“You can’t go home again.” This saying rates as one of the best-known American proverbs. It served as the title of a novel written by Thomas Wolfe and published in 1940, two years after his death.
The words have been on my mind for the last two weeks. Thanks to a delightful surprise invitation from the current owner of the house where I grew up in Watertown, my two sisters and I had the pleasure of going back to a home that I had left way back in 1949.
For several days, we at 17 Howland Street have had as guest a real live praying mantis. This is the being that the French call “mante religieuse.” How he affixed himself to the wall on our front porch baffles us householders.
After some hours of residency, he moved slightly to another position on the wall. After he remained there for much of the first day, we thought he might be dead. But, no, he was alive enough to disappear for the night. Since it was cold, we thought it might be his last night in this world.
However, he came back again, ready for perhaps a longer stay than we imagined. Presumably he has preyed on other small creatures sufficiently to have prepared his stomach for extending his guest status. We feel honored at being favored as his home, especially since no other site on our street seems to have acted as a kind of motel for this never-before-seen-by-us creature.
Since we need all he prayers we can get, this mysterious creature is welcome to stay as long as he wants.
Yesterday, I entered the mythical Hall of Fame of my softball community. To achieve this distinction took a feat never before seen by veteran players of several decades’ experience. What I did was to hit into a triple play!
Runners were on second and first base. So when I hit a hard grounder that almost touched third base, the fielder quickly stepped on third for the force-out, threw to second for another, and in turn the second baseman threw to first in time to get me called out.
In her new book “Life Gets Better,” Wendy Lustbader, middle-aged, tells of being on a tour bus full of people between eighteen and twenty-four. Stepping up to the driver’s invitation to use the microphone, she astonished the young folks by saying: “Don’t worry: these are the worst years of your lives.”
What is the best way to protect your mind? As you age, how can you best ensure that your mental capacities are in good working order?
These issues rarely get raised by doctors during annual physicals or other appointments. And yet they remain vital for the health of patients, especially us older people.
What more enjoyable evening for a music lover than a house concert? That event formed the heart of a dinner party to which I was invited one evening last weekend. To have heard four young women, students of our next-door neighbor Emily, sing the works of classical composers counted for me as a rare pleasure.
“Don’t let go, old leaf.
Hang onto the withered branch
Till spring: then float down.”
These lines come from a small booklet called “Mortuary Airs,” written by my friend Dan Aaron. In its few pages, he takes a jaunty view of death but respects its prerogatives.
Today this friend reaches 99. Yes, he was born on this day in 1912.