Just an old man who collected cans on a bike
 

Now that I feel the tiredness of the day,
my deep longing shall
welcome the starlit night
as a weary child does.

Hands, cease your toiling,
head, forget about thinking,
for all my senses now
are longing to sink themselves in
slumber.

And the unguarded spirit
wants to float on free wings, so that
in the magic circle of the night
it may live deeply and a thousandfold.

Beim Schlafengehen (Hesse)
- Strauss - Four Last Songs

Just an old man who collected cans on a bike

Isn't age interesting?

This guy was 67, and he is described as an "old man."

I am 64, and I don't feel old in the slightest!

Is there something that is going to happen to me between 64 and 67, when I guess I will be described as "old?"

Or am I "old" already?

I did a 34 mile ride today - most folks in their 20'3 and 30's can't do that. And then I did a 2 mile power walk up hills. I know some younger neighbors who can't even walk two miles!

I can bench press my body weight (225 pounds). About 95% of the world can't!

I work 40 hours per week. Lots of folks my age don't!

So, just when is someone "old?"

I'd never suggest you're old; maybe a whippersnapper, but not old. ;) Reading the newspaper article and your post, DnvrFox, I thought about a movie that touched on issues of age and, believe it or not, vehicular bicycling: Wrestling Ernest Hemingway. It stars Robert Duval, Richard Harris, and Sandra Bullock, to name a few. Here is the Internet Movie Database information about it.

Okay - I guess I don't quite see the connection, but thanks for the response.

Moonshot seems to be 43 years old, so perhaps 67 seems a loonngg way off??

I know the older I get the younger my last year's age seems! :D

As the 83-year-old, former 20/20 host, Hugh Downs, puts it:

“It is depressing to see ‘old’ portrayed as close to senile because it is contrary to how people our age feel.”
****- The Cleveland Plain Dealer, 26 March 2004

Jack Nicholson, who turned 67 just a couple of weeks ago, thinks he might like to be a role model for some of us.

“My generation is the new old,” he says. “We’re living longer. If I can’t find real models, my idea would be to inspire that. I don’t want to live thinking that everyone in the world thinks that life is over at 45 years old, because it certainly isn’t.”
****- Time, 8 December 2003

74-year-old Doris Roberts plays the mother on Everybody Loves Raymond. In her spare time, she speaks out against ageism, even appearing before Congress in 2002.

“It’s terrible the way we have been air-brushed out of society,” she says. “There are very few women over the age of 50 who are working [as actresses]. I happen to be one of them, and I’m very grateful. But it’s wrong. Don’t we have doctors, lawyers, judges, executives, who are women over the age of 40? Of course we do. But no magazines will even carry an article about them. We’re a group they’re uninterested in. And it’s the last bastion of bigotry in this country...”
****- Backstage, 24 February 2004


Winston Churchill
Ronald Reagan

Were these OLD men - who in their doddering old age led nations through times of crisis?

Okay, end of soapboxing!

eh, age is all perspective. If you feel old then call yourself old, if you feel young go ahead and call yourself young!

My grandpa is 74 and he still goes jogging for 5 miles every day then he works in his little convenience store 60+ hours a week, doesn't close for anything.

Well, now that I look at it in print it doesn't. :o

I know it's a bit cliche, but I believe you are only as old as you feel... The majority of the guys I ride with are in their 50's, 60's, and a few in their 70's... They haven;t given up... I think you truly become old, the second you resign yourself to being old.

Some people never get this way, some people say they are old in their 60's or 70's... some, as early as their mid-40's. They give up on living, and would rather sit on the couch, saying "Riding bikes (or whatever) is for kids, or people much younger than me." Then there are guys like the "old" guy in Bicycling Magazine this month... 90 years old, and still riding, and looks to be in great shape.. I'm only 29, and after reading that article, this guy is one of my heroes. I hope to still be riding at 90...

jeff

I'm only 22 and I feel old sometimes. To be honest i've never associated the word with physical or mental ability ... I don't really see what's wrong with the word, or why anyone should be afraid of it *shrug*

Fairly hostile yourself. You must not be old enough yet to have learned the use of punctuation.

It is kind of nice to read a story about a cyclist that doesn't end with the cyclist being run over by a drunk in an SUV.

After reading the story, I sort of like the guy; and I didn't even know him.

One measure of success it that folks say nice things about you when you are gone. I guess Henry Hollinger was a success.

Dan

Maybe it's just me but if a well used bike manages to outlive its owner, I'd want it going down with me.

