Did you, like many other people, think John Glenn had flipped his lid several years ago when he went into space again? He fooled us, didn't he? When he got back, he said, "Old folks have ambitions and dreams like everybody else."
His advice: "Go for it!"
Even more exciting is Glenn proved a 77 year old still has lots of spunk. While baby boomers might think we're ready to turn out to pasture, we can still contribute.
I get all worked up when people push aside old folks and dismiss them as unimportant. Wouldn't it be wonderful if our society realized old age is like wine – it gets better as the years go by!
When Glenn's space vehicle Discovery returned, I thought about the little two-wingers when I was a kid, the kind that landed in cow pastures. When it landed, people of all ages ran just to get a look at that strange thing called an airplane.
I wonder what would've happened if back then a helicopter or one of the big jets landed in the same pasture? People would think they'd been invaded, most scared half to death. I suspect the cows would stampede and join folks bolting through fences and fields to escape "them strange critters."
One Sunday, when I was a kid, this little old plane flew over with a man jumping out in his parachute. It had been publicized and just about everybody in the county was there to watch. Sure-enough, he got over the big pasture and came floating down with people hollering, gasping and wondering if he would survive.
A bunch of us kids and lots of older men raced after him as he came down slowly in the breeze. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, he landed not on the ground but in a hickory tree.
We could tell he was embarrassed as he cut himself loose. Once on his feet he brushed himself off and said in his big city, sophisticated way, "Anybody got a Camel?" Remember back then in the ‘30s smoking a Camel was the cool thing to do?
What does this tell you and me? First, we can't avoid progress. Let's roll with it. Second, we who remember the little two-wingers in cow pastures can be proud we've lived to see unbelievable changes.
Listen to John Glenn: "Don't sit on a couch. Go for it!" Enjoy every moment, keep your minds and bodies in good shape and show the doubting younger folks we can still fly with the best of them!
Denton Harris served in the 86th Infantry in World War II.