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I’m
amazed at the attitudes of some of the people in my life. You meet people who
are, say in their 70’s or 80’s and they think and act like they were in their
40’s or 50’s. Then again you meet people in their 40’s and 50’s who consider themselves
old and worn out. I have a couple of friends, one is 85 and the other is 90 that
can run circles around most of us.
I believe it all has to do with attitude.
The ones who are still going at life with zest have a good, positive attitude
in spite of all of their troubles over their years. On the other hand the ones
who are ready to throw in the towel, no matter what age are mainly negative thinkers.
All of us have troubles, I don’t wish to downplay that point, but it does seem
as if some folks are just able to handle life and our struggles better than others.
I was at a function this past weekend and an old friend of mine and his
wife got to talking about attitudes. I told them the story about a lady I spoke
with a couple of months ago. Her name is Florene Miller Watson. She was born in
1920, so that makes her almost 90. I had been looking through my Dad’s WWII
service records and noticed that he had been working for a jewelry store named
Millers Jewelry in Odessa,
Texas in 1941.I looked up the store on the internet and found that Mrs. Florene
Miller Watson was something of celebrity and a lot had been written about her
and her flying skills (http://www.brightok.net/~gsimmons/florene.htm) This lead
me to think that perhaps she knew my Dad and might be able to tell me something
new about him. I knew that he had enlisted in the Army Air Corp. before the war
broke out and was curious to see if I could find out anything else about him.
Maybe her father had influenced my Dad to sign up before the war started.
In
doing some additional research I found an article recently written by a north
Texas newspaper about Mrs. Watson. I contacted the reporter and obtained Mrs.
Watson’s phone number. I called her and left a message on her recorder and then
dialed again an hour or so later. Florene answered the phone and advised that
she and her husband had been running some errands. I told her about my Dad and
she said that she didn’t remember him but that her sister might. She added that
she didn’t go in her father’s store very often since she always wore pants and
her father didn’t like her to do so.
I asked her for her address and told
her I would send her a photograph of my Dad to see if she might recognize him.
She asked if I meant to send it by the post office. I told her yes I did and she
asked if I didn’t have a scanner. I told her of course I did and she said…. “Well,
just scan it and e-mail it...and I’ll get it to my sister and we’ll see if we
remember him…”
You could have knocked me over with a feather…..I don’t
think I’ve ever e-mailed anyone nearly 90 years old. I asked her if she still
flew airplanes and she told me that she did once someone else had gotten them
up in the air and could land them for her.
I did as she asked and received
several e-mails from her as well as her sister.
This just goes to prove
my point that you are only as old as you feel. Here is a woman who is bright as
a penny and talked to me for nearly thirty minutes and is keeping up with today’s
news and technology. On the other hand I’ve got friends and venture that you do
as well, who gave up on progress years ago and keep living in the past rather
than looking towards the future.
This life of ours is short enough as
it is, but in my opinion we need to think of it as an adventure and a journey
not a destination. There are no sure things in life, there are going to be things
that break your heart, but we need to move on and keep looking for the better
days in the future, not in the past.
I really like this quotation....which
is said to have coined by Mark Twain. If it was, then he had the right idea.
"Dance
like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you've never
been hurt and live like it's heaven on Earth."
© Peary Perry
Letters From North America
- May 19, 2010
column
Syndicated weekly in 80 newspapers
Comments go to pperry@austin.rr.com |
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