I sometimes play golf with guys who are older than I am; I belong to a senior golf league. I’m not one of the younger players. In fact, there are some guys in the league who were my students over 50 years ago. But the guys who really impress me are the ones who are 88, 89, 90, 92, 94. You know, the “older guys.”
I was talking to one of the older guys who was sharing a cart with me one time last summer. (Disclaimer here: I ride only on Wednesdays; the rest of the time I walk!) Anyway, my older friend was telling me about a checker in a grocery store who had called him “Young Man”:
“For some reason it irritates me. She’s not a bad kid. Just trying to be friendly, I suppose. But she keeps calling me ‘Young Man. Young Man this and Young Man that.’ I wish you’d put it in your column, that nobody 94 years old appreciates being called ‘Young Man’ by some young person who’s barely old enough to drive.”
I said maybe I’d do that, if the opportunity ever pops up. So there it is.
When I’m not playing in the senior league or with my Wednesday traveling buddies, I’m usually the oldest among my other regular playing group. I’m not a lot older, but I’m “older.” But not like my 94-year-old friend who says he feels like he’s the oldest living member of every organization he ever joined.
I like playing with him (and my other older friends) because he’s an inspiration to me. He’s nearly 20 years older than I am and here he is, up and out and around and about. That helps keep me moving, inspires me.
We got to talking one time about how we’re shrinking as we grow older.
Warning to younger people: Human bodies sink into themselves as you age.
When you get through growing tall, you tend to go back the other way. I used to be a little over 6 feet, 1 inch, but the last time I was measured at the medical clinic, the result was 5-11 1/2. I didn’t like that. So now, if anybody asks, I cheat half an inch and say I’m 6 feet. Sounds a lot better.
Yeah, so I realize I’m getting older, but that doesn’t mean I plan to let that get in the way of living an active life. I have no plans to “slow down” yet. I like to exercise my body and my mind. Walking, riding my bike, working out at the Y, playing golf, doing my own yard work. Reading, writing, doing crosswords, learning new stuff. Staying active.
I read a really interesting article recently about a theoretical physicist at Stanford University who was talking about “Why I Teach Physics to Old Codgers, and How It Got to Be a YouTube Sensation.” Some of the old codgers he refers to in the article are people my age, non-physicists, well past their undergraduate days, who took his Modern Theoretical Physics course offered through Stanford Continuing Studies. Old folks who refuse to let their minds get old.
Professor Leonard Susskind is 73, sort of a codger himself, and has a reputation among his colleagues as one of the most imaginative theorists working in physics today. During his nearly five decades in the field, he’s taken leading roles in the study of all kinds of things I have no idea about: quark confinement, technicolor, black hole complementarity, the holographic principle and string theory.
Sound familiar to you? Not me!
So, anyway, he has been taping his lectures and putting them on YouTube and Stanford’s iTunes channel. Hits on individual lectures regularly top 100,000, and his first lecture on quantum mechanics has nearing half a million views. He says his e-mail is regularly loaded with messages from both young and old people.
I think part of what helps to keep us young is remembering that we will always have more to learn. Maybe that’s why so many codgers have bought into Susskind’s YouTube lectures. I looked at a couple of them, and even though they’re way beyond my understanding, I found them fascinating. So I think I’ll go out now and play 18!
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