unknown; probably 1952-1954

   NOBODY can put his finger on the day when time began catching up with him.  Nobody can say that "yesterday I was young but today I am old."  Some folks are old at 40 and some are young at 60.  I am mired somewhere between and, if memory serves, have been "getting along" for quite a spell.

   A fellow becomes aware that youth is behind him when he stops being kittenish with the ladies, when he quits tripping lightly upstairs, when he knows that a job can wait, that nothing need be done "right this minute."

   I do not go to bed anymore and die for eight hours.  I toss and turn and get fits of insomnia and wonder why I ate the fried onions.  The weight of the covers is burdensome to the toes.  The corns scream. The mattress is too soft and the pillow too hard and the room is too hot or too cold.

   A man is on the far side of the hill when, as I do, he prefers home to going out on the town.  It takes stern distaff persuasion even to get me to a movie.  I like home cooking and home loafing--and home.

   THEY SAY that if you want to stay young you should get interested in something.  You should develop hobbies such as gardening or woodcraft.  That may be but there are some things even worse than old age.  If petunia culture or cabinetmaking is the way to youth, I'll just keep on resting.

   It isn't so much what age does to one's looks that frightens me.  You cannot judge age by appearance.  Some grey-heads are young and alert and so are others who sport bay-windows and are well into the molting process.

   WHAT GIVES me the creeps is time's erosion of the brain.  I confess that the only difference between me and an absent-minded professor is that I'm not a professor.  I walk into places and forget why I'm there.  I start shaving and can't find my razor.  I can't find the car keys because they're in the other pants.  I drive off to a show without the tickets.

   My wife will say when I get home , "Hurry up and dress.  We haven't much time."  When I ask why we are short of time this particular evening she will say, "For Pete's sake!  Don't you remember we're meeting Joe and Gracey downtown for dinner?"  Then I recall that we've gone over all this at breakfast and hang my head in shame.

   Now I've quit asking questions.  Every time I do I run into one of these fast ones.  When my wife reminds me that I've promised to get home by 5:30 it's usually news to me.  But I say "Oh, sure," automatically.  It saves humiliation.

   IT BECAME clear a few years back that the contracting veins were shutting off the blood flow to the cerebrum.  An incident occurred which gives me the shudders even yet.

   My brother-in-law was here briefly en route to Kansas City and wondered if he could get a plane out.  I found that one was leaving in 30 minutes and rushed out with his suitcase to the garage.  I put down the luggage, flung open the door--and backed the car over the suitcase.  The thing split open like a melon, littering the driveway with shirts, pajamas, socks and toiletries and leaving me nonplussed and aghast.

   You do not bounce back from such an experience overnight.  You never quite do.  For a time I feared I'd blown my stack.  I wallowed in self-analysis.  I told myself that it was a phase that would pass. But the mental lapses have continued and each one opens the old wound.  My dreams are tormented by shattered suitcases.

   THE OTHER evening after dinner my wife was putting on her coat and I asked her where she was going before I realized I shouldn't.  She gave me that incredulous glance and it broke me down.

   "Look," I cried, "this bothers me more than it does you.  I can't help it, I tell you!"

   "What in the world are you talking about?" she asked.  "What bothers you?"

   I told her not remembering things bothered me, not being aware of what was going on bothered me. "I," I said , "am getting old."

   "Don't be silly," she said.  "What makes you think you're getting old?"

   I said I'd just told her.

   "Because you don't listen when I'm talking?  Because you forget to buy the stamps or stop at the grocery store for the eggs?  Because you put the empty bottles in the refrigerator and leave the milk on the porch?"

   Then she said something I thought was rather sweet.  "Why, that doesn't mean you're getting old. You've always been that way."

Copyright 2013 StarTribune.  Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune.  No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune.

Christmas Traditions Are Worth Preserving

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

of the editorial page staff

published by the StarTribune

December 8, 1956

   CHRISTMAS is a time of memory and tradition as much as a time of giving, receiving and feasting.  Who cannot look nostalgically back at Christmases past which, though thin in material things, will always be remembered?  Some of those I best recall were during the depression, when there wasn't much sense in Santa bothering to make the trip.

   For Christmas to be good, traditions must be kept.  Even those that bring temporary agony assume a rosy hue in retrospect and become part of the Christmas lore.

   I AM ALWAYS reluctant to plunge into the marts of trade and get my shopping done.  Neither am I wild about buying the tree.  But the tougher the job at the time the longer it lives in the mind.

   Traditionally I delay my buying until a week before Christmas.  It would seem a violation of my holiday code to do otherwise.  In keeping with tradition, I do not know what my wife wants, although, according to her, she has dropped innumerable hints.

   So I grope through forests of negligee, feeling like a peeping Tom, through mountains of crockery and silverware and luggage, through mazes of blankets and jewelry and electrical labor-savers.  Such tours can be rewarding.  Sometimes you see something that brings awakening.  By George, she did say something about a steam iron, or a musical jewel box or a candelabra--and there one is!

