TED Talks are always amazing. This one takes about twenty minutes. Worth it, IMHO.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
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Elderbloggers. Our histories. Our stories. Our pasts, presents and futures. Aging. Growing. Maturing. Immaturing. Art. Poetry. Photography. Feminism. Senior Moments. Junior Moments. Life Matters. Grey Matters. All matters. As I put my toe tentatively in the blog pond I invite others to swim, wade, paddle, sputter and splash with me. In my experience, the water’s warmer that way.
Blogs to Blog
- 3 Quarks Daily
- 95 years old blogger
- a little red hen
- Accidental Blogger
- alternative hippopotamus
- Back in the Day
- Backspace
- Big Think
- BillyBlog
- Bug Byte Love
- Changing Aging
- Code Name Nora
- cut back: facing ageism
- Daily Kos
- Day Tripper
- Dykes to Watch Out For
- echidne of the snakes
- Embodied Aging
- Epiphytic Notions
- Fake Plastic Fish
- First 50 Words
- fototropic
- Fragments from Floyd
- Good Bye Art
- Good Magazine
- Happening Here
- Healthy Aging for Women
- Island Writer
- Jerz's Literacy Weblog
- Jesus' General
- Jon Stahl's Journal
- Life Begins at 80
- living in the bonus round
- Making Light
- Match it for Pratchett
- Midnight Tales
- MotherPie
- Musings of an Old Man
- My Elderly Space
- My Mom's Blog
- My Wintersong
- Not Dead Yet!
- Not If But When
- Nothing
- O'Folks, off their rockers
- Octogenarian
- Off the Grid
- Old Dog New Trick
- Older Wiser Women
- Pickled Beef
- Poetry & Poets in Rags
- Red State Rabble
- Scattered Chatter
- Seattle University Law and Sexuality
- Simply Left Behind
- Smashed Frog
- Spotlight on Elder Abuse
- Stop Shopping Monitor
- Teh Portly Dyke
- The Ancient One, Blessed Be He
- The Bonsai Report
- The Compact, San Francisco
- The Crone Speaks
- The Duplex Planet
- The Inverse Square Blog
- The ITT List
- The Life of Riley
- The Loom
- The Old Hippie's Groovy Blog
- The Savvy Boomer
- The Stop Shopping Monitor
- the well-armed lamb
- The Whinging Geezer
- The Wisdom of Whores
- Time Goes By
- Walking Prescott
- Walled-in-Pond
- Where the Blog has No Name
- Woodie Guthrie's Guitar
- Writing Away on Cedar Key
- yagrowsoryadies
Sites Sighted
- Adbusters
- Bertrand Dorny
- Big Bridge
- Bush's Last Day
- Coffee House Press
- Common Dreams
- CUZ Editions
- Daily Motion
- Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
- Eating Liberally
- Flak Magazine
- Glen Baxter
- Granary Books
- Human Rights Campaign
- JibJab
- Joe Brainard
- Kenward Elmslie
- McClatchy
- McSweeneys
- Mother Jones
- Not an Alternative
- Phil in the Circle
- Proper Tales Press
- Reverend Billy and The Church of Stop Shopping
- Shopdropping.net
- Strange Weather.Info
- The American Prospect
- The Believer
- The Edge
- The Great Basin
- The Huffington Post
- The Raw Story
- The Sun
- The Very Short List
- The Writer's Almanac
- Trevor Winkfield
- Union of Concerned Citizens
- Verse Daily
- Wired
- Young at Heart Chorus
BlogDirectory
Blog Catalog
Blogarama
Blog Blogs
Labels
- 1969 (1)
- 23/6 (1)
- Activism (15)
- Adelle Davis (1)
- Ads (2)
- Ageism (9)
- Aging (37)
- Amy Tan (1)
- Animal rights (4)
- Anne Carson (1)
- Annie Liebowitz (1)
- April Fools (2)
- Art (9)
- Art; Common Dreams (2)
- Bacteria (1)
- bad art (1)
- Barbara Bloom (1)
- Beatnik (1)
- Beloit College (1)
- Big Think (2)
- Billy Collins (4)
- Blogs (1)
- botany (1)
- Bottled water (3)
- Business (1)
- Carl Zimmer (1)
- carol Frost (1)
- Cats (5)
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- Children (6)
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- chorus (2)
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- corn (2)
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- CSPI (1)
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- death (20)
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- Education (4)
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- Feminism (15)
- Film (1)
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- Harper's (1)
- Health (4)
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- Helen Levitt (1)
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- Hillary (3)
- hippies (1)
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- homeschooling (2)
- Homophobia (3)
- Huffington Post (1)
- Human Rights Campaign (2)
- Humor (26)
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- Internet (1)
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- Jeff Scher (1)
- Jeffrey Sachs (4)
- Jeri Ann (5)
- Jerzy (7)
- Jimi Hendrix (1)
- Jimmy Carter (1)
- Joe Brainard (2)
- Joe Wenderoth (1)
- John Lowe (1)
- Johnny Lee (1)
- Joyce Kennedy (1)
- Joyce Sutphen (2)
- Julia (11)
- Kate Ascher (1)
- Kate DiCamillo (1)
- latte (1)
- Left brain (2)
- lighthouses (1)
- loneliness (3)
- love (28)
