Prime Time: A New Look At Aging

What you can do about that talk, talk, talk

“I’ve had it.”

A board member of an organization to which I belong said this. She quit because another member monopolized meetings with her chatter. Chances are you may know a compulsive talker or two. You may wonder, how do others cope?

“Our Bible study group includes one woman who does go on,” says Russ. “Our leader will say something like, ‘Perhaps we could discuss that a little later; that point isn’t relevant.’” But the people in whose homes the meetings occur lead the group. Not all of them possess the assertiveness to stanch the verbiage, says Marian, Russ’s wife. (“. . .You can all have opportunity to give a message, one after another, and everyone will learn. . .”  I Corinthians, 14:29)

A therapist I know says, “Shock treatment may be necessary for compulsive talkers.” He uses it with his brother, who spreads words with abandon. “He’s talking to himself, not me,” the therapist says. “Sometimes I just walk out.”

Edith is selective. “If it’s someone I like, I’ll put up with it,” she says. When a friend got carried away, Edith said, “Stop! I’d like to get a word in edgewise.”

What happened?

“Oh, she laughed it off, and apologized for going on,” Edith says. Yes. They’re still friends.

Samuel Johnson liked the word “bustle” for activity he regarded as foolish. The late San Francisco Chronicle columnist Charles McCabe employed it. “The worst of all bustling is the verbal kind,” he said. “A silence lasting no more than a few seconds seems to threaten some people in some way. There is a necessity to fill that silence, fill it with anything that comes to mind . . .”

Doctors call the condition “logorrhea.” McCabe said one treatment works, even though it’s brutal. “You just stare at the person and say, ‘You talk too much.’ The result may be a punch in the nose. But you also get quite a much desired silence.”

Gloria employs the Golden Rule. When her apartment complex neighbors emit unending effluvia, “I listen to them,” she says. “I let them talk. They’re lonely. Some of them have no family around. They’re usually pleasant people.”

 

What you can do about that talk, talk, talk

“I’ve had it.”

A board member of an organization to which I belong said this. She quit because another member monopolized meetings with her chatter. Chances are you may know a compulsive talker or two. You may wonder, how do others cope?

“Our Bible study group includes one woman who does go on,” says Russ. “Our leader will say something like, ‘Perhaps we could discuss that a little later; that point isn’t relevant.’” But the people in whose homes the meetings occur lead the group. Not all of them possess the assertiveness to stanch the verbiage, says Marian, Russ’s wife. (“. . .You can all have opportunity to give a message, one after another, and everyone will learn. . .”  I Corinthians, 14:29)

A therapist I know says, “Shock treatment may be necessary for compulsive talkers.” He uses it with his brother, who spreads words with abandon. “He’s talking to himself, not me,” the therapist says. “Sometimes I just walk out.”

Edith is selective. “If it’s someone I like, I’ll put up with it,” she says. When a friend got carried away, Edith said, “Stop! I’d like to get a word in edgewise.”

What happened?

“Oh, she laughed it off, and apologized for going on,” Edith says. Yes. They’re still friends.

Samuel Johnson liked the word “bustle” for activity he regarded as foolish. The late San Francisco Chronicle columnist Charles McCabe employed it. “The worst of all bustling is the verbal kind,” he said. “A silence lasting no more than a few seconds seems to threaten some people in some way. There is a necessity to fill that silence, fill it with anything that comes to mind . . .”

Doctors call the condition “logorrhea.” McCabe said one treatment works, even though it’s brutal. “You just stare at the person and say, ‘You talk too much.’ The result may be a punch in the nose. But you also get quite a much desired silence.”

Gloria employs the Golden Rule. When her apartment complex neighbors emit unending effluvia, “I listen to them,” she says. “I let them talk. They’re lonely. Some of them have no family around. They’re usually pleasant people.”

 

How seniors can dazzle their listeners

As we age, communicating with others poses challenges at times. Here are some points you can ponder, perhaps even use to retaliate: 

“We are without an iota of doubt at the crossroads at this point in time . . . Let me caution you about these perilous times, times that could truly try men’s souls . . . We must put our shoulders to the wheel . . . The die is cast.” 

