What is the secret to long life?

“Discouragement cannot live in a grateful heart.”  —Anonymous

My friend is celebrating a birthday today. She is 103.

What is her secret? I can’t say for sure, but I suspect it might have something to do with joy and gratitude.

Three years ago, at the time of her 100th birthday, she wrote down some of her memories to give as a gift to her children. (It was her birthday, and she was the one giving gifts.) She asked me to prepare the printed manuscript of the stories, so  I received the lucky task of transcribing her memories from handwriting to computer.

At the age of 100 her handwriting had not deteriorated; I could read every word clearly. They taught penmanship in school in her youth.

Often, in the telling of a tale, she wrote, “That puts me in mind of a poem.” The poems followed, word-for-word perfect, as remembered from her school years 80 or 90 years earlier. When I searched the poems on Google, I discovered that, not only was every word perfect, she laid out the poems on the page exactly as the authors had decades ago, and every punctuation mark was in place. They did memory work in school in her youth.

But what I noticed most about her writing was this: joy and gratitude on every page. Story after story ended with, “How fortunate I am!” Or, “Why is everyone so good to me?” They taught humility and gratitude in school in her youth.

The formative years of her life involved World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II, and yet her memories overflow with joy and gratitude.

Are joy and gratitude the secrets to long life?

I can’t say for sure, but they make the time that we’re here—however long it might be—a lot more enjoyable.

When did our writing lose its charm?

From my hometown newspaper, October 1936:

“On Sunday afternoon an automobile full of young men, who were evidently full of something stronger, disturbed the quiet and decency of the Village Sabbath-keeping by halting before one of the places of business and proceeding to dance the Charleston to the noisy accompaniment of cheers and shouts. It continued for some time, increasing in noise as the dance progressed.

A citizen, who objected to the disturbance and desecration wrote down the number of the license plate. As soon as this was noticed, the party brought the dance and shouting to a speedy ending and with no furthur waste of time boarded their car in haste and were gone.”

The passage makes me smile. I envision the scene so clearly, and I empathize with the young men enjoying a rowdy afternoon in the middle of the Great Depression. How they must have needed that joyous release.

But the charm of the writing really warms my soul.

Would we ever read the phrase “full of something stronger” in news today? Or “quiet and decency of Village Sabbath-keeping?” The paragraphs break all kinds of writing rules followed by journalists today. A news story covering a similar event today would be soulless and half the length.

We can’t claw back the advancements of time, but occasionally we can dip into the past to revisit the charms of the era. And maybe we can inject just a little of that character into our lives here and there.

The old black rotary phone

We soon will begin major renovations on our cottage. While we look forward to improvements that will make our lives easier and more comfortable (a new toilet, hurray!) we  also will have to lose some familiar and dear-to-the-heart pieces of cottage lore. But we want to respect the traditions and character of the place as much as possible, so we asked our kids and our niece and nephew, “Is there anything that absolutely HAS to stay?”

“The phone,” my nephew said. “It’s cool. When my friends come in they say, ‘Whoa, look at that!’, and I have to show them how to use it.”

It’s an old black rotary phone, and it is so old, it’s cool again.

I’m afraid I’m too old to appreciate it. The old black rotary phone has only negative memories for me. Dialing was inconvenient. Remember how you groaned when you had to call people with lots of zeroes or nines in their number? And I grew up on a farm with a party line where everyone’s phone rang in everyone’s house with a different combination of rings. Depending on the number of people in the party, the ring combinations could get quite extravagant. Ours was two longs. But there were many others: one long ring, one long and one short, one long and two short, two long and one short, and so on. Imagine how annoying it was when the person with two longs and a short wasn’t home to answer the phone, and two long rings and a short rang on and on . . .

And it’s not like the ring itself was a pleasant sound. It was piercing and annoying so you wouldn’t miss it. On the bus the other day, the cell phone of a young man next to me rang, and the old black rotary phone sound was his ring tone. Who does that to themselves? (According to Bill Bryson in At Home: A Short History of Private Life, early phones made no sound at all—you just had to pick them up now and then to see if anyone was there. I will admit that at least an annoying tone is better than that.)

According to an article in the Ottawa Citizen last week, the number of homes with land lines is declining. Cell phone technology means that people no longer need the phone on the wall, let alone one with a rotary dial. And there is certainly an argument to be made for removing the one at our cottage. We are only there a few weeks out of the year, and we all have cell phones.

But, I have to admit that a blank spot on the wall where that phone used to be would hurt. And besides, removing it would take away a source of cottage entertainment. No one calls us on that phone anymore except solicitors. When it rings, the betting begins. Is it an offer to clean our ducts? (Our cottage as none.) Or our carpets? (Our cottage has none.) Or could we participate in a short 20-minute survey? (Not on our holidays, thanks.)

Whatever else happens at the cottage (a new toilet, hurray!) the old black rotary phone will stay.