50+ Lifestyles

Max’s Musings

By Max Molleston

Fifty-plusers have done a heap of living. Home and then another home, one that lasted longer than the home you were born into. The home you made for your family as it came and grew and challenged your cunning with its own cunning. Most of us who want freedom from home, find a way: some in various club settings and others in volunteering. I am reminded of a poem composed by the famed Poet, W.H. Auden. This one moved into my mind and like lots of
the poems I have on hand, was there, escaped, then returned among pages I had denied for a while. I offer this one,
which seems somewhat wistful, yet full of meaning. It is about freedom.

The Unknown
Freedom is not following a river.
Freedom is following a river,
though, if you want to.
It is deciding now by what happens now.
It is knowing that luck makes a difference.

No leader is free, no follower is free—
the rest of us can often be free.
Most of the world are living by
creeds too old, chancey, and habit-forming
to  be worth arguing about by reason.

If you are oppressed, wake up about
four in the morning: most places,
you can usually be free some of the time
if you wake up before other people.

My memory of 50 years plus dims about early work at WOI-TV, Ames. I believe to this day I interviewed W.H. Auden in the studio, on air. He was at Iowa State College (then) to give an address. I was not much interested in poetry, but did get through the interview. Somehow his poem The Unknown came into my hands, and I liked it because I had done a poem on freedom, which seems much more serious. Generally, I was up early for television and radio broadcasts. The final eight years, I reported at 4:30 a.m. to crank up on Ag news and get ready for a busy broadcast day at WOC and WLLR-fm. I arose before four, Monday through Friday. The fact is that many, many of those of us who are actually 50Plusers arise then, and some stay up and some go back to bed.

Glorious sunrises beat a sunset, hands down. More of us do witness sunsets, because our lifestyles do not include arising in the middle of the night to greet the new day. W.H. Auden is a great example of modern poetry. He was, sometimes, hard to interpret as poets tend to be through years of effort. Aging and changing times usually look to diminished output and may modify styles, and/or simplify poems, but that is not always the case. Auden, like others, earned his way with his peers, and the book press, and did that. Just remember “If you are oppressed, wake up about four in the morning: most places, you can usually be free some of the time if you wake up before other people.” That does not preclude a nap of some sort, should you choose. I turned 80 (doesn’t seem possible) early in September, and allow myself a nap when I want or need some additional energy later on. The fall is with us now, and next month I want to demonstrate that one newspaper writer is closer to poetry than he knows. Be here for that, should you choose.