So, sometime last week, while I was reading through "One More For The Road" for ideas for an essay about Ray Bradbury for school, I came acrossed this story. It was certainly unique, but now this week I've been going back through stories I marked as "possibilities" for the theme that I'm writing about, and I was wondering:

Do you guys think that I could use this story for the conflict between youth and old age?

Maybe somebody understood this story more deeply than I did, I thought maybe there was something in there I could use Just checking with you all.

I've never read it. I don't have that book.

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Not necessarily simply conflict between youth and old age alone, but also a reflection of one's life (as it plays out): who we are, were, and will then become.

The meaning of "Intervening" is -
adj, 1: occurring or falling between events or points in time; "so much had happened during the intervening years"
2: standing between or separating two objects or areas

With this in mind, read the story again and note the characters as they act, react, and interact. Also, review the time (year) references. They are not chronologically presented. They may be metaphors for memories and experiences. Aren't we all still young(er) in our own mines?

Maybe a read of the following titles will offer some parallels to ponder: Colonel Freeleigh and Helen Loomis (in DW), Walking Distance (from TZ), The 3rd Expedition (in MC), and The Old Lady and the Eye (in Big Fish by D. Wallace).

At the end of the story TI, William has finally come to accept the "intervening."

Interesting question and story, indeed. (In referencing this, I had forgotten I had a signed, numbered, #501, Gauntlet Publishers version of this ss. It has a William Nolan cover artwork, b/w, sketching of the old house, a dark silhouette in an upstairs window, and an old man flashing a light on tumbling kids on the side lawn. It all fits together.)

"You are old, father William," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head--
Do you think, at your age, it is right?"

"In my youth," father William replied to his son,
"I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again."

"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,
And you have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door--
Pray what is the reason for that?"

"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
"I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment - one shilling a box--
Allow me to sell you a couple?"

"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak--
Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life."

"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose--
What made you so awfully clever?"

"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
Said his father. "Don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs.

-Lewis Carroll

Thanks again guys