Sunday, June 24, 2007 Mercado: Read bumper stickers? By Juan L. Mercado Sidebar
“OFFICIAL projections say that the number of Filipino elderly will surge to nine million in three years,” I e-mailed a demographer friend. “What does that imply?”
Instead of a professorial note, she sent car stickers. "Share with friends who're also showing signs of wear and tear,” she scribbled on a covering note. Here they are:
No. 2: "I was at the beauty shop for two hours. And that was only for the estimate."
No. 3: "It's nice to be here. At my age, it's nice to be anywhere."
No. 4. "Quit worrying about your health. It will go away."
No. 5: “My mind not only wanders. It sometimes leaves completely.”
No. 6: "At my age, flowers scare me."
No. 7: "I'm so old all my friends in heaven think I didn't make it."
No. 8: "Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live."
No. 9. "Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again."
No. 10: “It’s not that I’m afraid to die. I just don’t want to be there when it happen.”
No. 11: “If I had known I’d live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself.”
And the last one read: "Just Married---55 Years."
The stickers remind one of what President Clinton calls: “junior-seniors.” Some prefer that to the Washington Post’s “almost old” euphemism. In 1978, Associated Press first used “near-elderly.”
But what about middle age? “That’s when your classmates are so old and bald, they don’t recognize you,” comedian Bennet Cerf said.
Yes. But when does it kick in? After all “one of the hardest decisions in life is when to start middle age,” Joan Rivers thinks. Bob Hope knew just exactly when: “Middle age is when your age starts to show around your middle.”
Political convictions shape middle-age. “Any man under 30, who is not a liberal, has no heart,” Winston Churchill asserts. “Any man over 30 who is not a conservative has no brains.”
Ronald Reagan equated it with curfew: “You face two temptations in middle age. And you choose the one that’ll get you home by 9 p.m.”
Are women more sensitive about age than men? New York Times’ William Safire found that women bridle at being called “no spring chicken.” They prefer “a certain age.” But men will settle for “mature.”
In fact, “30 is a nice age for a woman, specially if she’s 40,” Phyllis Dyler wrote. But Writer Erica Jong was forthright: “Let me put the record straight. I am 46 and have been for some years past.” Enough, snapped Irish writer Shelahg Delaney: “Women never have young minds. They were born 3,000 years old.”
Many stay young, even in the sunset of life.
“Oh to be 70 again,” France’s Georges Clemenceau sighed on seeing pretty students trip by. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes started to study Greek at 84. And at 87, former Senate President Jovito Salonga comments lucidly on affairs of state.
Indeed, "when our memories outweigh our dreams, we have grown old.”
There’s a glut of rules on how to stay young. The physically active elderly will live longer than “TV couch counterparts,” says the American Medical Association’s Journal. So, exercise and eat right. Don't smoke or booze. Never stop working or retire, as that’ll shove you downhill.
Keep active mentally and physically. Regular activity translates to longer life spans, says a six-year study of 302 volunteers aged 70 to 82 years by the US National Institute on Aging. And don’t postpone that check up by your doctor.
When all is said and done, age remains a question of mind over matter. “If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” And if that doesn’t work, then use the Bob Hope formula for eternal youth: “Lie about your age.”