   But usually confusion mounts as the tour progresses and I shoot from the hip, wishing profoundly the while that she would settle for a gift certificate or a check, buy what she wanted herself and relieve me of a task too big.  But she is right in insisting that the gift be bought by me.  The experience stores up Yuletide memories.

   TO MAKE purchase of the tree something that will stick with you forever, never buy one on a pleasant day.  Wait until the temperature is around zero.  If a stiff wind is blowing, so much the better.

   Do not settle beforehand the question of whether your choice should be a spruce, balsam or pine.  Talk this over at the lot while trying to keep your hat on and your nose dry.  "Wasn't it a spruce we had four years ago that shed all its needles while we were  putting on the tinsel?"  No, you say, stamping your feet to stir up the blood at the risk of snapping off a toe, you think it was a balsam.

   "How about going to that lot we passed yesterday, like I wanted to do in the first place?"

   Sure.  Go to a half dozen lots.  You haven't suffered near enough yet.  Then return to the lot you went to originally to get the tree you saw first--which, in the meantime, has been  sold..

   The tree we had that I remember best looked  like something salvaged from an avalanche,  but I can see it still, after 12 years,  because I lugged it home from a lot eight blocks away, freezing hands, feet and nose while so doing.  Such torture keeps Christmas forever green.

   ONE OF  the most cherished traditions concerns Christmas cards.   What would the  holidays be  without them?  The thing to do is to hit upon a clever idea during midsummer,  one around which you  can build a meaningful card, and go to work on it in early fall like everyone else.  A couple of weeks before Christmas have the cards addressed and ready to mail.  You then avoid the last-minute scramble that profanes the spirit of the season.

    For us this would run completely counter to tradition.  Two weeks before Christmas the only idea we   have is that it's high time we got going. Then, after the cards are at hand, we cannot find last year's list, on

which we had  painstakingly noted changes of address and which we were going to card-index.
   When the document finally is resurrected from a jungle of cancelled checks and income tax data, the  deadline is breathing down our necks.  We are compelled to stay up two or three successive nights, fighting fatigue and temper while penning gladsome personal messages to beef up the printed and rather impersonal "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year."

   THE MAGIC of Christmas Eve holds us unfailingly in thrall.  There's a blaze in the fireplace.  The tree is lighted and the stockings hung.  The Christmas story is read and carols sung.  Then our son goes off to bed, the lucky lad.

   Bed for his parents is in some vague future.  Gifts my wife has secreted away are hauled out from closets and from under beds, gifts crying to be wrapped and tagged and arranged under the tree.  There are the stockings to fill, perhaps a sled or bike or wagon to get from the basement.

   Then, when the work is done, there must be time to sit a while by the fire and glow to the charm of the occasion, talk of other Christmases and surrender to the unfailing enchantment.

   You know then that Christmas, though fatiguing, is awfully good.

    

Copyright 2013 StarTribune.  Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune.  No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune.

How We Do Love to Keep Busy!

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

of the editorial page staff

published by the StarTribune

November 12, 1960

   BACK WHEN I was young, dumb and vigorous I walked faster than most pedestrians and took pride in my stride.  Now everyone walks faster than I do, even babes wearing heels so high they do well to stand up.

   I wonder more and more why everyone else is in such a hurry, why they are so intent and purposeful.  You'd think it was a sin to enjoy the passing scene and that strolling was only for lovers.

   TAKE A LOOK at the face of the crowd, especially now that we're getting into the Christmas shopping buzz.  It's downright grim.  The relaxed and unhurried are oddities.

   The other day I was wheezing toward the bank to make a deposit that would keep me honest and came face to face with a young lady who almost stopped me dead.  She lacked both beauty and dash but stood out like a beacon.

   She was smiling.  All alone and smiling.  Moving along at an easy pace and enjoying herself.  Maybe she was a country girl reveling in the city wonderland.  Or she might have been smart enough not to let time be her constant taskmaster, to know that life's success can't be measured in minutes saved and that a day crammed with "getting things done" isn't necessarily a day to cherish.

   THE OLDER I grow the less I can hurry and the less reason I see to try.  In a day of speed and production, when the gross national product is the measure of our worth, I grow increasingly anachronistic.

   We loafers and dreamers have about had it, I guess.  The hustler is the glory boy.  He's sure that if he ever stops hustling he's through, even though what he's hustling about may have no more social significance than a blocked punt.

   Since the body wasn't built for the emotional pressures now put on it, it's no accident that ulcers and heart attacks are on the march, with the nervous twitch keeping step; no accident that a lot of us are as sore beset as a do-it-yourself linoleum layer.

   WE ARE engulfed in a tide of time-saving.  What we do fast must be done faster.  Man could no more return to the lazy, livery stable yesterdays than he could live without computers, coffee and committees.  Nature didn't equip the poor fellow for the ride.  It decreed that he have some time for contemplation, time to ponder life's meaning, time from the office and briefcase.

   But we are so beholden to the "busy" bug we even make work of recreation.  A good vacation is more body-wrecker than rejuvenator, its merit based on the number of miles traveled.  Vacation at home and you're either broke or insane.  And we wear ourselves out trying to use all the leisure-time
 duffle that bulges the basement.