- macrobiotic (1)
- Mars (1)
- Mary Oliver (3)
- Math (2)
- Matt Cook (1)
- Maxime Kumin (1)
- McGovern (1)
- Media Matters (2)
- Melancholy (5)
- Memes (1)
- Memories (10)
- Memory Loss (3)
- Michael Pollan (2)
- Michael Savage (1)
- Mindset (1)
- MIT (1)
- Mother (17)
- MotherPie (1)
- Mourning Dove (1)
- MoveOn (3)
- Multiplication (2)
- Museum of Bad Art (2)
- Museum of Moving Image (1)
- National Geographic (2)
- New Year (1)
- New York (7)
- New York Times (7)
- Nora Marks Dauenhauer (1)
- nutrition (5)
- Obama (3)
- old barney (1)
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- pigs (1)
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- Poetry (60)
- Politics (11)
- Pollan (1)
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- President (16)
- Queer (1)
- Ralph Edwards (1)
- Ralph Nader (1)
- Religion (3)
- Remember (6)
- Right brain (1)
- Ron Padgett (2)
- Salon (2)
- Science (2)
- Scott Bateman (1)
- Sexism (9)
- Sharon Olds (3)
- sister (2)
- Slow Down (1)
- Smoking (3)
- Snail (1)
- Snow (1)
- Snow Days (1)
- Soccer (1)
- South Park (1)
- Spaghetti Monster (1)
- Sparrow (1)
- Starbucks (3)
- Stephen Dunn (1)
- Stuff (5)
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- TED (4)
- The Fantasticks (1)
- The New Yorker (4)
- The Omnivores Dilemma (1)
- The Tyee (1)
- The Works (1)
- The Writer's Almanac (3)
- The Y (2)
- Theater (1)
- This American Life (1)
- Tigers (1)
- Tim Sandlin (1)
- Tina Turner (1)
- Tony Hoagland (2)
- Urban dictionary (4)
- Valentine (2)
- Very Short List (5)
- W (7)
- Wal-Mart (1)
- Walking (4)
- Wallace Stevens (1)
- War (15)
- Washington Post (3)
- Wendell Berry (2)
- Wesley McNair (1)
- Which One (1)
- William Somerset Maugham (1)
- Wislawa Szymborska (1)
- Women (8)
- Woodstock (1)
- Words (9)
- Writing (6)
- Young at heart (1)
- YouTube (10)
- Yusef Komunyakaa (1)
- Zoo (1)
The young person yawns as the old lady drones on and on about her past. How much of who we are is our history? How does the seven-year-old girl live on in the 57-year-old woman? How do our experiences, our lives lived, matter?
When I got my degree in Biology over thirty years ago, quarks and neutrinos were new, wild concepts. The atom still tried to loom large as the smallest particle around. Electron microscopes revealed blurry pictures of things once only imagined. Hand-held calculators were just arriving on the scene. The student that knew how to use one had an edge over the rest of us with our slide rules. I’d like to go on, wallowing in my memories of the beauty of differential equations; of the thrill of studying organic chemistry and reading the small print on bottles in the drug store and being able to identify the compounds; of growing all kinds of stuff from my house in microbiology. One semester I built cages and filled the center of the biology lab with a dozen chickens. I was going to make low cholesterol eggs. Other students were doing their projects with mice and rats. I didn’t actually do anything to my chickens but wrote my research paper speculating on what would have happened had I fed them some clever concoction of food. At the end of the semester I took them home and put them in a lovely coop I built for them using scrap lumber from around my yard.
I have lots of stories about my chickens. Those were the days. Yawn. The old lady reminisces.
Remembering Matters.
When I got my degree in Biology over thirty years ago, quarks and neutrinos were new, wild concepts. The atom still tried to loom large as the smallest particle around. Electron microscopes revealed blurry pictures of things once only imagined. Hand-held calculators were just arriving on the scene. The student that knew how to use one had an edge over the rest of us with our slide rules. I’d like to go on, wallowing in my memories of the beauty of differential equations; of the thrill of studying organic chemistry and reading the small print on bottles in the drug store and being able to identify the compounds; of growing all kinds of stuff from my house in microbiology. One semester I built cages and filled the center of the biology lab with a dozen chickens. I was going to make low cholesterol eggs. Other students were doing their projects with mice and rats. I didn’t actually do anything to my chickens but wrote my research paper speculating on what would have happened had I fed them some clever concoction of food. At the end of the semester I took them home and put them in a lovely coop I built for them using scrap lumber from around my yard.
I have lots of stories about my chickens. Those were the days. Yawn. The old lady reminisces.
Remembering Matters.
2 comments:
That was just wonderful, thank you for sharing. :)
so glad you enjoyed it eric. nice to hear from you!
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