WHO’S CHANGING?

 WHO’S CHANGING?

Oh, No, Not Me!!

The sky is just as blue as it was when I was young. The gentle breezes of Spring and Autumn are just as soothing. A good steak, when I can manage one, remains a gustatory delight, as of old.

The haunting cry of the first flight of October geese still thrills, and the blown rain of Winter evokes the same longing for hearth and home that I felt in the 1950s.

So it certainly is not I. The changes must be apart from this old warrior.

But all around me are unpleasant innovations.

Why are the voices of the women heard on radio and TV so nasal and whiney? When I was in school, the teachers admonished us to speak in full voice, and to avoid “talking through your nose.” The trend seems now reversed.

All the channels on TV, which is my normal diversion when resting, have a background  “music” consisting of growling, noxious, grating electric guitar sounds —  often with a constant, annoying drum beat, insisting that the listener adopt an attitude of frantic attention —  which by its very presence interferes with the attempt to understand what is spoken. 

I remember when the dialogue in movies was accompanied by soft, soothing violin music – or blessed silence – thereby permitting me to hear clearly the lines of the speakers and actors. Now, due to the overwhelming volume of the background music – or noise – I frequently give up, and change channels in disgust. And often finally, in surrender to the unreasonable noise, simply turn off the TV.

Have I changed so much that I am no longer appropriate to the world around me?  Am I the only senior citizen who finds the Brave New World too intimidating?

The young women are, if anything, more beautiful; but to my perception they attain that beauty later in their life. Now, girls of eighteen are immature, not quite ripe. It takes another three or four years for them to blossom into full beauty. And they try desperately to disguise their beauty by adorning themselves with tattoos, metal studs inserted in various parts of their anatomy, and ugly clothing. I long for the conservative prettiness of years past.

I see beauty in the ladies of my own age. True, their years are showing, and some are in fact becoming faded. Even decrepit. But the youthful beauty persists, requiring only the perceptive eye of a connoisseur to appreciate it, by looking beyond the sags and wrinkles, to the beauty that is eternal. Similar is the ability to recognize the tune of a free-style improvisation of a popular old song by a Dixieland jazz band. The melody is almost hidden, but the recognizable “skeleton” of the song comes through. And the improvisations, cleverly overlaid atop the original structure, serve to improve the experience. 

Ah, the beauty of old wine!