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On Turning Sixty-Five: Notes from the Field
"Personally, I've got a lot invested in reaching my stunning current age, and I'm damned if I'm going to hang on to that youthful crap. (I liked the idea of being a sixty-year-old so much I started claiming that age before I turned fifty-nine.) Parts of it, I don't like--the loss of energy that seems its inevitable accompaniment, for example--but when I consider how I used to boil that energy away as a younger man, and the things I boiled it away on, I am happy to accept a shorter tether and a more reflective way of going at things."
John Jerome, author of such beloved books as Truck and Stone Work , entered his sixty-fifth year with a number of goals in to battle the debilities of age, to master them through understanding when he could not physically defeat them, and to keep a journal of these efforts. As he puts it, "It was time to start planning an endgame."
The result is a warm, compassionate, and honest look at the twelve months that led him to the gateway of old age--a survey of this time of life which ranges from strict physiology to expansive philosophy, from delicate neurosurgery to rough weather on a Canadian canoeing trip, from the despair and isolation of illness to the love and comfort of a sound marriage. The writing, in its clarity, grace, and humor, matches its author's spirit. "The quality of our lives depends on the quality of our time," Jerome reminds us. Reading this wise and funny chronicle of one man's--and everyman's--journey toward citizenship, senior division, will be time well spent, for young and old alike. It is that rare kind of book which comes to life as a companion, and even a friend.
John Jerome, author of such beloved books as Truck and Stone Work , entered his sixty-fifth year with a number of goals in to battle the debilities of age, to master them through understanding when he could not physically defeat them, and to keep a journal of these efforts. As he puts it, "It was time to start planning an endgame."
The result is a warm, compassionate, and honest look at the twelve months that led him to the gateway of old age--a survey of this time of life which ranges from strict physiology to expansive philosophy, from delicate neurosurgery to rough weather on a Canadian canoeing trip, from the despair and isolation of illness to the love and comfort of a sound marriage. The writing, in its clarity, grace, and humor, matches its author's spirit. "The quality of our lives depends on the quality of our time," Jerome reminds us. Reading this wise and funny chronicle of one man's--and everyman's--journey toward citizenship, senior division, will be time well spent, for young and old alike. It is that rare kind of book which comes to life as a companion, and even a friend.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 11, 2019
Autumn thoughts
It takes a certain amount of moxie to publish a memoir about yourself as you lapse into fogeville. I wouldn't have the nerve, fearing not so much that I would bore my readers, but that I would reveal the poverty of my mind for all the world to see. Two hundred and fifty pages, perhaps 75,000 words of, by and about myself! Now that's a little scary.
So it was with some misgivings that I picked up this handsome book by John Jerome, professional writer, editor and (I could quickly see) prose stylist extraordinary. Well, I'm glad I did. He did a lot of research on aging and it shows. That knowledge, along with his observations on the experience of aging, is what makes this book so interesting. We geezers like to compare notes, and with Jerome we have someone who likes to share. I'm sure by now he wishes that he HAD taken out all the "embarrassing stuff," but we, John, are glad you left it in!
Jerome gives us a little of what he likes to do, satisfying work, canoeing, gin and tonic in the evenings. He recalls his neck surgery and a canoeing trip, why he cuts the grape vines and why he chased the beaver from his pond. He makes me jealous as hell with his idyllic New England lifestyle and his beautifully rendered prose. He makes sharp observations (One of the benefits of aging: "...no one's looking. You're invisible when you're old" p. 237; "Most men bore each other stiff" p. 242), and tosses out witty asides ("I am in favor of sensation for the aging...Let us celebrate our nerve endings while we can" p. 238) like there's nothing to this writing gig. That's one of the beautiful things about being a writer: you can still make those words dance when you're sixty-five. (The Beatles lyric from a few decades back, "Will you still need me/Will you still heed me...when I'm sixty-five?" is jumping through my head. Stop it!) Or at least John Jerome can make those words dance. His self-deprecating, yet self-affirming style reads as easy as shucked oysters going down. I'll whisper this since I'm sure it's a heresy, but I find him a lot more interesting than that Thoreau guy he keeps quoting.
He waits until the latter chapters to talk about suicide and sex. For me he could have waited a little longer with the sex. As he notes, referencing writer Tim Cahill, "Nobody, ever, is interested in your bowel movement" p. 102. Amen, I say and add the sex life of old men. But Jerome knows this. I think he felt, after having scolded Thoreau for leaving sex out of his journals, that he ought to fess up. He sees suicide as "An option, that's all. If and when." (Although he reports on having tried it when he was ten.) And then there is this profound insight on page 250: "Kevorkian, I now realize, serves a level of despair much deeper than I can quite conceive."
