Helping Others Recapture Zest for Life

If getting old can be fun, then Harold Mitchell is an inspiration. He’s been married for 42 years to Betty and he says he’s still courting her.

He lives with a code of decency that compels him to question his own conduct every day. And he has an enthusiasm for life that he strives to share with others through an organization called the International Senior Citizens Assn.

Mitchell was born into a large family of immigrant parents in Brooklyn 77 years ago. “When my mother made up her mind, even if the world could move under her feet, she stood firm. She never wavered,” Mitchell recalled.

“My father was a gentle, affectionate man. His conduct was what I imitated. He truly understood the meaning of what Moses brought down from Sinai and lived his life not only according to the Ten Commandments but also to the other 613 rules of Jewish life. He also understood that children had to be taught how to live--not only by rules but by example,” he said.

Mitchell graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School and proceeded on an educational odyssey that included stops at New York University, Columbia, Washington and Lee, UCLA and USC. But he credits his service in the Army during World War II with giving him discipline.

When the military needed pilots, Mitchell signed up, passed the entry test and learned to fly. It was on a training flight that both his eardrums burst and he was told he could leave the Army. He decided to stay, however, and was assigned to ground education, teaching English to a detachment of Chinese-Americans. Even though he eventually became an electrical engineer, he still sees himself as a teacher.

Mitchell says he has found over the years that he does some of his best thinking in the middle of the night. He has therefore gotten into the habit of going to bed early, then awakening about 1:30 a.m. to engage in a practice he calls “imagineering.”

“I imagine my relationship to the universe in terms of what is, was and will be,” he says. “And then I imagine my goals for that particular day and the skills which I’ll need to accomplish them. After that, I try to see things which concern me in their general and specific terms. Then I think about my marriage. I see myself as a student of marriage. After all, this woman is the best thing next to life itself that has ever happened to me, and I want to make sure she’s happy and well. I want to cooperate in any way I can in making sure she’s satisfied in her life with me.”

After a while, Mitchell goes back to sleep, then reawakens about 5 a.m. to go through an exercise routine in which he dances through his house. The routine, which he calls yo-chi, combines elements of yoga and tai chi.

The latest challenge he has given himself is encouraging older people to lead active and enjoyable lives, physically and intellectually, via an International Senior Citizens Assn. program. The association, based in Los Angeles, is a nonprofit organization founded in 1964 “to promote peace, education and improve the living environment of all senior citizens and children in countries of need worldwide.” It is affiliated with the United Nations.

Mitchell’s part of the effort is to develop, through the USC Emeriti Center, classes, workshops and seminars in which retired professors in various fields help older people become “enthusiastic students and productive resources.”

One of the subjects that seniors will be taught, Mitchell says, is the joy of a continuous physical life. “The joy of joys is having an enthusiastic sex life,” he said. “It’s a myth that old people can’t get sexual joy. You have to be a student at it, and then things get better and smoother, never less intense.”

Harold Mitchell has another goal. He wants to live to be 100--but not alone and not without a purpose. “I want them to be 100 decent, healthy and fun years for myself and my wife. I’m always researching how to do that.”

For more information about the International Senior Citizens Assn., call (213) 380-0135.