Splitting an Order

November 7, 2014 ~ Live & Learn ~ 14 Comments

I like to watch an old man cutting a sandwich in half,
maybe an ordinary cold roast beef on whole wheat bread,
no pickles or onion, keeping his shaky hands steady
by placing his forearms firm on the edge of the table
and using both hands, the left to hold the sandwich in place,
and the right to cut it surely, corner to corner,
observing his progress through glasses that moments before
he wiped with his napkin, and then to see him lift half
onto the extra plate that he asked the server to bring,
and then to wait, offering the plate to his wife
while she slowly unrolls her napkin and places her spoon,
her knife, and her fork in their proper places,
then smooths the starched white napkin over her knees
and meets his eyes and holds out both old hands to him.

~ Ted Kooser, Splitting an Order

Image: Dreamstime

Aging Americans Sleep More, Work Less (Note to Self: No way)

June 22, 2014 ~ Live & Learn ~ 21 Comments

Excerpts from WSJ: Aging Americans Sleep More, Work Less, Survey Finds:

Americans older than 14: 14 minutes less work a day and 10 minutes more sleep than when the survey began a decade earlier.
Americans’ No. 1 hobby remains watching television. Respondents said they spent an average of two hours, 46 minutes a day watching TV, 11 minutes more than in 2003.
“The data defies popular expectations…People say they’re too busy for leisure and don’t have time to sleep, but that seems not to be the case.”
It is difficult to grasp precisely why people have shifted how they spend their days. But demographics and economics play a large role. The U.S. population is aging, with 8,000 people turning 65 each day. Many of those individuals are retired or working part time and thus have more time to sleep, watch television, play shuffleboard and other non-work activities.
“Essentially, the share of the population who works zero hours per day is growing faster than the employed”
Most other types of leisure, including reading, socializing in person and taking a second to think, have edged down since 2003. One exception: playing videogames and other “computer use for leisure,” which includes posting pictures on Facebook and mindlessly surfing the Web to kill time. On weekend days, men spend 38 minutes on this activity, 13 minutes more than in 2009.

Read full article here: Aging Americans Sleep More, Work Less, Survey Finds

Joy Johnson

December 29, 2013December 29, 2013 ~ Live & Learn ~ 28 Comments

“She was 86, competing in the marathon for the 25th consecutive time. Even injured, she abided by one of her enduring rules for any race, which was to smile down the homestretch, aware of the roving race photographers and believing it never served anyone to be caught in a grimace.

Joy Johnson crossed the finish line at the New York City Marathon this year nearly eight hours after she began. Of the 50,266 people to finish, she was among the very last — wearing a pair of Nikes and a navy blue bow pinned neatly in her hair, leaning on a stranger for support. Her forehead was bloodied in a fall she took at around Mile 20…Johnson, who was raised on a Minnesota dairy farm and was given to cheery understatement, waved off any concern. “I wasn’t watching where I was going,” she told her sister shortly after finishing. “It looks just awful, but I’m fine.”

…she herself didn’t have an exercise regimen. Until one day in 1985, when she and her husband were newly retired and their four children all grown, Johnson, who was 59, took a three-mile walk and found it energizing. Soon she tried jogging and enjoyed that even more…As a senior citizen, she ran an average of three marathons a year, buttressed by dozens of shorter races, always with a bow in her hair. Her home in San Jose grew so cluttered with running medals and trophies that she began storing some of them in the garage.

Early the next morning, looking cheery, with her medal around her neck and a blue kerchief over her head, the right side of her face swaddled in bandages, Joy Johnson waited in the crowd outside NBC Studios to say hello, as she did postmarathon every year, to Al Roker (“a nice young man,” she called him) from the “Today” show…”

I won’t be a spoiler. Be sure to read this article and how it finishes: Joy Johnson, a Marathoner to the End

Credits:

Elise, thank you for sharing. Inspiring. How do you define grace and class: Joy Johnson.
Image & Article: NYTimes.com

Rule #1

August 29, 2013December 10, 2014 ~ Live & Learn ~ 15 Comments

“Last year someone gave me a charming book by Roger Rosenblatt called ‘Ageing Gracefully’…I did not appreciate the title at the time but it contains a series of rules for ageing gracefully. The first rule is the best. Rule number one is that ‘it doesn’t matter.’ ‘It doesn’t matter that what you think. Follow this rule and it will add decades to your life. It does not matter if you are late or early, if you are here or there, if you said it or didn’t say it, if you are clever or if you were stupid. If you were having a bad hair day or a no hair day or if your boss looks at you cockeyed or your boyfriend or girlfriend looks at you cockeyed, if you are cockeyed. If you don’t get that promotion or prize or house or if you do – it doesn’t matter.’ Wisdom at last.”

~ Milton Glaser, Ten Things That I Have Learned

Milton Glaser, 84, is among the most celebrated graphic designers in the United States. He has had the distinction of one-man-shows at the Museum of Modern Art and the Georges Pompidou Center. In 2004 he was selected for the lifetime achievement award of the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum. As a Fulbright scholar, Glaser studied with the painter, Giorgio Morandi in Bologna, and is an articulate spokesman for the ethical practice of design. He opened Milton Glaser, Inc. in 1974, and continues to produce an astounding amount of work in many fields of design to this day. (Source: MiltonGlaser.com)

Credits: Quote Source: Revisionarts.com – Ten Things That I Have Learned. Portrait: Sam Haskins

Moved.

June 13, 2013June 13, 2013 ~ Live & Learn ~ 18 Comments

“It took nearly eight decades, but Frederick Gray is finally a high school graduate. The Watertown Daily Times reports that the 97-year-old World War II veteran was presented Monday with a diploma from Watertown High School during a ceremony at his northern New York home. Gray was set to graduate in 1934 but dropped out a year early to get a job to help support his family during the Great Depression. Gray worked in a factory before being drafted into the Army in 1942. He served in the 24th Infantry Division in the Pacific campaign, earning a Bronze Star. After the war, he returned to his job and retired as head of the company’s billing department. Gray says he never expected to get a diploma and is ‘dumbfounded by the thoughtfulness.'”

Source: kstp.com via Susan. Thank you.