Being Old, Then and Now

Published: August 3, 2007, 12:05 am

Tags: brooks david, times opinion, times select

By DAVID BROOKS Published: August 3, 2007 Last week, while driving from a campaign event in Keene, N.H., I stumbled upon a used bookstore that I hadn't seen since I was a teenager. I stopped in even though I was rushing to catch a plane and came upon a sad book published anonymously in 1911. The book is called Autobiography of an Elderly Woman, and it's a description of what it was like to be old a century ago. The woman begins by recalling the stages of her life: the misty days of girlhood; the precious years when she was raising her young; the rewarding times when she and her children were adults together and companions. But then something changed. I do not know when the change came, nor do they, if indeed they realize it at all, she writes. There was a time when I was of their generation; now I am not. I cannot put my finger on the time when old age finally claimed me. But there came a moment when my boys were more thoughtful of me, when

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