Last Sunday, Gail and I played "Pelican Rag" as the special music at Church of the Restoration. The speaker was Clinton Wiles from Oklahoma City. He spoke on "The War on Drugs." Attendance was 16 or more.
Gail came over today around 12:30 for our weekly practice. Next month was will be playing a piece by Scott Joplin titled "Solace." Before Gail come over, I went to the fitness center and walked three miles.
In March, I will be the speaker once again at Restoration. My topic will be "Human Life Extension." Sanitation practices and modern medicine have made it possible to live into our 80s and 90s. This is a big change from just 200 years ago. I sometimes wonder what great music we lost when Mozart died at age 35. Robert Schumann was but 46 when he died. Chopin was 39; Mendelssohn was 46; and the great Beethoven was 56, when they checked out. Think of the Romantic Poets of England, Byron, Shelley, and Keats. They lived only until the ages of 36, 30, and 26 respectively. There were exceptions. Haydn lived to 77, and J.S.Bach lived to 65. Rossini lived to be 76. Verdi was a ripe 89 when he drew his last breath.
At one time many children did not live to see their fifth birthday. If you knew you were likely to lose several of your children before they reached maturity, you might be inclined to have a large family to insure that you had someone to take care of you in old age. (This was before the days of Social Security.)
Monday, February 06, 2012
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2 comments:
Hmmm! I also wonder what we missed. I would not mind to live to age 100 (or beyond) if I could be assured that I was still living, and not just putting in my time. Until then, I will just try to make each day one of the days that I truly live.
If at age 100 people still had their health, I think few people would opt for death.
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