[Harp-L] Re:A brand new Year, getting old and being German

[EGS1217@xxxxxxx]

Siegfried states that when Pierre quotes Ramon:  "" You truly begin to  get 
old when you stop learning ", it isn't quite the case since in Germany they  
have a saying:  "OK, there´s a grain of truth in, but only a very little  one.  
In Germany we have a saying which expresses just the  contrary:

Man wird alt  wie eine Kuh und lernt immer noch dazu!

English: One can get as old as a  cow but always are learning in addition. 

"Kuh" (cow) rhymes with "dazu",  insofar the saying sounds somewhat
stilted because a cow doesn´t become very  old (compared with Artie Shaw
just passed away with 94) Hey, that rhymes too  :).

So, I would say that to quit learning isn´t typical of old people,  unless, 
they fall sick with Alzheimer or Parkinson.   
Happy New  Year!
Siegfried"
 
>.......oh Pish, Tosh, Siegfried.  Only a German would assume that  everyone 
outside of senility continues to learn as they age, lol  (<G>).   There are 
countless people who decide at a  specific time in their lives that they now 
"know it all", draw into themselves  and refuse to learn anything "new" once 
they've reached a particular station in  life.  To my mind, that's what makes them 
old, not their chronological  age.  If you'll permit me, my father-in-law 
came to the U.S. from  Stuttgart.  A working man all his life, he built his own 
small leather  briefcase factory in Germany, then worked building delicate 
airplane  parts on an assembly line in the U.S.  He was an inveterate reader once 
he  learned English and adored me (despite my being British <G>) since I was  
the only person who would engage him in deep discussions on any and every  
topic.  HE was the perfect example of someone who "never got old" because  he 
continued to want to learn, being insatiable about absorbing  everything.   I 
inherited all his books when he died.   Neither his wife nor his daughter thought 
his library of Natural History, World  Wars, books on planes, Geography, 
Ancient Civilizations were remotely  interesting.  His wife was much younger but 
refused to know anything beyond  her very narrow interests of soap operas and 
gossip.  There is "learning"  and there is learning.  It depends on what is 
inputted into one's  computer.  It's the quality of the data inputted, methinks.  
Ramon and  Pierre have it right.  One only gets old when you stop "learning" 
and the  type of learning they are doing (as I believe anyone belonging to 
this list is  as well) is deep, brain-cell activity.  Besides, with Ramon it 
isn't that  he's trying to stay young, it's that the music is in him and must come 
out, and  age has nothing at all to do with it.
 
Now is all this making me sound as crabby as Pierre thinks he might  be?  Not 
my intent, just teasing you (about the Germanic thing).  I've  lived in the 
midst of that type of pedantic thinking for longer than I care to  admit! (or 
maybe it was too many years of listening to Oompah music?)   Maybe I am getting 
old and crabby and my music is now forcing its way  out just to keep me young 
too?  hmm
 
Happy New Year anyway
Elizabeth