What’s To Do?
Here it is, the middle of August, and the world has lost all its pleasures of sports entertainment.
Gone are the Olympics with all of its competitive juices in an international arena. Gone are the lovely little girls dancing on a 4-inch beam and flying and twirling across the mat doing fantastic tricks. Gone are the heavily-muscled young men whacking a volleyball across the net and whacking each other in congratulations. Where are the sturdy, lean runners sprinting at record-breaking speed and winning the silver and gold? What can replace all this action on the channels of our poor, depleted television sets?
Gone also are our glorious New York Mets! The Mets were figured to go nowhere. Yet they started the season by winning game after game in the late innings. They accomplished these extraordinary victories and gave the fans a hope for the pennant, or at least a competitive run. As the season restarted after the All-Star game, they lost nine games and went back to the former dull, drab baseball team that loses games because of poor relief pitching. My beautiful wife Lorraine watches the Mets with her hands over her eyes.
The hockey ice would seem to melt in the unusually hot weather we have had in July and August. Basketball, which was originally a winter sport, extended its playoffs into early July. Then basketball was gone. Even Jeremy Lin, who gave the New York Knickerbockers such a lift with his intelligent play and good manners, was traded away.
What do we supplant this sports entertainment with? Movies, nowadays, are made for the very young or the extremely bloodthirsty. It is also too hot and troublesome to board the Long Island Rail Road and walk on the steaming sidewalks to see a Broadway Play. My suggestions:
Find an air-conditioned room. Make sure there is a television set in it. Bring in the daily papers and do the crossword puzzles and the jumbles. Get some really interesting books. Stock the refrigerator with cold sodas or beer. Ice cream should also be on hand.
Don’t move too fast, there’s no rush: Labor Day is coming!
(Editor’s Note: For a correction to a previous edition of “Over 60 and Getting Younger,” please see page 2 of this issue.)
