Judge — September 24, 1921 — page 15: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

1 GO DOWN UPON THE BEACH AN AGAIN 1 VOICE MY IRF." Grouchy Age AM old and tired and bent, and I my head is brindled gray, and it spoils my soul’s content when I see the young folks play. Why should they ort around laughing loud and singing glees, when I’m halt and muscle-bound, and have spavins on my knees? I am filled with righteous ire when I see them nearer draw, and I lay aside my lyre to frame up a drastic law; I’d forbid all youthful j 1 would fill their lives with gloom; I would have all girls and boys act. like mourners round a tomb. For I cannot play myself, and I cannot dance and sing; I am laid upon the shelf, where my useless ‘hands I wring. . I go down upon the beach and again I voice my ire, for within my vision’s reach there are girls in scant attire. There are also half-clothed men, swimming with half-naked wives; I would send them to the per for the balance of their lives. If T put on bathing togs and went slosh- ing in the sea, all the mermaids and the frogs would sit up to laugh at me. For I’m not a shapely dub, and Mason “By Watt Illustration by RALPH BARTON my profile isn’t fine, and I'm fash- ioned like a tub, and my feet are out ef line. I am barred from wearing rags such as bathing beauties wear. so I gnash my ancient snags, and | tear my brindled hair. It’s a pity ancient men, who among the shadows crouch, can’t in heart be young again, and forget their chronic grouch. All the killjoy ranks are led by the musty, ancient lads, each one with a festered head. each one with his liver pads. They were young, long years ago, in their day they had their fun; now their heads are white with snow, they would kill joy with a gun. There is envy at the back of their attitude, you see; they no longer have a whack at the gladsome jamboree. If they dance a little while they are laid up for repairs, and it stirs up all their bile, they become as sore as bears; so they say that dancing’s wrong, an invention coarse and raw, and they’re hoping that ere long it will be suppressed by law. Now their teeth are celluloid and they find it hard to eat; at each meal they are annoyed. wrestling vainly 1s with their meat. So they'd like to have a law—they would frame it with a rush—forcing us to live on slaw and the cheaper brands of mush. The old man’s works, once fine as silk, are now in evil shape; he has to drink denatured milk if he would dodge the crape. Once he could swal low gasoline or Kendall's spavin cure, and writing fluid. red or green, his stomach would endure. But now the mildest kind of slop is all that he. dare take, and e’en a flask of lemon pop would make his innards quake. And so it makes him foam with rage, with indignation tense, if people, in this sinful age, would have their Old Stone Fence. There wouldn't be such crazy laws as those we know today, but for the gents with toothless jaws, the gaffers old and gray; forgetting that they once were young, they uprise and in- surge, and every time they hear a song they wish it was a dirge. They grouch along, with rod and staff, and aches in every bone, and every time they hear a laugh they wish it was a groan. comicbooks.com