These were among the phrases I uttered, complete with gestures and vocal variety, at a Toastmasters contest several years ago. Three members from area clubs evaluated my seven-minute presentation, called “The Time-honored Refrain,” and all three of them agreed that the talk was a bit vague and they had trouble detecting the purpose. None of them said a thing about all the cliches, the bombast, the nonsense. They didn’t recognize it as a put-on. 

Which shows I’m a failure at parody or suggests that people are distressingly used to hearing people—especially politicians—talk without saying anything. 

My favorite sentence of the talk went like this: “Also deserving of our accolades are the elected representatives who stood firm for the time-honored principles that guided not only our founding fathers, lo those many years ago, but also our notable and noble servants of the people who subsequently toiled so faithfully in the vineyards and built the foundations for this great land which were set in concrete by concepts rooted in bed rock and blossoming with creativity.” 

Talking in platitudes is not the same as double talk, which I consider an art form. I happened to know one of the artists while living in Decatur, Illinois, for three years. 

Joe Rademacher sold office equipment in his store there. I met him after joining Toastmasters. The first time I heard him talk, he started sounding off about the actions of the city council, summing up what the local newspaper had already reported. I was working on my second cup of coffee, when he said something like, “If the council insists on gromuntative reactions to every business flegion, then Decatur will find itself in much the same situation as the pluvindir.”

The coffee nearly spewed forth and the laughter around me indicated the club members appreciated this take on local officials and other matters. He gave us about five minutes of this sort of patter, then sat down to hearty applause.  

If you’d like to surprise folks at your next senior center or club meeting, here are some word parts, courtesy of H. Allen Smith’s book, “The Compleat Practical Joker”: 

istan     antive    ative  ently     incan    apid    avid   istesse   ome   namic     erot      irgan    uctor  ontor    islong     ackid eton asis     izans

Once you learn these, just add a letter or short syllable prefix and you can enjoy a new vocabulary that either should make you a hit or reveal which people pay absolutely no attention to you. 

Intermix the double-talk words with hardy prepostions, articles and adverbs, Smith advises. For example: “Napid day, isn’t it? There’s quite a ristan in the surmentate, don’t you think? It was brackid this morning. Do you think the flavid days are here?”

   

 

The price some seniors pay for gambling

Senior centers, those bastions of life enrichment and social interaction, may be reconsidering one aspect of their operations. That’s a conclusion suggested by an “Issues for Older Adults” program that aired on the Contra Costa County TV channel recently. For years the centers have paved the way with low-cost transportation to casinos where cash enticements and cheap meals lure their members. Besides bingo, some centers bolster their budgets with mini lotteries of their own.

The negative side of this picture was painted by Dr. Patrick Arbore. “For some seniors, gambling is a road to ruin,” he said. Loneliness and boredom are contributing factors. Those who become addicted often show signs of depression, become suicidal, and many turn to alcohol—until they go broke.
 
“The casinos seem safe and warm, and the employees make you feel important,” Dr. Arbore said. The marketing techniques help explain why older adults represent the largest group of annual visitors to Las Vegas, he added.

Richard Woonacott said that one of the nation’s fastest growing health problems is alcohol and drug abuse among seniors, and gambling is a big contributing factor. He heads the state’s problem gambling and substance abuse program. Based on UCLA studies, nearly one million California seniors have a gambling problem, he said. That works out to one out of five older adults.

“They lie to their families, avoid counseling, become depressed,” Woonacott said. “It often takes years to repair the damage.” A 12-step Gamblers Anonymous recovery program is helping some of those who are addicted.

“Life is a gift; don’t gamble it away,” he concluded.

 

Thoughts on aging by a fearless one

Charles McCabe was a columnist with so many opinions to get off his chest that he sometimes stacked up a dozen columns ahead of his San Francisco Chronicle deadline. Joseph Alioto said McCabe was the only Catholic he knew who went to confession in public and got paid for it. 

Until his death at the age of 68, he devoted several columns to the subject of aging. They’re in a pair of books, The Fearless Spectator and The Charles McCabe Reader, containing the best of his work.

