Archives & Readers' Guides > Talking Heads ~ Curious Minds ~ Op/Ed

Talking Heads ~ Aging: Do Not Go Gentle

(1/16) > >>

BooksAdmin:
Talking Heads
"It occurred to me that nothing is more interesting than opinion when opinion is interesting..."
Herbert Bayard Swope, creator of the Op-Ed page.

A two week  forum for opinions on anything in print: magazines, newspaper articles, online: bring your ideas and let's discuss.

Our Third Selection is:  Do Not Go Gentle: The Feisty Man's Guide to Aging Anything But Gracefully by Roy  Rowan.


Smithsonian Magazine April 2009:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/The-Last-Page-Do-Not-Go-Gentle.html

"How old would you be if you didn't know how old you was?"--Satchel Paige

Discussion Leader: Ginny

ginny:

Welcome to our newest op ed discussion,  Talking Heads #3, Do Not Go Gentle. This riff on Dylan Thomas appears in this month's Smithsonian Magazine, and is subtitled The Feisty Man's Guide to Aging Anything But Gracefully.

It's a short one page article half taken up with a photo. I wonder what your take on him is? No fool like an old fool? The old goat? Do you applaud him or think he needs to grow up? Or how do you see him,  and it?

And what about the issues he raises?

What does the statement  "when I am an old woman I shall wear purple"
 mean?

Do you know the next lines to the poem which start  Do Not Go Gentle by Dylan Thomas? Do you agree with them?

When do the doors start closing in life? What age?

And finally in the words of Satchel Paige: "How old would you be if you didn't know how old you was?"

I have thought about that question continually since I first read it two weeks ago. I am still thinking about it, what would you say? What are some of the external things which begin to make us "old," other than our own aging?

In short what are YOUR opinions on this article and the points it raises?

The floor is now open for your thoughts.

ALF43:
Ginny what an appropriate subject for all of us hereon Senior Learn  I always loved Ralph Waldo Emerson's take of age.  'The age of a woman doesn't mean a thing because the best tunes are played on the oldest of fiddles."  (paraphrased, xcse me Mr RWE.)

Bill always says not to complain of getting old because it beats the he** out of the alternative. :o

The subject of age seems very appropriate for me today as I just received a call from my oldest friend.  We grew up together, back to back  (fences)and her mom had a stroke this morning.  She is 93 and had been well right up until today.
 When the good Lord says "come fourth, he does not mean 5th."  
You had better be ready to meet your maker. 
 When Joanie and I were in 5th grade , her mom became pregnant with her last child, who is now 50'ish.  We were embarrased that she was SOOOO old and pregnant.

Age is truly in the eye of the beholder. 

ALF43:
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Dylan Thomas Page

maryz:
What does the statement  "when I am an old woman I shall wear purple" mean?

I have loved this poem since I first heard it in the late 1980s.  Our daughters made me an embroidered wall hanging with the first lines of the poem - and it still hangs on the wall in our house.  To me, it means that when a woman is "old", she no longer had to be bound by unnecessary strictures and customs.  I've always been pretty much a nonconformist, so this suited me to a "T".  It also reminded me very much of my mother.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page