75 Prayers for the Earth and Humanity

      My Thanksgiving Day post for dianacoogle.blogspot.com was to list the first half of the 75 prayers for the Earth and humanity that I was challenged to write for the 75x75 project. Here is the rest of the list.

42. May the oceans stay cold and the glaciers hold their shapes.

43. May the chickens range free.

44. May the cows eat grass.

45. May the lambs cavort in pastures.

46. May the pigs live in peace.

47. May every queen bee have her hive.

48. May the rhinoceros live to see another century and more.

49. May every goose find her gander, every billy his nanny, and every hind her hart.

50. May the border wall never get built.

51. May governments never separate children from loving parents.

52. May the EPA return to its former days of integrity and enlightenment.

53. May our schools and universities serve their deepest purposes.

54. May our children and young people find fulfillment in their pursuits and joy in their lives.

55. May the wilds stay forever wild.

56. May the stars shine bright in clear skies all over the world.

57. May the lakes stay full and cold.

58. May the wilderness areas and the National Parks forever be places of soul renewal.

59. May the Supreme Court function with ethics, intelligence, and commitment to American democratic values, foregoing political considerations.

60. May there always be reason to rejoice.

61, May we always heal with laughter.

62. After four decades of war in Iraq: may it end.

63. May we learn to set aside our differences in order to pay tribute to what is best in each of us.

64. May there be clean drinking water everywhere on earth.

65. May the human species learn to live as one species among all the others, with equal respect for all.

66. May the current reversal of environmental protections be reversed back at least to where they were BDT.

67. May we show our love for Lady Nature so she will come back again.

68. May we learn to trust again.

69. May the plague of plastic be cleaned from the seas.

70. May the dolphins play and the whales sound the deep in peace.

71. May music resound everywhere in the world, always.

72. May the cities flourish with art, music, and the good works of the poets.

73. May we always butcher with gratitude the animals who give their lives so we may live.

74. May the eagle's eye be sharp, the deer's ear keen, and the bear's nose honed to every odor in the woods.

75. May the world and all its living beings thrive and prosper.

Age 75 Is No Stopping Point!

      My friend Wallace Kaufman gave me the 75x75 project of compiling a list of people who accomplished significant things in their lives after the age of 75. 

      The accomplishments make your jaw drop. For instance, there's Dr. Leila Denmark, who didn't retire as a practicing pediatrician until she was 103. She lived to be 114, the fourth-oldest-verified person in the world. AND SHE WAS MY DOCTOR, the pediatrician my mother took all her children to. I put her first in my book.

Dr. Denmark, with patient and patent's mother

      Other people in science, medicine, and economics include Dr. Ruth, who was still performing on TV when she was 79. 

      The next heading is "literature," with 14 names of people who have published after the age of 75. I love it that Roget was still overseeing editions of his famous thesaurus, which I still use, of course (so much better than the online thesaurus!), until he died at the age of 90. The poet Stanley Kunitz published an autobiography when he was 100, but my favorite entry here is the little known Harry Bernstein, who published his first book, an autobiographical novel, when he was 97 and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship at the age of 98 "to pursue his writing." He published the third book in his series of autobiographical novels the following year and died the next year at the age of 100. 

      There are only three entries in the section of "Music," including pianist Arthur Rubinstein, who performed "one of his greatest recitals" in Carnegie Hall when he was 89.

     "Film and Theater" has five entries, some that you might expect – Jessica Tandy (Academy Award for Best Actress, Driving Miss Daisy – at age 80) and Christopher Plummer (Oscar at age 82, Beginners), but do you remember the 1984 Wendy's commercial, "Where's the beef?" Clara Peller, the actress in that commercial, was 81 and had only just been "discovered" as a feisty, spicy actress.

Clara Peller

      Next to "literature," with fourteen entries, "visual arts" suggests a field in which the artist can continue well into old age. There are ten entries in my book. You might have come up with Georgia O'Keeffe and Grandma Moses without too much thinking, but also included are Michelangelo, Marc Chagall, and a former slave from Alabama, Bill Traylor, who taught himself to paint at the age of 85, exhibited at 87, and had his New York debut at 89. My favorite entry is my mother, who had an art show when she was 88, of pastel paintings she had done with her left arm after a stroke left her right arm paralyzed.

      A omnigatherum of accomplishments in law, chess, religion, and aeronautics brings in four people (the 19th-century British Lord Chancellor Hardinga Giffard, Asa Long, Mary Baker Eddy, and John Glenn, respectively). Achievements in education include a number of advanced degrees at advanced ages (including the oldest college graduate ever, Nola Ochs, with a masters degree at age 99), but my favorite entry is the Kenyan Kimani Maruge, who entered first grade at the age of 84 and addressed the United Nations in New York (first time on an airplane) the following year, on the importance of free primary education.

Kimani Maruga, in first-grade class

      There are the statesmen and political activists, such as Ghandi and Marjorie Stoneman Douglas (eight of them), but the biggest category by far is "physical achievements," with twenty entires, beginning with my father, who built a barn at the age of 80 and, between the ages of 85 and 95, turned a large wooden screw, on a lathe he made himself, for a historical village's reproduction of an ox-turned cotton baler .

      In this category are mountain climbers, sailors, runners (including  Fauja Singh, the first person to finish a marathon at 100), hikers, the highwire performer William Ivy Baldwin (who was 82 when he did his last highwire walk, over a canyon in Eldorado Springs, Colorado), one swimmer, one bungee jumper (at age 96), and one water skier (still skiing at 101). The most remarkable entry in the whole book, though, in my opinion, is Tao Porchon-Lynch, who is still teaching yoga at 100.

Tao Porchon-Lynch, in lotus position

     It looks like I have a lot to do after my 75th birthday in July!