Where's Armand?

Alive in the Likes of...

SHIGEAKI HINOHARA. I introduced you to Dr. Hinohara in November of 2007 and in Armand-like fashion, he's still a productive, contributing member to mankind. My brother sent me a recent article on Dr. Hinohara and I've chosen a few statements that I think represent the Armand spirit:

Energy comes from feeling good, not from eating well or sleeping a lot. We all remember how as children, when we were having fun, we often forgot to eat or sleep. I believe that we can keep that attitude as adults, too. It's best not to tire the body with too many rules such as lunchtime and bedtime.

Always plan ahead. My schedule book is already full until 2014, with lectures and my usual hospital work. In 2016 I'll have some fun, though: I plan to attend the Tokyo Olympics!

There is no need to ever retire, but if one must, it should be a lot later than 65. The current retirement age was set at 65 half a century ago, when the average life-expectancy in Japan was 68 years and only 125 Japanese were over 100 years old. Today, Japanese women live to be around 86 and men 80, and we have 36,000 centenarians in our country. In 20 years we will have about 50,000 people over the age of 100.

It's wonderful to live long. Until one is 60 years old, it is easy to work for one's family and to achieve one's goals. But in our later years, we should strive to contribute to society. Since the age of 65, I have worked as a volunteer. I still put in 18 hours seven days a week and love every minute of it.

If you knew Armand and have a story that relates, please make a comment. Also, if you know of someone in their 90's who's still productive, please let me know. The world needs to be inspired by the Likes of Armand!

Read the entire Japan Times Online Article.

Photo and Source: The Japan Times Online

Not Fooling on April 1st

From the Armand Diaries:

Saturday, April 1, 1950, and no fooling for this day, lots has happened in past 6 weeks or so. To wit: February 27, Monday, about 8:30A.M. came our Fredericka Ann, a long 21 inches, 7 lbs. & 2 oz. by Caesarean section.

It was an elective caesarian and we drove out day before, a room being available by that time and Dr. Mahan deciding it was about time to try operation before labor might start, a labor he feared wouldn't work well because of M's small pelvic structure and rather late age for a first child.

All went and has gone fine, and we love our little addition to death, to say the least. Brought her home Wednesday afternoon, 9 days later, now over 3 weeks ago. With my doing diapers, dishes, and this and that, we've managed so far sans help, thank goodness.

The hospital ($175 approximately), doctor ($188), assistant ($25), anesthetist ($15) (and if I hadn't donated a pint of my blood Monday afternoon to replace one given Mary that A.M., would have soaked me $35 more), various fees and x-rays, etc. = about $420.00. Add this to $700.00 sent W. and Geefer during their month in California and $275.00 shelled out for my new attic study, I'm about flat.

All paid but $230.00 to doctors and $18 for room to be paid Monday when I cash April check, all but $88.00 to Dr. Mahan (May!). ...We have more visitors since Ann has come than ever before."

But the Singers made it through the year with their little bundle of joy. Ten years earlier, Armand was not too sure about having children:

October 20, 1940. Would like for us (as M. would say) to have children of our own - but the thought of how it would pain and disfigure poor M., and the fear the children might turn out crazy or difformed sort of scares me.

By the winter of 1999, Armand was totally convinced that having a child of their own was worth every single moment of worry:

The Old Folks Canonized. What follows is almost embarrassing in an incredible way. Praises are being heaped upon us on all sides. And it wasn't our doing. Our daughter announced to us one day last summer, totally out of the blue, that she and Tomas wanted to create an Armand E. and Mary W. Singer Professorship in the Humanities...Ann wrote out a very respectable check...We're not even out of pocket and get all the credit. I'm trying to think what we did for her as a child so much better than other parents did for theirs to deserve such a marvelous gift. But we are blessed.

I'm Another Proust

From the Armand Diaries: February, 1947.

Thoughts:

1) We often praise the wonders of God's universe, alleging its complicated perfection in the machinery, e.g., of the human body, etc. But life has existed for a billion or so years. Even poor man, much less an omniscient God, could evolve a pretty good human system, given that length of time for trial and error. No?

2) How much of life and its activities seems to be pure chance. You don't know or see how or why one event should follow another and yet it does.

How unplanned, e.g., was my career at Duke, or arrival here at W.V.U., they just happened. Or my teaching English and math here, geology, etc. at Amherst. Even my going to U. of Cal., thence to Amherst....But is there some overall sense and direction to it? All within, say the limits of my goals of education, teaching, travel, hiking, etc., etc.?

Why, I wonder, did I decide to write this all down on a piece of scratch paper, several weeks ago? Is it because it was in my mind for a long time and suddenly came to a head??

3) Am I slipping? A few grey hairs, extra creak or two, lessening of resistance, etc.? In 6 years I've been racing down Grand St. and over to work and around town, never have met student or anyone else I couldn't overtake and pass; just few days ago, made the ca. 1 1/3 miles in 11 minutes. But am I slipping, still and all?

Apropos of this, was looking over my snapshots for last 20 years or less of hikes in West, Amherst and all over. Note gradual changes in my appearance.

Think back on my attitude as I took them. I can probably do and stand as much as ever, but what I once did with a spontaneous abandon I now do with a grimmer, more calculating determination: the result is the same, but the feeling behind it isn't - and that's saddening.

Got to thinking it over and wrote old E.P. Dickinson a long, long letter - he's back at Amherst, back from war. I'm another Proust, trying, less successfully, I guess, to recapture past time.

Note: At the time he wrote this, Armand Singer was 32 years old.

Image: The Proust Society of America

Pointing Out: Daniel Schorr

Here's another Where's Armand? Fellow: NPR's Daniel Schorr. This ninety year old award winning journalist began his career as a foreign correspondent in 1946 and is still working in a career that has lasted over six decades.

"His analysis of current issues is broadened by his firsthand perspective on recent history", says Schorr's NPR biography. It's the same kind of "I was there" authority that Armand held which punctuated his stories so well. Remember Armand's experiences at the outbreak of World War II?

I wonder how Mr. Schorr would have answered Armand's letter to the editor of Time Magazine (April 19, 1999):

Ours has been a full century demanding answers, glorying in solutions. Somehow the bigger picture has eluded us. All the wondrous advances you covered are seen from inside the reassuring cocoon of the surrounding universe. No one seems to be stepping outside to ask the big questions: Why is there time? Why should there be life, matter, space? What's the reason for existence, including that of God? If we cannot find answers, we are literally nowhere. Let's admit it, none of us has a clue. ARMAND E. SINGER Morgantown, W.Va.

I'm sure they would have had a lot to talk about. Daniel Schorr was introduced to Twitter this past weekend. When asked if he had any questions about it he answered, "Yes, how do I do it?". Within a few hours, Schorr had over 2,000 followers and I'm one of them!

Dan Schorr Meets the Twitterverse. A 3 minute introduction to Twitter.
Follow Daniel Schorr on Twitter.
Follow me on Twitter.

Thanks to Jean Swift, D.O. for bringing Dan Schorr to our attention.

Photo: Harvard University Gazette