Changes with Age
Thought
Oh my grey hairs!
Truly you are as white as plum blossoms!
William Carlos Williams
This exercise is all about how things change over the years. Hand out the attached sheet with questions on it about several different things that have changed in almost everyone’s life. Put the questions in front of each person but don’t say anything about filling them out yet. Go through and read the questions to the group ask for comments/recollections from them. Then go on to the next.
After the read through, ask each of them to circle the one question they’d like to write about. Some may want to write about all of them and that’s ok also.
Here are some sample poems you can read or pass out and read:
Handout 1
When I was nineteen I lived in timber country
in northern Wisconsin in a log house ten
miles out from town. Two of my four boys
were born there.
I picked wild strawberries and sometimes a roast
of deer meat was hung on the clothesline by
a neighbor – in the dead of night.
By the time I was forty I lived in town – David,
Iowa – a very small town. I could see country
from my window.
At sixty – there were grandchildren, but no more
wild strawberries.
Addie Reed
I’d love to back to my teen-aged years but I can’t
But I’m growing older and there’s nothing I can do about it.
It’s nice to be called Grandmother by your grandchildren
That’s one thing I do love
I want to forget about my sickness
Old age brought down sickness on me
But being called Grandmother makes me forget about that.
Rose MacMillan
I was a young fellow in my teens
I started monkeying around with things
Then one day, my mother, she knew an electrician
She begged him to take me along
I started learning be he let me go
And I was forced to go to electrical school
Which I do know a little about
I did all kinds of work, hand in all kinds
If I was reborn
I wish I knew then what I know now.
Harry Siegel
Handout 2
What is the first car you remember clearly? ____________________________________
What is the last car you owned? _____________________________________________
Describe the first place you lived (city/country/neighborhood/inside the house etc.)
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Describe the last place you lived before coming to Regency Park ___________________
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Describe the first place you lived when you had your first child _____________________
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Did you live different places for your first grandchild or great grandchild? If so describe them.
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Talk about your first job and your last job. How are they the same or different? _____
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