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Taylor's Travels -- A Commentary on Life
Are You Being Hypnotized By Your Age?
September
By Taylor Hay
Many years ago I was having a quiet lunch with my mother at her
home outside of Frankfort, Kentucky. We were eating alone in the
large dining room at a table that once graced the home of Cyrus
McCormick, who invented the reaper. John D. Rockefeller Sr. also
dined at the same table in McCormick’s Chicago mansion back
in the 1800’s. They were good friends, and one of Rockefeller’s
children married one of McCormick’s.So Mother and I were enjoying
our lunch in the same tapestry covered chairs, and at the same grand
cherry table where those legends of America and their families enjoyed
theirs.
Halfway through our lunch the angels must have passed over, because
both of us ceased conversing and quietly chewed our food. Then Mother,
who was sitting beside me, reached over, firmly grasped my forearm,
looked me fiercely in my eyes, as only my mother could do, and scolded,
‘Son, don’t you ever be hypnotized by your age!’
I was about fifty then.
I recalled that John D. Rockefeller, Sr. used to play golf everyday
walking, then when he couldn’t walk anymore, he rode a bicycle
and when he could no longer ride a bicycle he would hold onto the
handlebars and push it around his golf course. Finally when he couldn’t
walk well, he had a chair affixed to a motorized platform that lowered
to where he could hit the ball sitting down. Sometime in his 97th
year he gently patted his female secretary, gave her several business
instructions, and ate his lunch. Then he laid down for his daily
nap for the last time.
Mother’s very direct order reminds me of a true story my grandmother
told me about her grandfather, Colonel E. H. Taylor Jr. (my name
is the same except the last name ‘Hay’ was added by my
father). He was the founder of many whiskey distilleries including
Old Taylor Bourbon Whiskey in Frankfort, Kentucky. (His motto was:
‘I make whiskey for damn fools to drink!’)
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(Continued from Column One...)
The year was 1900. Depleted physically and financially
from a long, but successful fight to keep the capital of Kentucky
in Frankfort, Colonel Taylor, age 70, was lying gravely ill in his
upstairs bedroom. Two attending doctors whispered outside the door
of his mansion, which was in foreclosure. ‘Well, the poor Colonel
is dying’, one said. ‘Yes. Too bad he’s dying broke’,
the other said. Colonel Taylor, overhearing their conversation,
snapped open his eyes, lunged out of bed in his long nightshirt,
threw open the door of his bedroom where the surprised doctors stood,
then chased the terrified gentlemen down three flights of stairs
through the front door and out onto the broad veranda. Shaking his
fist at their flying coattails he bellowed, ‘By God, I’m
not dying, and I’m not going to die broke!’
He lived 23 more years, founded several more distilleries and made
another huge fortune. Part of his last fortune paid for the beautiful
Greek Revival mansion that I was having lunch in that day Mother
gave me the most important advice of my life. The land, the mansion
and several portraits of this man who was not hypnotized by his
age are still in our family.
Strangely I carry his name, was born exactly one day shy of what
would have been his 100th birthday and have just begun the most
important business undertaking of my life. Joanna and I have decided
to promote our Synergetics exercise system internationally through
a television infomercial because of all the great good it has done
for so many people over the past 17 years. I’ll be 73 years
old in a few months. What an adventure this will be!
So when someone tells you you’re not as young as you used to
be, tell them not to be hypnotized by your age. Then challenge them
to an arm wrestle!
And the next time someone asks you how old you are, smile and quietly
explain that you’re not old, you’ve just lived a long
time.
Viva life! Taylor
To learn more about Synergetics exercise
videos, the new PocketGym, the book and CD that will give you a
Whole Life Fitness Plan
Click Here.
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