Are You a Grown-up? Too Bad!

By: Randal Myers

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When I was in college in the mid-late 70's I had a college classmate that was quite different than most. It wasn't that he was smarter than everyone else or that he was not as smart. He wasn't so different in his interests or his major or didn't come from some strange far away land. What made Carter so different was that he was old enough to be our grandfather...great-grandfather even.

In his upper 70's Mr. Carter decided to go to college. He had been a farmer in Pike County, Alabama for decades and had been quite successful. He had mastered a system of no-till planting that revolutionized the corn industry in the south. Using an implement that he designed, he could plant corn without first breaking the ground. His system meant that tilled rows were not necessary and the corn was planted in very close proximity right through the pasture grass. A field planted using his system would produce four our five times the amount possible using traditional rows and required much less land preparation and upkeep during the growing period thus making profits soar. Pretty remarkable.

So why would a man like him be in college at his age? The same reason my mother took piano lessons for the first time in her early 60's and learned to play a mandolin in her mid 60's and took computer classes at Auburn University Montgomery and wrote and had published five genealogy books in her 70's. It's the same reason, according to Chicken Soup For the Soul, that Florence Brooks joined the Peace Corps at 64 years of age, Gladys Clappison was living in the dorm at the University of Iowa working on her Ph. D. in history at age 87. It's why Ed Stitt was enrolled in the community college near his home at age 87. He said that it kept him from getting, in his words, ìold-timers diseaseî and ìkept his brain alive.î

Still living...when they died.

It's hard to beat the story of Walt Jones of Tacoma Washington . He had outlived his wife of 52 years and was being consoled after her death. His response was that it was indeed sad, but that really she had ìpetered out on me in the last decade.î He went on to explain that she had sort of become a ìstick in the mud.î Walt had tried to get her to go along with his desire of buying a motor home and traveling to all 48 contiguous states. She wouldn't hear of it and had many reasons why it was a bad idea. Not the least of which is that Walt was 94 years old at the time. Well now ten years had passed since that conversation and his wife was gone. So what's a 104 year-old man to do? He bought a motor home and made it to 43 of the states the following year! At 110 he appeared on the Johnny Carson show and gave Johnny his definition of depression..."missing a birthday."

I think all those who we've mentioned showed remarkable energy and enthusiasm for life. It's not so much their longevity; it's the fact that they were still vibrant all of their lives. Many of us don't have that kind of vitality at a fraction their age. A sentence hidden in scripture has always captured my attention. All these people were still living by faith when they died (Heb. 11:13). Still living...when they died. That's what I'd like to have said about me. Jesus, in John 10:10 says, I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

ìLife to the fullî sounds to me like an adventure, not a destination. Maybe we shortchange ourselves by using the term ìgrown-ups.î That makes it sound like a completed project. There's no doubt that wherever you are in your journey, there's much more available if we but pursue it. We never reach retirement age in Christ. Keep growing!

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