Posts Tagged ‘National Buffet Day’
“…my age is as a lusty winter, / Frosty, but kindly…”*…
Aging is tough; Catherine Hiller offers a guide…
For some people, being old just comes naturally. They’ve acted old for years, and they know just what to do. They are the lucky ones—the “old souls,” if you will. For many others, being old just seems weird. They think, Really? How did I get here? What do I wear? How do I navigate this new geography?
This guide is expressly written for those who are bewildered by the face in the mirror and somehow think that 70 qualifies as middle-aged. These people need gentle guidance so that they, too, can enjoy the special perks of being old, beyond the senior discounts. This guide aims to help newcomers fit in with their cohort and enjoy their well-earned privileges.
At 79, I know something about old age, and I’ve compiled the following guidelines hoping they will empower you to enjoy your entitlements…
Read on for such useful tips as…
… Your health is vital to you, so it must be important to others as well. People want to hear about your ailments, even the minor ones, as well as all the cures you’ve ever tried. Your every test result is intriguing to your family and friends, so you should discuss the details. Oddly, the health problems of others are of little interest to you, unless they mirror your own…
… Everything really was better when you were young. Your mind tells you that every generation feels this way (including the Athenians in the Golden Age, 400 years BC), but your heart tells you that this time, you are actually right! You came of age in the Summer of Love, which lasted about a decade. There was joy in the air, and a sense of personal and social freedom. Humankind would progress. Everything would be better! Be sure to talk to your children and grandchildren constantly about what it was like when you were young, and how very much worse things are today.
Embrace your inner curmudgeon! You have every right to be cranky, because many things are difficult, and the news is always appalling. At this point, you’ve had many disappointments, and likely some physical problems as well. There’s no need to mute your general displeasure. Being old is the time to express it fully, forcefully and funnily. (At least you assume your tirades are amusing.)…
… Your clothing choices will be determined entirely by comfort. In this, you and other old people are in the fashion vanguard. Remember the “little old ladies in tennis shoes”? Well, who wears sneakers now? Only everyone, all the time! Celebrate your preference for flowing clothes in neutral colors. Turns out some of you have been “coastal grandmothers” long before it was a thing. For years you’ve been wearing pants with elastic waistbands or drawstrings, predating and predicting pandemic dressing, when everyone wore sweatpants. Turns out old people are the true fashionistas!…
More pearls at: “How to Be Old,” from @oldstermag.bsky.social.
* Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act II, Scene 3
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As we muse on maturity, we might note that today is National Buffet Day, an annual celebration of an occasion for the senescent to practice most of the advice Hiller gives in the piece featured above.
“Beans, Beans, the Musical Fruit”*…
Then remarkable Umberto Eco on his candidate for the most important innovation of the last millennium. After considering the stern mounted rudder, the horse shoe, the yoke, the improved plough, crop rotation, gunpowder, and other candidates, he nominates a humble but central development…
… But what I really want to talk about is beans, and not just beans but also peas and lentils. All these fruits of the earth are rich in vegetable proteins, as anyone who goes on a low-meat diet knows, for the nutritionist will be sure to insist that a nice dish of lentils or split peas has the nutritional value of a thick, juicy steak. Now the poor, in those remote Middle Ages, did not eat meat, unless they managed to raise a few chickens or engaged in poaching (the game of the forest was the property of the lords). And as I mentioned earlier, this poor diet begat a population that was ill nourished, thin, sickly, short and incapable of tending the fields. So when, in the 10th century, the cultivation of legumes began to spread, it had a profound effect on Europe. Working people were able to eat more protein; as a result, they became more robust, lived longer, created more children and repopulated a continent.
We believe that the inventions and the discoveries that have changed our lives depend on complex machines. But the fact is, we are still here — I mean we Europeans, but also those descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers and the Spanish conquistadors — because of beans. Without beans, the European population would not have doubled within a few centuries, today we would not number in the hundreds of millions and some of us, including even readers of this article, would not exist. Some philosophers say that this would be better, but I am not sure everyone agrees.
And what about the non-Europeans? I am unfamiliar with the history of beans on other continents, but surely even without European beans, the history of those continents would have been different, just as the commercial history of Europe would have been different without Chinese silk and Indian spices.
Above all, it seems to me that this story of beans is of some significance for us today. In the first place, it tells us that ecological problems must be taken seriously. Secondly, we have all known for a long time that if the West ate unmilled brown rice, husks and all (delicious, by the way), we would consume less food, and better food.
But who thinks of such things? Everyone will say that the greatest invention of the millennium is television or the microchip. But it would be a good thing if we learned to learn something from the Dark Ages too…
What innovation was most instrumental in creating the modern world? “Best Invention: How the Bean Saved Civilization” (gift link) from the April 18, 1999 edition of @nytimes.com.
(Image above: source)
* children’s playground saying
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As we lionize legumes, we might note that today is National Buffet Day, a celebration of an occasion to heap one’s plate with beans (or whatever).
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