One thing that kept McCabe going was curiosity. “I wanted to know how the whole crazy plot would turn out. . .” he said. “I wouldn’t have missed the past decades of my life for anything. The chief use of my life has been that I have grown, or think I have grown. My chief pleasure in the later part of my life has been the observation of that growth. . .I can hardly wait to see the man who awaits me at the end of the tunnel of the next decade, if I last it out. I would like to be kinder, to love myself less, to wish to help people more. I would like my faults to be blunted by the kind arm of time. I would like to continue to wake up in the morning with the feeling that I have useful work to do.”

Give up your grudges, he urged. “They are a weight and an encumbrance. . .The wretched past has no right to encroach on the present. In fact, the sensible man has a positive duty to prevent this. Fortunately. . .just growing older does the trick. Here’s hoping you will be able to say, as the Abbe Sieyes replied when asked what he did during the French Revolution: ‘I survived.’”

McCabe took umbrage at the term “senior citizen,” declaring, “It is a patronizing and dehumanizing expression” popularized by bureaucrats and politicians who want our votes. “We do not have a single convenient noun to designate an old person, though we are very good on the other age groups: embryo, fetus, newborn, infant, child, the adolescent and the adult.” Americans should use the word “elder,” he declared. It “is simple and sweet. It does the job. It sounds good to my ear.”

As for “ageism” in America, McCabe insisted, “There are a lot of good things about age, and the youth to be recognized. Merely having lived over 55 years brings for most of us a hardy wisdom that can be imparted to the young. We know quite a bit about the gopher holes along the road of life, and there is no reason why there should not be a systematic spreading of that knowledge to those who are still sorting things out.

“The way we cope with old age is, too, another part of our legacy to those who will some day become their ‘future selves.’ What older people need more than anything else these days are the tools to live productively and well and even inventively. These tools can only be produced by the citizenry at large, who are mostly older folks.”

Summing up his early years in New York City, McCabe said, “Though it was never phrased in quite this way, the burden of my moral education was this: Anything you enjoy is bad for you.  . . It has been uphill work, but I’ve done a pretty good job of things, and I intend to spend the rest of my life learning how to enjoy more.

“Over the long run, the game is worth the candle," he declared "This is largely because of one little word: Growth. It is this slow and steady quickening of strength which enables one to accept the offerings of life—-both pleasant and painful. A fully grown man, which I certainly do not claim to be, is the noblest work of God. For growth always seems to move in the direction of love. It is, in fact, almost a definition of that often-defined word.”

A quote from a press handout caused him to ruminate: “The idea is held by far too many people that life is essentially a struggle against death, rather than a process constantly to be savored and enjoyed. . . We should concern ourselves always with taking things on, rather than sloughing things off. New interests should be sought like paying ore. Everywhere and whenever it can be arranged, the pulse should quicken.”

About satisfaction and happiness

Before the rainstorm slammed in, a long-overdue raking, mowing, and clipping in the backyard produced temporary aesthetic conditions. Today, the new carpet of leaves and pine needles seems to say, “The winter season’s just begun, son.”

Taunts like this kindle thoughts of Kensington Place in Walnut Creek where weekly meetings of a memoir-writing group provide exposure to the amenities of housekeeping services, meal preparation, social activities, and health care resources. None of the residents of this assisted living facility are raking or mowing.

They appear to be enjoying “life satisfaction and late life happiness.” That’s a term developed by the International Longevity Center-USA. It has just released results of a study with the conclusion, and make sure you’re seated for this, “advance planning for a thoughtful transition” is the key to that satisfaction and happiness.

“As older people decide they can no longer manage a home with all of its requirements and demands, independent senior living is an important and often highly desirable setting, even though they might prefer staying at home,” said Dr. Robert Butler, president and CEO of the center. Caregivers may be hard to find, and chores may be daunting, so “this is clearly a venue worth considering,” he added.

A panel of experts, including physicians, geriatric and gerontological specialists, public health scholars, nurses, social workers, and senior living officials, studied the topic and developed a report called “Transitions to Independent Living Communities: Life Satisfaction and Late Life Happiness.” Atria Senior Living Group, Inc. provided a grant for the report. I could have saved them the time and expense if they’d asked me after my backyard chores.

Turns out there’s a negative aspect to the transition, mainly because of the stigma associated with nursing homes and a fear of lack of control when people age. To offset this, “senior living communities can promote true independence and a chance for personal growth,” the report said.