The Sixty-Year-Old Boys

From the Albuquerque Morning Journal, April 18, 1915. By Strickland Gillilan.

It once was the rule, in your lifetime and mine,
That the fifty-year man was far gone in decline.
That he wore bushy whiskers and stooped as he walked,
And quavered a bit in his voice as he talked.
But, oh, what a change has come over mankind!
The fifty-year youngster of now isn’t blind
Or halt or decrepit or whiskered—nay! nay!
The sixty-year “kid” is the rule of today!

There may be some snow at his temples, ’tis truth;
But folks say, “Some people grow gray in their youth.”
He’s carefully groomed, and he’s straight as a rod;
He laughs like a child and he smiles like a god.
He’s natty and nobby and brisk as a boy—
To meet him, to be in his presence, is joy.
Instead of December, he’s April or May—
The sixty-year youngster is with us to stay.