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E S S A Y

Garrison Keillor

In Autumn We Ali Get Older Again

a tank of silagt) to produce

ITISCOLD IN THE AMERICAN Mil.) WEST, WINTER IS COMING, and despite our best efforts, we are still getting older. The fabulous anti-aging vitarnin cafhline-b, discovercd in bur-dock and the fiddlehead fern, was discovered too lale for us; balesof burdock wouldn’t make us a minutęyounger. In thc pasture, where our burdock grows, Holsteins rccline, chewing their cud. Cud is food previously ealen, then regurgitated into thc mouth for furthcr chewing. This is how a cows digestive system works, how we get milk. A llolstein lics in the pasture, eating vomit, thinking about her eareer.

Holsteins are hardworking Danish cows who make il pos-sible for well-disciplincd families to earn a living (rom gromid not good enough to grow córa or ; soybeans. Dairying is not a senti- Z mental linę of work, however, * and a cows productivity chart o hangs by the stall where she can 2 sec it: she knows that when her output declincs she's dead ineal; retraining will not be an option.

Dogs and cats, when hunting hecnme too bard, rctrained as house pets, but a large hoofy ani mai that chews iLs own vomit will never be welcome in thc American homo.

So Holsteins arc trapped in their profession, which is de-clining anway, and someday a brilliant geneticist will enginecr an enzyme that can be thrown into a nonfat mi racie milk that makes people younger. and the llolstein breed will face a bleak futurę, perhaps as a gamę an-imal for the slower hunter. A sad fale for a virtuous creature who lets down her milk lwice a day and never is a problem to anybody.

‘l inie catches up suddcnly to us all. One day you’re young and brilliant and sullen to your clders, and the next you’re gel-ting junk mail from the American Association of Retired Per-sons and people your very own age are talking about pension plans and the prostatę. Lasl week, on the Southwest windowsill of my studio, 1 found a notę wrilten in liny strokes in the dusi. willi two exhau5ted houseflies lying beside it:

go ahead and kiłl us god what are you ioailing for you bashed our fricnds so whats two mora you dont cara yourc a lousy god anyway you put us herc in this beuutiful toorld and just when lifc starts lo get good you kill us so go do itjust dont e.rpcct us to admire you for it

1 got a rolled-up liewspapcr and killed them bo tli. In the linie it would liavc taken to explain things, tliey would havc died anyway.

Fali is gone; winter comes soon. and a freezing rain. And as your wife fixes a casserolc of Spam and pineapples and hashbrowns, you go out to pul salt on your sidewalk and slip, your arms waving lilcc windmills, and somcthing in your low-er back twists loosc, and you never allcncl the opera again. You spend the rest of your life in search of pain relief and wind up in India, penniless, lying on a mat at the Rama Lama Back Clinie, as the MasteFs disciple placcs the sacred banana on your back—ice can do this to a person, make you much older vcry suddenly.

Fil never forget what Gcorge Gershwin told me about ag-ing. Me was 37 at thc limę. 1 met him because 1 had gone to New

York City to be honored for my tieroism in riding my bike across a frozen lakę to rescue a lost child, and my bieyele, tlie Schwinn, had been invented, of coursc, by Cershwins fhtlier. Gershwin was pacing the floor of his apartment rt>n Riverside Drive, trying to svrite Love Wałked In when I óame through the door, except lie was ealling it Trulh Wałked In. I le said, "Listen to this, kid,” and Sang it. I said, "Mr. Gershwin, I’m fflnly 14, but 1 know that trutli <floesn’t walk right in and drive Uhe shadows away, and it doesn’t bring your sunniest day either. I wonder if you don’l mean love.”

After he corrected the song, lic and I wałked out onto the roof. The lights of the city twinkled beneatli us. Ilis hair was slicked back, just like in the pictures, and he was holding a Manhattan and a cigarettc. He said, "When I was your age I owned the moon and thc slars, I could do anytliing, and now I’m lonely as a hoot owi and my mouth tastes of cold ashes. Tliirty-seven is dopressing, Idd. My lifc is half over. What am 1 supposed to do now?"

A kid can*t answer that question, bul I can now.

A sense of mortality should make us smarter. Life is short, so you do your work. You spend morę time attending to musie and art and literaturę, less time arguing politics. You plant trees. You cook spaghetti sauce. You talk to children. You don’t let your life be eaten by salesmcn and evangelists and the circuses of the media. The O.J. Simpson Trial of the Cen-tury was a pure waste of time. 11 was a tar pit, and nobody who went into it came out smarter or kinder or happier or moro enlightened. It had no redeeming aspeets; il tauglil nothing. M id western farm boys can get IS years in prison for raising marijuana; rich people can walk away from murder: everyone knew that. Time to get back to work.    ■

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TIM E, NOVEMBER G.1995