the homesteaders daughter: Please remember this is slapstick humor based on fact.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Please remember this is slapstick humor based on fact.

Humans have been searching for the Fountain of Youth in one way or another for untold years. Being the impossible-to-please species that we are, it isn't only that we want to live longer, we want to look and feel 17 while while we are doing it. Naturally, there are crowds of "experts" advising on how to become youthful and good looking. Take hair for instance. On a guy what was a forest of thick locks at 21 has become an almost totally logged-off area at 50. While the experts are selling them the possibility of new growth, somebody else is showing women how to get RID of excess hair. Go figure

Another point regarding hair; more and more women are having their hair cut about the length of an ants back. It's the boyish look, supposedly youthful, but isn't it ironica that the actual boys are letting their own hair grow down to the him of their shirt? Am I getting old, Or what? One thing is for sure; nobody is seeing any more of my bumpy skull than is absolutely necessary.

Most of us hae a certain amount of vanity and like to look as good as we can without resorting to extraordinary methods. However, there are those among us who go the extra mile for--what they consider--a pleasant appearance. case in point is the Body Lift. They showed the procedure on TV a while back and I was fascinated. Mind you, there was very little fat to get rid of, it was loose skin; what is more commonly called as flab. One of the women had a 12"wide swath of sking taken from around the waist area. That's right...one foot. The surgeon then took the lower portion, pulled the top part down to meet it and stitched the two pieces together. I thought about this for a long time and decided it wouldn't work for me. Not that I don't have any extra flab, but that is just it. If the surgeon was going to have total success, the lower incision would have to be made at my knees and the upper one just below the neck. When the upper and lower pieces were sewn together I would only be two feet tall; barely able to see over the bottom of my truck window. This simply would not do in this, "drive-up-window" kind of society we live in.

That surgery is definitely not for me. I have very little self-control. That's how I got the extra weight that became the flab in the first place. What if I DID get the Body Lift, with the above mentioned result? I would simply gain more weight, which--as the years passed--would become more flab, and before you could say, "Thumbelina" I would have to go back for another tuck, and then another. One day I would just disapear.

There are other changes we can make for contented living. I'm getting a hobby today, a pet tomorrow, and looking for all the hugs I can get along the way. And, I'll still be 5'6" or thereabouts.

'

4 comments:

StickhorsecowgirlsAugust 10, 2009 at 12:04 AM
Great post! Chasing youth is, indeed, the hallmark of our society today. If you read very far into our blog, you will see that my husband of 39 years ran off with a 30 year old and now, before we are divorced, has a baby. My therapist (yes, I have a therapist--my gosh what is the world coming to?) says that chasing youth is a big part of his problem. Unfortunately, it became the problem for the entire rest of the family, too.

You have to wonder whatever happened to venerating age, as many societies did for so long. After all, it IS going to happen, unless you die! And I really do think that as I age I do become wiser (finally!) and do have things to share with the younger. That's just the way it works.

As for you, Audrey, your posts are delightful! I so look forward to returning here. Thanks for leaving your kind remarks on our blog--especially about your bean pole steed! (I LOVE it!). I will "see you around!" C
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KathyB.August 10, 2009 at 1:34 AM
No fountain of youth? No magic creams and formulas? Oh well, I have read that age is actually a blessing and to be respected in some places and cultures. Besides, there is just something disturbing about the kind of youth that comes from surgery, eventually the partakers appear as bazaar as an alien from outer space would in the local supermarket, or look perfectly at home on the front pages of the tabloids....not a goal of mine!
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DebbieAugust 10, 2009 at 2:19 PM
Isn't that the truth? I'm fighting this aging thing with all I have, but I hate that people judge you on looks. I think I'm beginning to convince myself that it's a lost cause and just have fun! It's not like I want to live forever; I'd just like to look good when I go!
Deb
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LeslieAugust 11, 2009 at 1:50 PM
Many people want to go back to the past and regain what they had instead of living contently in the present. I have to say though that every time I look into the mirror, I am surprised by the wrinkles and sags that are forming. In my minds eye, I think I will always look like I did when I was 30.

I really like your posts, thank you for visiting my blog and leaving a comment! I look forward to following your blog.
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A Little bit about the grandparents

I consider myself blessed to have known my paternal great-grandparents. Allie and Knapp were a couple straight out of "Little House on the Prairie. They lost a child while still in Kansas and soon after traveled to Washington state where they homesteaded a goodly piece of land and proceeded to build a beautiful farm where the flowers bloomed with abundance to match the fruit of the orchard and the fields of grain.

Their second son, Glenn married Pearl, had a son by her but she gave her life to bring him forth. She died when her baby son, Lloyd, was born. The grandparents raised the boy while Glennn married a young woman named Beulah. They had two boys, but grandson, Lloyd stayed on with them . when he was 8 years-old his father, Glenn was killed by a truck load of logs that rolled off a train and crushed him to pieces.

Their lives seemed one long tragedy, yet love was more alive there than most any other place I have ever been. My father, Lloyd married Maudie Clark and I was their first child, born in our own little house on the Moore property. How could anything so right go so terribly wrong??

By the time I came along the grandparents were in their 80's and life happened. My parents divorced and though I stauyd mainly with my mother I spent a great deal of time with my dad and Grandpa and Grandma on the farm...or what was left of it by this time.

There never was running water in the, "big" house or an inside toilet and only limited electricity.

On most days Grandma sat in the parlor in her rocker in front of a standing radio and two windows where the honeysuckle smiled- in during the summer months; the Bible at her side.

The kitchen floor sank in a little and the oil-cloth on the big square table
was worn from the meals that had been served there. A kerosene lamp stood there also and somehow it always smelled like apple pie.

My grandma was just under 5 feet tall, with grey hair pulled back in a bun and little tiny feet. She could not see well and wore thick glasses, maybe not a pretty picture to anyone else but a matchless queen to me, and whenever she asked me to go to her closet and bring a certain box to her side I knew I was about to see wonderous things or to hear grand stories

My family's history was in those boxes and over the few years that I had my dear great-grandparents I learned who I was. Grandpa had his tales to tell also. One such story was the one about a horse kicking him in the chest and he DID seems to have a hoof print in that spot.

Grandpa chewed...tobacco that is... and watching him bite off a chunk of the rich chocolate colored stuff was very tempting. My mother told me that when she was expecting me she was so overcome with temptation that she snuck a piece of the tobacco when Grandpa wasn't looking and had her chew...and spent some time with her head hanging over the dandelion field behind the house.

Grandpa Knapp was an unusual fella. Once a year the grandparents house was scrubbed inside with calsomine, a white paint-like substance. He had to walk to the paint store which was a good 5 miles one way. His walks were going to become a problem later on after Grandma was gone but that will have to come later.