100 years ago in Spokane: Society columnist offers wisdom about growing old

From our archives, 100 years ago

An anonymous columnist in the Society pages offered some wise words about growing old. She said there are some people 80 and older who “never grow old” and who continue to have a look on their faces of “childlike delight that never fades.”

These are people “who never forget what their youth was like and who live their own lives again, whenever they see a child or a young girl.” They are “never aghast at the misdeeds of the rising generation.”

“People who love golf or gardening never age; people who love books never find life dull, but the greatest preventative of growing old is a love of one’s kind. People who like people, from the postman in the morning to the neighbor who comes home on the same car at night, never become really ancient. In other words, their mental joints never get creaky, nor the arteries of their souls never harden.”

The same columnist, in the next item, discussed one of the hazards of moviegoing, 1916-style. She said there were many people in the audience who were not content to read the subtitles in silent movies to themselves but insisted on reading them out loud.

A typical subtitle might read: “Fred finds Dolly at last and explains all.”

As the columnist noted, “you have read the note yourself in a flash, but you have to hear the words drawled and mangled behind you before merciful darkness comes.”