Keep Moving

Copyright © 2015 by Point Productions, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available for this book.

ISBN
978-1-60286-297-5 (e-book)

Editorial production by
Marra
thon Production Services.

www.marrathon.net

Book design by Jane Raese

Set in 12-point ITC New Baskerville

FIRST EDITION

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I dedicate this book to my beautiful wife, Arlene,

who was invaluable in editing this tome.

Not to mention keeping me fit as a fiddle

and younger than springtime.

Introduction
Introduction

In 1979 the great filmmaker Orson Welles appeared in a television commercial for Paul Masson wines. The thirty-second spot opened with him turning down the music on his stereo. “It took Beethoven four years to write that symphony,” he said in his memorable
bosso profondo
voice. “Some things can’t be rushed. Good music. And good wine.”

In a 2015 update I would like to add something else to that list.

Old age.

Old age should be revered, admired, respected, treated to dinner, opened and allowed to breathe like a fine wine, given aisle seats on an airplane, helped up the stairs, and looked upon with patience, especially in the checkout line at the grocery store. Old people like to make conversation with the checkers. If approached correctly, says this former Boy Scout, old age should be considered a merit badge for a life well lived. Old age should be a lot of things. But it should not be rushed.

I know from experience.

I was pronounced old way before my time.

I was working on the movie
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
in England and suffered an injury while shooting the musical number “Toot Sweets.” If you recall, it was an elaborate production number set in a confectionary kitchen that celebrated the invention of a revolutionary new candy, the toot sweet. Before the scene I did not take the time to warm up (I never warmed up back then), and in the part of the dance where we spin around on bakery carts in a mix of ballet and acrobatics, I felt the muscle in the back of my left leg pop, like a rubber band that snaps and loses its elasticity. Then, oh boy, did it start to hurt!

I sloughed it off, of course—or tried to. I told myself it was a simple muscle pull and that, in the spirit of show business, the scene must continue. But when the pain not only persisted but grew worse, to the point where I could not pretend to walk normally or limp with a covert abnormality, I feared the damage might be more severe.

What did I know? I had never been injured before. I took a few days off and rested my leg, but the throbbing continued. Someone on the crew found me a doctor. I’m not a fan of doctor visits for anything more than regular maintenance—my annual check under the hood—but I knew I had to see a professional about this injury.

The doctor saw me right away and took X-rays. A short time later he delivered a startling diagnosis: severe arthritis.

“My God,” he said, tapping his finger against the X-ray and shaking his head gravely, “you’re covered with arthritis from head to foot. I’m surprised you could dance. I’ve never seen so much arthritis in a single person.”

“What about a married person?” I hoped a joke might lighten the seriousness of his delivery. It didn’t.

“Married or single, you’re literally suffused with arthritis,” he said.

“What about the pain in my leg?” I asked.

“It’s the arthritis.”

This was not a joking matter, he explained. The condition was serious, far worse than a muscle tear, and it was only going to get worse.

“Within five to seven years you will be using a walker, if not in a wheelchair,” he said.

A walker? A wheelchair?

Those words upended my relationship to the world. My center of gravity, like everybody else, was under my own two feet, and I was being told those two feet of mine were about to be rendered lame, if not useless. The prognosis scared me to death, to the point where I did something rash, something downright defiant. I stood up in the examining room, then and there, and I started to move. Not just move—I lit into a dance, as if proving to myself I could still order my body to do a soft shoe anytime I wanted, despite the pain in my leg. The doctor was astonished.

“My God!” he said as if watching a dead man start to breathe again.

My God, indeed.

That was in 1967. I was forty years old. And I have not stopped moving ever since.

Nor do I plan to hit the stop button anytime soon. I am 89 years old as I write this at my home in Malibu, California, which means I am in my 90th year on this
planet, and by definition, I am old. Very old, I suppose—older than the average male, who now lives to be 76.4 years old (the average female lives to be 81.2). But if you are 65 or thereabouts today, your life expectancy is even longer. You should start thinking of 65 as the new 40. In other words, you aren’t old yet—you are merely on the launching pad of old age.

I never considered myself old until I was asked to share my tips and thoughts on old age here. I don’t act old, and I don’t feel it. I don’t think like an old person, whatever that means. But according to Wikipedia, old age “consists of ages nearing or surpassing the life expectancy of human beings, and thus the end of the human life cycle.” If you keep reading that definition, it includes susceptibility to disease, limited ability to bounce back from illness, increased frailty, memory loss, loneliness . . . and so on. It does not paint a rosy picture.

I’m not going to deny the harsh realities of living a long life, because I have experienced my share of them. But there is a flipside to old age, and as a card-carrying the-glass-is-half-full optimist, I am going to unfurl the gray flag, wave it proudly, and declare that getting old doesn’t have to be a dreary weather report.

In 99.9 percent of the stories I have heard it is better than the alternative, if only because you get to see what happens next.

How can you not be curious?

One of the things you realize when looking back across the decades is that we all have a front-row seat to what
Thomas Jefferson called “the course of human events.” If there’s a better show in town, I have yet to hear about it in my long lifetime—and neither has anyone else. It is
the
show.

With Baby Boomers swelling the ranks of AARP and asking without embarrassment for their senior citizen discounts at the movie theater, and with people turning sixty-five expected to live on average well into their eighties, more of us (no, make that more of you—I’m already there) than at any time in human history are going to start the day staring at our reflection in the bathroom mirror and asking the same question I have asked myself many times: Who’s that old person looking at me?

In this book I am going to tell you that the person with gray or thinning hair, wrinkles, dark spots, sagging skin, a slight stoop, cloudy vision and ears that may need fine tuning is you. But I am also going to tell you the truth about this new normal, formally known as geezer-dom: you don’t have to act your age. You don’t even have to feel it. And if it does attempt to elbow its way into your life, you do not have to pay attention.

If I am out shopping and hear music playing in a store, I start to dance. If I want to sing, I sing. I read books and get excited about new ideas. I enjoy myself. I don’t think about the way I am supposed to act at my age—or at any age. As far as I know, there is no manual for old age. There is no test you have to pass. There is no way you have to behave. There is no such thing as “age appropriate.”

On the following pages you will find my tips and truths about life as your hair grays, your knees wear out, you need glasses to find your glasses, and you ask, “How the hell did this happen to me?” You will also find me discussing the realities we all face as we confront the fact that the majority of our days are behind us—though, as I can attest, that is not meant to imply the best days are also in the rearview mirror.

As you will discover, I try to keep things simple. A friend of mine once said, “Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.” She was right. When people ask my secret to staying youthful at an age when getting up and down from your chair on your own is considered an accomplishment, you know what I tell them?

“Keep moving.”

One more thing: old age is not a death sentence. It’s a stage of life. And . . . and . . . I forgot what I was going to say.

That happens too. . . .