Page 6 by the Rev. Charles H. Gilbert In an interview among news- men it is reported that Pre- sident Nixon gave out some ad- vice on growing-old. I think he has turned 60 or something like that. A good age to give advice on aging! He says, “Don’t slow down!” That always sounded good to me. So much so that when in 1958 a couple of flu attacks put me in bed and I had to listen to the Pittston choir’s Christmas cantata from my bedroom window open toward the church, I had to slow down from my usual zip-code walking speed. 1 did not like walking “like an old man’’ and I told my wife so. Her advice took the antagonism out of me when she said, “Don’t think of yourself as walking like an old man. Walk with dignity, the dignity you ought to have but never did have!” That appealed to me. I always admired dignity in others! “I'm walking with great dignity,” said I to me, as I pulled my speed down below the speed level of city traffic. Another principle of living in old age is “I always keep some young people about me,” Not all of your own set will want to be dismissed nor ignored to give room for grandchildren, your own or of others. Your younger friends do not always under- stand your language of maturity and ripe experience. It is sometimes hard to under- stand the run of their modern tongues and haircuts and musical tastes. Some of my con- temporaries like to tell me how I have improved with old age like wine, for instance. Or do they mean cheese! As for when to begin handing out advice I am not sure. Of course when I get old I am sure to be handing out advice on how others should behave! I’m not quite 82 myself and so I must still learn how to be old. But I do like to be among young people, the younger the better. For instance how youth- ful it seems to have a flock of youngsters on the pond flying back and forth with their new skates glinting in the sun. Poor kids, they haven't had many chances to use those nice pieces ofisteelion their feet. It has been cold enough winter after winter. But not for 10 or 12 years has there been cold enough to freeze ice but not moist enough to make snow ten or fifteen inches deep. And who wants to shovel snow off the ice in great wide swaths for skating? The ice in- deed needs to be frozen ‘‘in depth” (to use a phrase about studies!) Our pond has been frozen ‘‘in depth” many times, strong enough to support a snow plow, or bull-dozer. But when you talk about shovelling snow off the pond for ice skating you are not talking about plows, but about snow shovels such as people over 40 must not use if they do not want to get heart attacks and their names in the paper when they are admitted to ‘intensive care unit.” But this year we had ice thick enough to hold up an elephant— but no elephants! It has been mostly at first members of Catherine’s choir and their friends who are skimming across the pond. So young they learn, both how to fall down and how to get up and skid on again. “Who is that tiny child out there skating’ I inquired. Why, that is Krista! And that other one who hasn’t been walking so Military Student Home on Leave Cadet Winston J. Echols a student in the 9th grade at Carson Long Military Institute, New Bloomfield, spent the Christmas holidays at home with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Marshall Echols of Shavertown. Carson Long Military In- stitute, a sixth through twelfth grade boys’ preparatory school in its 136th year of character building, prepares young men for college and for life. many years. That-one is Amy. Krista and Amy—these who have been born such a very short time. How easily they learn to skate! Yes, and to sing in the choir too! They can learn a tune in no time and get soon to the point where they will select some tune from which their elders turn away with ‘Let’s sing an old song that we all know!’ 1 have hardly seen Amy enough to get well acquainted with her. But her mother, why, her mother was one of the tiny ones born in my pastorate a few years ago. She used to get so she could walk down the aisle and when she got to the pastor who wanted to shake hands with old and young she took it to her head to tease that hand-shaker at the door. She put her tiny hands behind her tiny back and refused to stick them out! How she did love to tease that pastor. Amy’s mother got over that in time and Amy has not learned— yet—what fun it is to tease! Amy and Krista and Gwenny and the rest have learned to skate. When they fall down they do not have such a dangerous distance to fall as some of the rest of us. It has done us lots of good to see the stately (but full of fun!) papas helping these tiny tots with their skating problems. Such as brushing the snow off their bottoms and setting them again on their ice-skates. It doesn’t seem to matter with Tommy or with Roy Bill whether it was Amy or Krista to be picked up and shaken to get the snow off. These papa-men are regular guys among the dolls of the present generation. When I chance it to go outside during these frolics on ice some of the teenagers or middlers will call out, ‘Come on Uncle Charlie, where are your skates?” They seem, however, to understand that I make no apology for not wanting—at my age—to take unnecessary risks of falling. The skating days are tempor- arily at an end with the rise of temperature. The ice has run clear up over the low meadow and frozen against the front bank of our parking lot. The slithering. muskrat has found himself an escape hole into that bank from which he can emerge at his pleasure to skim over to the other main part of the pond where he and his family have built a wigwam structure of twigs and sticks and mud near the sycamore tree. Meanwhile there is a clatter- ing (so Catherine tells me) on the bird feeders outside our kit- chen window. I have lost their chattering-chirping noise in re- cent years, but there they are, the evening grosbeaks. We used to see them come sometimes as many as 30 in a flock, some to sit in the trees as watchers of those of their numbers stuffing themselves with sunflower seed. I asked Catherine if she had been able to count them now. She said she got as high as 18 at a time in one or other of the feeders. They are so beautiful and full of life that I like to see them come—even if I have lost their frequency of pitch from my hearing. The Dallas Post handed me a fan letter addressed to me “in care of the Dallas Post.” The letter came from one who “reads your column in the Dallas Post’. Even the ‘‘cir- culation” director does that! But this particular letter from many miles and many years away made me exceptionally happy, I could have danced if my feet were not quite so bunglingly heavy! It appears that she was one with whom I had exchanged many conversa- tions and questions and litera- ture about 35 years ago. This has apparently borne fruit not only in great happiness to her but also proved to be an inspira- tion for a type of service she is able to render to others who are in need of what she has to offer. And this gives me great joy in- deed. I thank the Dallas Post for being the medium through which I have known this. FURNITURE clipping this ad Call fer Fast Service: T.F. Furniture & CLEANING Carpet Cleaners FIRST CUTS INCLUDED Ls. BONELESS BEEF RIB DELMONICO STEAK ANN PAGE SPARKLE: 3-02. 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Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers