Old Dogs, New Tricks

Julia Sneden Wrote: Old Dogs, New Tricks

pencil grips

I hope that whoever came up with that "You can't teach an old dog new tricks" line has spent a long time in Purgatory, paying for making such a ridiculous generalization. (On the other hand, I hope that whoever came up with: "No generalization is true including this one" ascended straight to epigram heaven).

I feel indignant on behalf all the friends, acquaintances, and family members who, after the age of 50, have taken on new learning experiences ranging from Elder Hostel weekends, to career shifts, to taking up crafts like knitting or crochet, to learning new languages, to travel abroad, to rock climbing, to — well, you name it. Learning new tricks gives life some zing, and never more than when the rest of the world expects you to slow down.

Oh, I know that the phrase should be regarded as metaphor, but even then I question its truth. I don't for a moment believe that we're doomed to keep repeating the mistakes of our youth. I know too many people who have taken their lives in hand and reinvented themselves. For instance:

A good friend who smoked 3 packs a day for 40 years made up her mind to become completely tobacco free at the age of 60, and did it.
A married couple I know sought counseling and rescued a relationship that had become bitter and destructive.
The nephew of a friend, who had always wanted to be a wood carver, tossed his banking career away, and moved to the mountains to become a successful artist.

Mind you, there are a few tricks that we old dogs find especially hard to learn. Try, for instance, making changes that touch upon physical things, things that require muscles or nerves to learn new patterns.

Shortly after I started lap swimming, it occurred to me that continually turning my head to the left to breathe might well wear out some of the internal mechanisms, or perhaps let similar mechanisms on the right side atrophy. I decided to breathe to the right as I did my smooth crawl up and down the pool. My first attempt was a horror. I rolled like a foundering ship. I swallowed a lot of water (that is what water I didn't breathe in). It seemed as if the far end of the pool had moved itself back by at least 50 feet as I struggled along. Maybe, I thought, I'll try alternate-side breathing first. That, too, was not easy, but at least I had the left-breath at every other stroke in which to grab some air. At the end of a couple of weeks, I was moving along smoothly again, and soon was able to do every third lap of the pool breathing entirely on my right side. I was disgustingly proud of myself.

And then there was the matter of my pencil grip. At the age of 37, I started a new career as a kindergarten teacher. My first day on the job, the lead teacher, who was in her 70's and scared me every bit as much as she scared the children, watched me writing a note.

"You'll have to change the way you hold your pencil," she said.

"Excuse me?" I replied, looking down at my hand.

"You're using your thumb and middle finger to control the pencil," she said disapprovingly. "You're supposed to hold it between thumb and pointer, with tall-man tucked firmly away. It would be very bad for the children to see a teacher holding her pencil like that."

The battle of the pencil grip was bad enough, but the first time she saw me cutting a piece of paper with the blunt-nosed, child sized scissors, she threw up her hands in horror.

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Julia Sneden Wrote: Old Dogs, New Tricks

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