The book ends with these memorable words (as Jerome joyously contemplates a task that needs doing yet again): "After all, as Camus pointed out, Sisyphus was essentially a happy man."
Thanks, John, for sharing, and for expressing it all so well.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
It takes a certain amount of moxie to publish a memoir about yourself as you lapse into fogeville. I wouldn't have the nerve, fearing not so much that I would bore my readers, but that I would reveal the poverty of my mind for all the world to see. Two hundred and fifty pages, perhaps 75,000 words of, by and about myself! Now that's a little scary.
So it was with some misgivings that I picked up this handsome book by John Jerome, professional writer, editor and (I could quickly see) prose stylist extraordinary. Well, I'm glad I did. He did a lot of research on aging and it shows. That knowledge, along with his observations on the experience of aging, is what makes this book so interesting. We geezers like to compare notes, and with Jerome we have someone who likes to share. I'm sure by now he wishes that he HAD taken out all the "embarrassing stuff," but we, John, are glad you left it in!
Jerome gives us a little of what he likes to do, satisfying work, canoeing, gin and tonic in the evenings. He recalls his neck surgery and a canoeing trip, why he cuts the grape vines and why he chased the beaver from his pond. He makes me jealous as hell with his idyllic New England lifestyle and his beautifully rendered prose. He makes sharp observations (One of the benefits of aging: "...no one's looking. You're invisible when you're old" p. 237; "Most men bore each other stiff" p. 242), and tosses out witty asides ("I am in favor of sensation for the aging...Let us celebrate our nerve endings while we can" p. 238) like there's nothing to this writing gig. That's one of the beautiful things about being a writer: you can still make those words dance when you're sixty-five. (The Beatles lyric from a few decades back, "Will you still need me/Will you still heed me...when I'm sixty-five?" is jumping through my head. Stop it!) Or at least John Jerome can make those words dance. His self-deprecating, yet self-affirming style reads as easy as shucked oysters going down. I'll whisper this since I'm sure it's a heresy, but I find him a lot more interesting than that Thoreau guy he keeps quoting.
He waits until the latter chapters to talk about suicide and sex. For me he could have waited a little longer with the sex. As he notes, referencing writer Tim Cahill, "Nobody, ever, is interested in your bowel movement" p. 102. Amen, I say and add the sex life of old men. But Jerome knows this. I think he felt, after having scolded Thoreau for leaving sex out of his journals, that he ought to fess up. He sees suicide as "An option, that's all. If and when." (Although he reports on having tried it when he was ten.) And then there is this profound insight on page 250: "Kevorkian, I now realize, serves a level of despair much deeper than I can quite conceive."
The book ends with these memorable words (as Jerome joyously contemplates a task that needs doing yet again): "After all, as Camus pointed out, Sisyphus was essentially a happy man."
Thanks, John, for sharing, and for expressing it all so well.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
July 4, 2020
Geared more toward men than women. Very technical and somewhat dry although there were some laugh out loud moments. I realized when I finished that it was written in 2000 which was 20 years ago. That fact alone made me feel old. At age 64.
December 29, 2023
Delightful and gives much to ponder and appreciate about aging. Good read.
October 1, 2010
How can you not enjoy a book when the first sentence is "As a sixty-fouth birthday presnt to myself, my plan was to rent a Dumpster, park it in the driveway and clean out the house and garage." The first paragraph goes on, then ends with...."Clearing out the trash of youth and middle age. I'd yearned to do it for years."
An interesting book on becoming 'old'. Although I've a few more years to go before reaching 65, I thought it time to start reading about the subject.
This book was another find from the library book sale. This book was 'withdrawn' from the libary's collection.
An interesting book on becoming 'old'. Although I've a few more years to go before reaching 65, I thought it time to start reading about the subject.
This book was another find from the library book sale. This book was 'withdrawn' from the libary's collection.
October 11, 2009
This book ... well, I thought it was going to be charming, uplifting little vignettes about how wonderful it is to be 65 or older, now that 65 is the new 45. It's much more realistic than that. He talks in detail about the physical aging process, exactly what happens and how inevitable it all is. This was a "fingernails down the blackboard" book for me, and yet I couldn't bear to let it go.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews