Who’s Getting Old?

[Guest guest]

Hi All,

Who's Getting Old?

I liked:

" Did you see Goldwyn?

Unbelievable for anyone, but at his age? Wow

I wish I knew what he eats for breakfast. "

and

" For the aging male, Milton Berle's joke is

painfully pertinent: " Joe still enjoyed

chasing girls when he got to be 70. His wife was

asked if she minded. She answered, " Why

should I be upset? Dogs chase cars, but they

can't drive! " 1 " .

PLASTIC AND RECONSTRUCTIVE SURGERY,

Oct Suppl, 2004, 138

" When we are old as you? When we shall

hear the rain and wind beat dark December. "

—Shakespeare: Cymbeline III,1 1 1

" You've reached old age when the gleam in

your eye-Is just the sun on your bifocals. "

—Henny Youngman

It is a remarkable phenomenon that I re-main

young while contemporaries are wither-ing.

Yesterday a colleague, a general surgeon of

my age, said that he was not planning to retire

as long as he enjoyed his work and had all his

" faculties. " He shut his locker and was on his

way to the operating room when he suddenly

reversed direction because he had forgotten

something. Unfortunately, he forgot also

which locker was his and its combination. Not

surprisingly, he found my remark, " All lockers

look alike, " of little comfort.

I was priding myself on my memory when

shortly afterward, I met someone who had

been a resident in medicine when I was doing

my stint in surgery. He had just retired for an

understandable reason: outlay at the office ex-ceeded

income. We complimented each other

on looking young-a falsehood that both of us

eagerly wanted to believe. He kept calling me

by my first name while referring to events th at

we had experienced together. Then, and even

now, I do not know who he was.

Growing old and not showing it is an art

form, the most difficult of all. It requires sub-tleties

of behavior that even Machiavelli at his

best (or worst) never possessed. For example,

when the resident, kind and perceptive, sug-gests

the elevator, you take the stairs, but you

have to hide your labored breathing; that takes

practice. The cruelest act is when a woman

offers to give you her seat or carry your bags.

But I have a plan to end all this. I am going to

carry dumbbells marked " 450 lbs. " but made of

plastic and filled with air. Word of this her-culean

feat will spread through the hospital,

perhaps the country. " Did you see Goldwyn?

Unbelievable for anyone, but at his age? Wow

I wish I knew what he eats for breakfast. "

One of my friends has a brilliant stratagem

to conceal his aging, and it does not involve

cosmetic surgery. He regularly g oes to the gym

but not for his whole body-just for his right

hand, which is the only part of him that is still

strong. When he shakes your hand, you are

convinced that he is an Olympic gold medalist.

For the aging male, Milton Berle's joke is

painfully pertinent: " Joe still enjoyed

chasing girls when he got to be 70. His wife was

asked if she minded. She answered, " Why

should I be upset? Dogs chase cars, but they

can't drive! " 1

Because of recent laws, every employer who

contemplates downsizing is terrified of being

charged with age discrimination. Conse-quently,

many too old to be doing what they

did are continuing at a pace that is slower yet

alarming.

These are other people, not myself, of

course.

I have noticed that some of my friends have

become great collectors of elderly believe-it-or-nots:

a surgeon who is operating at 95, a ballet

dancer who is 86, a centenarian who rides his

bike even though he doe sn't remember that he

did or where he went.

One has to be smart enough when young to

foresee what one might want to do when older.

For example, who would hire a 98-year-old

roofer? Yet, if that same person sold stamps,

who would object?

When I was in my second year at medical

school, an elderly dermatologist had the temer-ity

to say (not an exact quote): " Some of you

want to be surgeons. You think that you all will

be flourishing at 75. Think about going into

dermatology. I (he was 75) can still take care of

acne, but show me the neurosurgeon at my age

who is operating on a brain tumor. "

Many years ago, I ate at a restaurant in Rome

that was famous for a particular dish, which its

creator, the owner, then 83, proudly brought

out from the kitchen. I later found out that

somebody else had prepared it because the

great master would forget an ingredient or two.

How do you know when you are getting into

that ultra-old c ategory? One sign is when peo-ple

pay either too little or too much attention

to what you say or write.

REFERENCE

1. Berle, M. Milton Berle's Private Joke File. New York: Crown

Trade Paperbacks, 1989. P. 24.

Originally published in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery

in April 15, 1999 (Plast. Reconstr. Surg. 103: 1521, 1999).

Cheers, Alan Pater