After reading the story, there's one thing that strikes out. He was actually able to buy a HOUSE with all those cans he picked up on the street with his bicycle. I know people that are working two jobs and can't buy a home because they don't have enough money. It goes to show you folks that if you're frugal with your money, you too can afford the American dream. I often find what comes between people owning that "dream" is uncontrolled spending with credit cards and new car purchases.

I highly doubt "Henry" could have purchased that home if he had been a motorist.

Uncontrolled spending on bike purchases here.. seriously :(

You forget Leonid Brezhnyev.

I am afraid that you are old. That is nothing to be ashamed of. Old is a term that describes how many years it has been since you were born. If you are over 60 you are "old." That doesn't mean you are washed up, ready to die, heading for the nursing home or anything else. It simply means that you are old.

Perhaps you are peeved over the fact that people treat you like you a certain way because of your age. That is basically discrimination or stereotyping, but has nothing to do with the term old. Maybe the first step is for people to get over the term OLD and accept it. Hi, my name is Frank and I am old. I have a 21 year old wife, just ran my second marathon this week, and I eat Viagra like they're Chiclets! :D

Most people wouldn't view this as a charmed life, but I wonder........

MARLOW -- Henry Hollinger's dusty red bicycle was leaning up against the clothesline pole in his sister's back yard Tuesday. For years, the bicycle's rider had been a familiar and welcome sight around Marlow, a community of about 2,200 people southeast of Fairhope.

The man known to most residents as just Henry would ride along Baldwin County 28, Annie Cooper Road, Marlow Road and other streets in the community on Fish River, collecting cans and pitching in to help anyone who needed it, residents said Tuesday. Now, the old single-speed bicycle -- a battered umbrella still strapped to the handlebars -- is a painful reminder that he's gone, his sister said.

"The nephews left it there," Alice McKenzie said. "I can't stand to look at it, but I don't know what to do with it." She looked out the screen door of her home at the small frame house that her brother built with the money he saved from collecting aluminum cans. He was found dead in the house Saturday.
"I didn't see him Thursday," she said. "On Friday, I called my sister. We went over and knocked. Henry was the only one with a key. Finally, they had to knock the door down, and he was in there."

Hollinger, 67, was buried Monday at Marlow Memorial Gardens. Baldwin County Coroner Huey Mack Sr. said an autopsy by the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences determined that Hollinger died of natural causes. On Tuesday, signs on Baldwin County 32 carried remembrances of Hollinger along the route where he rode his bike on his collection rounds.

At the Marlow-Fish River Volunteer Fire Department station, the sign read, Henry, we will miss you.
Down the street at the intersection with Baldwin County 9, the sign at the Dixie Oaks store carried the message, "Rest in peace Henry. We'll miss you!!"
Store employee Cindy Boone said Hollinger was a familiar sight in the community.
"He was just such a tradition here," she said. "The people who come in here are just heartbroken. Some of them didn't know about it until they read the sign. They come in saying, What happened to Henry?'"

Boone said store customers and other residents used to save their aluminum cans to give to Hollinger.
"He was very quiet. He never spoke much, but everyone loved him," she said. While riding around, Holling er often would stop to help people who needed a hand with yard work or other tasks, said resident Sandy Newman.

"If anybody needed plants planted, if he saw you out doing something, he'd stop and help," Newman said. "So many people in our community just adored the man. If you had a barbecue, you made a plate for Henry, or if you had a birthday party. Everybody just loved the man."

Hollinger lived in Marlow from the age of 4. His parents, Jake and Elisa Hollinger, moved to the community from Tensaw in 1941, said McKenzie. He worked for a brickyard in nearby Clay City when he was younger but for years made his living collecting recyclables.

"He liked to ride that bike and collect cans," she said. "That's what he did, and you couldn't stop him."
She said her brother was self-conscious about his speech and did not like to talk, even around family members. He didn't like to say much, she said. He had sun stroke once, and after that, he was hard to understand.

Hollinger is survived by one son, Henry Williams of Foley; three sisters, McKenzie, Mary Sledge and Y.Z. Velma Hollinger, all of Summerdale; one brother, William Hollinger of Summerdale; and five grandchildren.

There you go again. Stereotyping. Why the automatic assumption that an "old person" needs Viagra?

I don't, by the way!

This is what I hate about any "categorical" term - "old person," "young person" - whatever. These terms in no way actually describe the person - instead you get all the baggage that comes with the term.

Viagra - humbug!

Ranger, stop agitating the old guy. It's not good for his heart.

;)

Thanks for sharing.