A Fate Worse than Death?

by Patricia McLaughlin

Not that long ago, it was an achievement, a consummation devoutly to be wished, to hold onto your teeth—your own, natural, God-given chompers—long enough for them to look old. Really old: yellowy and chipped and brown-veined and uneven and thoroughly unattractive. But still enviable, then, at least to people who had to make do with man-made substitutes.

Look at poor old George W.—Washington, I mean—with his mouthful of odd-looking and probably strange-tasting and no doubt uncomfortable woodies. You think he wouldn’t’ve given almost anything to have his very own old teeth back in his mouth, chewing along as efficiently as they had in his youth? What comfort is it to a man to have his portrait on every dollar bill when he can’t so much as bite into a crisp, ripe apple—say a Newtown Pippin from his own orchard--without Martha first having to peel it and cut it up into so many small bites as if he—he, the Father of his country! —were a toothless infant.

Sure, his own old teeth would’ve looked old—i.e., not like the teeth you see on TV. But would that have given him even a moment’s pause? I doubt it.

For one thing, he’d never seen the kind of perfect, perfectly even, Chiclet-white teeth that people on TV have now. There was no TV—also no orthodontists, no porcelain veneers, etc.

In Washington’s day, people took it for granted that old teeth would look old—maybe even that old teeth should look old.

And why shouldn’t they? Aren’t they entitled?

Sitting in the airport the other day waiting for my mom’s delayed plane to show up, I found myself admiring the hair of a woman apparently waiting for the same flight: perfect surfer-girl hair. It streamed down past her shoulders in several subtle shades of blonde--platinum and pale honey and macaroon. But the face it framed was startlingly old. Her hair was beautiful, but it looked borrowed.

To compare a woman to mutton dressed as lamb used to be a slap. Now it’s what we’re all supposed to aspire to: Every sign of age must be obliterated—wrinkles, wattles, age spots, eye bags, gray...

And more: Now comes a press kit from Church & Dwight, makers of Arm & Hammer baking soda and a lot of other things, promoting “our new Arm & Hammer Age Defying Toothpaste® and Whitening Booster which will be available nationwide in May 2008.”

Age-Defying creams, crèmes, moisturizers, masks, serums, cleansers, lotions and gels I’m used to, but toothpaste? Now I even need age-defying toothpaste?

I should say in its defense that this new Arm & Hammer Age-Defying Toothpaste ® contains Liquid Calcium ® ACP—AKA amorphous calcium phosphate--which, in tandem with fluoride, promises to strengthen teeth and gums and to protect and remineralize tooth enamel.

So it may be just what my old teeth need. It’s my psyche that quails at the prospect. I get tired just thinking about all the defiance that marketers of consumer goods seem to expect of me lately. Defiance is very demanding: It sucks up a huge amount of energy.

It comes naturally to two-year-olds—“NO!”—and teenagers, but it’s a lot to ask of an older person. Of course there are famous exceptions. Look at Barbara Frietchie, of whom you may never have heard, unless you were in fourth grade in 1955. In that case, you too may have learned John Greenleaf Whittier’s poem by heart and may still have it rattling around in your head all these years later: “Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then, bowed with her four score years and ten”—i.e., she was 90, for those of you unaccustomed to counting in scores. And yet she defied the whole invading Confederate Army under Stonewall Jackson the day it marched into Frederick, Maryland, where Ms. Frietchie happened to live.

Everybody else in town had knuckled under and struck their colors, taken down their stars and stripes out of fear. Wimps!

Barbara Frietchie wouldn’t have it. “Bravest of all in Frederick Town, she took up the flag the men hauled down. In her attic window the staff she set, to show that one heart was loyal yet.”

Naturally, Jackson’s rifles fired on it, shattering her window, smashing her flagpole, shredding her flag. But “quick as it fell from its broken staff, Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf.” Scarf! Those old-time poets would say anything for a rhyme. “She leaned far out on the windowsill, and shook it forth with a royal will. ‘Shoot if you must this old gray head, but spare your country’s flag,’ she said.”

Naturally, Jackson caved. Couldn’t make war on an old lady, not back then—not in a poem, anyway.

Barbara Frietchie’s defiance won the day but it was, after all, momentary. Afterward, she probably took a nap.

Defying age is a quagmire by contrast. It’s war we can’t win, with no end in sight. Age isn’t going to march off into the sunset like Stonewall Jackson. So when do we get to stop defying it? When do we get our nap?

And what good does it do anyway? Age isn’t going to back down, defy it as we may. It isn’t going to notice or care whether we defy it or not.

Remineralizing deteriorated tooth enamel is probably a good idea, but I think defying age is a mistake. We ought to be able to find better uses for our energy. I personally have cats to feed, walks to take, a syllabus to reconstruct, a class to teach, clematis to plant, roses to top-dress, woolens to store for the summer, a kitchen that needs painting, a shawl I’ve been meaning to fringe, books to take back to the library, a shower that needs re-caulking, last week’s newspapers to catch up with, computer files to organize, candidates to campaign for, shoes to put up on eBay, weeds to weed, a mother to visit, a cousin to write to, a clipping to send to a sister, a friend to drive to the doctor, next week’s column to write.

You defy aging if you want to and have the time. I’m busy.

Reprinted courtesy of Patricia McLaughlin © 2008 Patricia McLaughlin