   If I live long enough to retire I'll hie to a quiet cove, if there are any quiet coves by then, watch birds--if there are birds to watch--and retire completely.  And should anyone advise me to develop a hobby to keep from going to pot, I'll tell him my hobby is repose--repose, and escape from bustle and clatter and the fret of care.

Copyright 2013 StarTribune.  Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune.  No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune.

Home From Office After 13-Day Pause for Repairs { icy pavement refused to bend }

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

of the Minneapolis Tribune editorial page staff

published by the StarTribune

January 21, 1952

   WELL, I finally got home from the office--on one leg. It was a tough, 13-day journey, with a side trip to St. Barnabus hospital consuming most of the time.  There I acquired a pair of crutches, a metal gizmo for the hip joint, and the assurance that in three months I'd be as good as ever.

   The hospital stay was made necessary when my posterior came into violent contact with Park avenue at Fifth street.  I went down a couple of days ahead of the Flying Enterprise, but with a bit less fanfare.  At any rate, something had to give and it turned out to be my carcass, not the pavement.

   A Good Samaritan in a Cadillac, in whose debt I shall forever be, took over from there.  He helped me into his car and headed for the repair shop, picking up my daughter en route.  She had been waiting for me to take her home.  Anxious to reassure her mother that my chances of living were good, she phoned home from the hospital.

   "Oh, he's all right," she said   "He just can't walk."

   I SPENT a couple of years on an x-ray table and then was put in "traction."  This is where they tuck you into bed with a pulley and a rope and suspend a weight from your foot.  There also was a trapeze overhead by which I could pull myself up and give the upper half of the old cadaver a measure of mobility.

   On the operation itself I can touch but lightly.  I know little more about it than if I hadn't been there.  I was dimly conscious of being wheeled into surgery in a high state of dopiness and not giving a hoot whether they put me back together or sawed me in two.

   Then the wife's voice was cutting through the fog, telling me the operation was finished.  I was sure she was crazy but lay an exploratory hand on my hip just to make certain.  It was bandaged.  I heaved a sigh of relief.  Well, the worst was over.

   But it wasn't.  Lying in bed for days on the flat of the back was worse.  And insomnia was definitely worse.  Sleep was impossible.  Every night was a month long.  The nurses, I'm sure, wished I would die.  Lower the head of the bed a little.  Raise it up.  Get me some fresh water.  Put another pillow under my knee, please.  Put a blanket on me.  Gad, now it's getting hot.  How about some more water?  And take off that blanket.

   AND SO ON AND ON through the witching hours.  Burning cigarets until the mouth tasted like a rabbit hutch, reading whodunits until the eyes smoked, perspiring and having chills, looking at the watch and praying for 6 o'clock to come, when you could get your wash water and start the new day.

   I never suspected the time would ever come when I hated a bed.  How nice it would be, I used to think, to spend a winter under the covers in blissful hibernation, wallowing in rest.

   Now I have put away such pining.  A bed, I find, can be a prison, a torture rack.  You grow to welcome the little distractions that take your mind off the thing.  Washing the teeth becomes fun.  Mowing the whiskers and combing the hair are high adventure.

   But hospital residence has its bright side, too.  The food I got was tasty and bountiful.  Every meal was a delight.  Your friends rally 'round.  They bear gifts to your bedside and tell you how well you're looking and you enjoy their lies.

   Comes then the happy day when you can ease yourself out of bed unaided and crutch down the corridor to the room of some fellow patient.  There you can speak freely about operations.  You have a captive audience.

   I SAVE THE BEST for the last--the nurses, and palpitate pleasantly as I ponder this phase of hospital tenure.  The gals who tended me were not only efficient, they were definitely on the side of pulchritude.  This was right down my alley.  I have ever saluted beauty and was prepared to do so again.  Though handicapped by an abbreviated nightie and an elastic bandage extending from hip to toe I set about spreading charm.

   One who is well along on the wrong side of 40 should have no illusions about his ability to charm a cutie half his age but I have never let this handicap divert me from the old college try.

   I plied the nurses with candy, nuts and other tidbits which my ever-loving wife kept in constant supply--maintaining a patter of conversation the while, and hoping for developments.  Honesty compels me to confess that the only development was on me.  I found myself going into emotional flaps every time one of the fairer angels of mercy rammed a thermometer into my face or took my pulse.

   I DO NOT GUESS that my better half was unduly concerned, or even aware, that I was playing Romeo in my feeble way.  The oldster can do little, anyway, but add to his supply of dream stuff and, if circumstance fans the graying embers of fancy a bit, it can make no real difference.  And nobody knows this better than the oldster's wife.

   I am crutching my way over the hill, I know.  But should the day ever come when badinage with a lovely blonde lacks stimulation, when the flashing smile of a red-head fails to stir the toothless wolf within me, I hope that I slip again on the ice and that this time I fall on my head.

Copyright 2013 StarTribune.  Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune.  No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune.