Living the good old life

By Herbert Vego

EVERY SUNDAY, I meet with fellow “young once” like lawyer Pol Causing, businessman Melvin de Leon and dentist Bong Gustilo to exchange views over coffee. You see, we have one thing in common – the capacity to think positive. As a Tagalog song goes, “Tawanan mo ang iyong problema.”

Once, I squeezed Pol, now 87, on what keeps him physically and mentally fit, as if he were as “young” as the 72-year-old me.

He cited healthy foods, moderate exercise, positive outlook and laughter as among his “secrets”.

One of our favorite songs is Father and Son, where a father tells his son, “Look at me, I am old but I’m happy.”

A retired professor, Pol sweeps away the notion that the older a man ages, the closer he gets to Kingdom Come.

Indeed, why be in a hurry? We senior citizens enjoy the privilege of paying less for more goods. The other day, for example, I ordered a “combo meal” with soft drink for lunch in a restaurant.  After showing her my senior citizen’s ID, the counter cashier asked me to pay only P86, less value-added tax and 20% discount.

Honestly though, if there’s one privilege I avoid as much as possible, it’s buying discounted “maintenance” medicines. Discount notwithstanding, it could still rob us of enjoyable options like travels and vacations.

Old but healthy individuals reflect deathless character and pricelessness. Take note that while the nations of Greece and Rome no longer sway world power, they thrive because of tourists (no doubt mostly retired) on “time-travel” to enjoy “the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome”.

Some old books are so packed with wisdom that they keep their authors alive in our hearts. Long-gone Greek philosophers like Plato, Aristotle and Socrates still impart wisdom to the present generation.

Strange as it seems, “old” is an old word with a “young” undertone, derived from an Indo-European root that means “to nourish.” No wonder, when we ask a young child for his age, it’s “How old are you?”

It is often only in old age that we cherish the memories of our youth. We love to look at our old pictures and reminisce and share with the young the memories of the “good old days when we were young.” How we regret not having preserved most of our old photographs!

In the final analysis, however, let the Bible remind us that, whether young or old, dust we all are and to dust we shall return. There could be no adventure without traveling from youthfulness to weariness. In fact, the young ones beg us young to tell them what adventures we have lived through.

I once bought a book about Benjamin Franklin – whose picture appears on all US $100 bills – and was surprised to read that he was a boy born to very poor parents but worked hard to be somebody. However, he was already 81 in 1787 when he was elected to the Constitutional Convention that would frame the Constitution of the newly-created United States of America.

Indeed, time could be our ally. Expertise in a profession requires time. Thus, Franklin’s example buoyed my spirit. At 72, I don’t have to retire from 52 years of my writing career. “Use it or lose it” is a saying that is not limited to sex.

The people who fear old age are those who think of it as a gateway to the graveyard. If truth be told, only those who die young do not grow old.

One of the quotations attributed to US President Abraham Lincoln goes, “It’s not the years in our life but the life in our years that counts.”

-oOo-

BEWARE OF DANGEROUS ‘OCTOPUS’

FROM time to time, I go over the Facebook page of MORE Power-Iloilo for whatever useful information as regards electricity.

Here’s one I would like to share with you, dear readers:

“Avoid overloading your outlets and extensions. Plug only one high-wattage appliance into an outlet.”

Being a non-electrician, I researched on what it’s all about.

High-wattage appliances refer to those that generate high heat, and so may cause a circuit overload and blow a fuse or trip a circuit breaker.

No doubt you have heard about “octopus wirings” plugged into a wall socket. This is dangerous because if the total current that passes through the wires exceeds the indicated rating, it could create too much heat and ignite a fire.

The rule of thumb is to stick to a maximum load of 1,500 watts per outlet or circuit. The number of things you can plug into one outlet depends on the wattage of each device or appliance you want to plug in.

Among the high-wattage appliances in Filipino homes are a refrigerator which generate more or less 1,000 watts; iron, 800 watts; washing machine, 500 watts; air-conditioners, from 700 to 1,200 watts; computers, ranging from 50 to 500 watts; and TV, more or less 100 watts. If unsure, refer to the unit brochure. The higher the number, the faster your electricity bill ticks up.

Therefore, the less time you use your appliance, the less money you spend.

LED bulbs and the transistor radio are among the lowest energy users, as low as 5 watts.

Our home’s energy usage or power consumption is rated in kilowatts on our electric bill. A kilowatt is a measure of 1,000 watts of electrical power.