All Blog Posts Tagged 'aging' (6)

Mature Females, Wise Women, and Little Old Ladies

I'm scheduled to be profiled this week in Sylvia Dickey Smith's column in the EXAMINER. She's invited women of a certain age to comment on how maturity makes them better writers. Of course I jumped in on that one, but I have to admit that simply aging doesn't make anyone better at anything. I know people who, as they age, hang on harder and harder to things that interfere with improvement. First is youth. The more a person tries to hold onto it, the harder he or she has to work at it. This wast… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on September 1, 2009 at 10:53pm — 2 Comments

Football, You Bet!

I confess, I'm a fan of football, maybe even a fanatic, the derivation of the slightly less connotative word. First is comes the NFL. I actually become depressed when the season ends. Next come college games, where I don't care so much who wins but I watch anyway. I've even been known to watch arena football and other crazy offshoots. This has gone on for years, and lately I've noticed some interesting things. These days I enjoy games where I don't really care who wins. Where once it was the jo… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on November 28, 2008 at 10:35pm — No Comments

Old Dogs & New Tricks

Current wisdom says that we must keep learning or lose brain power. Where a few years ago they were teaching that the aging brain was like cement, hardening to unchangable, now advisers recommend learning new things to fend off the zombie-like conditions we see in nursing homes. It isn't enough to learn to play golf better; you have to learn to play something altogether new. At a time when a lot of us have the leisure to do the things we like, we're supposed to leave our comfort zones and tread… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on September 18, 2008 at 8:44pm — No Comments

That Crazy Generation Gap

Someone posted to a group that he quoted the line "Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun" to his agent. The agent looked confused, so he explained, "It's a line from Noel Coward." The agent said, "Who?" It's another age thing. We find that people we have to deal with every day are so much younger than we that they don't understand us, and vice versa. I've learned to nod when people say things like, "You know, like the dress Eva Longoria wore to that award show." Counterproductive to… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on September 10, 2008 at 10:15pm — No Comments

Choosing the Day You Die

You don't get to; at least most of us don't. There's no "off" switch that you can hit when you've had enough. Juliet says "If all else fail, myself have power to die," and she means it. Most of us are more Hamlet than Juliet, and "conscience does make cowards of us all." Aging is a process of accepting what you can't do and what you will accept as you wait for the end of life. How much does your knee or hip or shoulder have to hurt before you let someone slice it open and replace your parts wit… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on September 8, 2008 at 10:18pm — No Comments

The Young vs the Old

I'm not sure when I began thinking of myself as old. Retirement certainly contributes, and people asking what it's like in that tone of "You're done being useful, so what do you do now to occupy the time until you die?" Salespeople calling me "ma'am" instead of "miss" was a big clue. And a group of elementary school kids I worked with recently pronounced me Grandma, even though I haven't yet earned that title. So yeah, I guess I'm in the "old" category if we're choosing up sides. What's sad is… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on September 2, 2008 at 10:55pm — No Comments