I saw Rita Moreno, 83, in the newspaper this morning, and I realize that I may not be attractive again until I'm in my eighties. Seventy is an awkward age--past the age of youth but not deep enough into old age for acceptance and adoration.
Then I thought of that exchange from Barefoot in the Park, which I just looked up:
Once a month I try to make pretty young girls nervous just to keep
my ego from going out. I'll save you a lot of
anguish. I'm 5 years old and a thoroughly nice fellow.
Well, I'm glad to hear that.
I wish I were ten years
older.
Older?
Dirty old men seem to get away with a lot more. I'm still at the awkward age.
The
version I found took out his age, but I looked it up! This character, Valesco, is 58!!!! He wishes that he were 68--a year younger than I
am now. But Neil Simon, born in 1927, was only 36 in 1963 when he
wrote this play. To him 68 seemed like what eighty really is! Maybe
now, at 88, Neil Simon is old enough to "get away with a lot more."
Blog: 70 as Old Age
in Vendela Vida's The Driver's Clothes Lie Empty
Following up
on yesterday's blog, I want to write a snail-mail letter to Djamila, the now-a-grandmother
student I taught in Algeria when she was fifteen and whose brother--I found out
yesterday-- died just three months after her mother. Also, my wonderful
octogenarian friend and YMCA co-worker-outer Fran is expecting me at 9:00 so we
can take a walk to substitute for the exercise the Stonestown Y isn't offering
this week, their second week of innovation.
But I have to
share the passage from Vendela Vida's The
Diver's Clothes Lie Empty that
I first heard on Audible books, which prompted me to buy it in print.
It's on page 132:
...you will
know. you will have existed. You will have proof that you were
here.
You are
picturing yourself at seventy, looking back on your youth. You will remember
that you were young once, that you were thirty-three...
More (life and
aging) later.
Add Chekhov's short story Rothschild's violin: “Jacob…was taller and stronger than anyone…though
now seventy years old.
“Ah well, the old woman’s lived her life,praise the
Lord. How old is she?”
“Seventy come next year, guv’nor.”
“Ah well, her life’s over.
Time she was on her way.”
Simon and Garfunkle
Can you imagine us
Years from today
Sharing a park bench quietly?
How terribly strange
To be seventy
From Fredrick Bachman's Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She's Sorry
”Granny is seventy-seven years old...You can tell she's
old because her face looks like newspapers stuffed into wet shoes."
From January 2018:
I continue to collect allusions to 70 as old
age, and here's one that goes a bit beyond 70 to 78: "Granny is
seventy-seven years old...You can tell she's old because her face looks like
newspapers stuffed into wet shoes."
Newspapers stuffed into wet shoes? I have
only six years to go?
Didn't we come across to a reference to 70 in A
Christmas Carol? Was it "...a gray-haired rascal, nearly seventy
years of age...?
I can't find my collection, so I've re-created
it with a file here and there. I'm attaching it because it's so
important!
As of August 8, 2020
From the Examiner
71-year-old
woman among 4 seniors robbed in SF over single day
- MICHAEL BARBA
- Jul. 29, 2020 11:04 a.m.
A 71-year-old woman who was knocked over by a teenage purse
snatcher near Stonestown Galleria on Tuesday was just one of four seniors
robbed in San Francisco over the course of the day, according to police.
The elderly woman had her wallet and phone taken when the
16-year-old suspect grabbed her purse and pushed her down near Buckingham Way
and Winston Drive at around 3:30 p.m., police said.
From Justine:
On p 107, there's reference to Scobie
"getting on for seventy" - another to add to your inventory
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