"Nothing makes a man feel older than to hear a band coming up the street and not to have the impulse to rush downstairs and out on to the sidewalk"
About this Quote
A marching band is Benchley’s sneaky time machine: it doesn’t just pass your window, it measures the distance between who you were and who you’ve become. The joke lands because it treats aging not as a number but as a missing reflex. Youth, in this framing, is automatic motion - the body volunteering for joy before the mind can negotiate. Old age arrives when that instinct gets replaced by an internal committee: Is it worth it? Do I have shoes on? Is it too loud? That tiny bureaucratization of delight is what he’s really mourning.
Benchley, a New Yorker writer and one of the great American deadpanners, specialized in turning private insecurities into public comedy. Here, he chooses a wholesome, almost Norman Rockwell image - the street band - and then lets it expose a darker truth: adulthood isn’t simply responsibility; it’s a gradual downgrade in curiosity. The band’s noise becomes a test you fail without trying. You don’t choose to be older; you discover that your body no longer votes for participation.
There’s also a class and city-life subtext. “Rush downstairs” implies the old apartment-house theater of urban community, where entertainment finds you. Not chasing it doesn’t just signal fatigue; it signals retreat from the sidewalk, from spontaneity, from the shared civic moment. Benchley makes that retreat funny, but the punchline stings because it’s recognizably real: aging is when even happiness requires planning.
Benchley, a New Yorker writer and one of the great American deadpanners, specialized in turning private insecurities into public comedy. Here, he chooses a wholesome, almost Norman Rockwell image - the street band - and then lets it expose a darker truth: adulthood isn’t simply responsibility; it’s a gradual downgrade in curiosity. The band’s noise becomes a test you fail without trying. You don’t choose to be older; you discover that your body no longer votes for participation.
There’s also a class and city-life subtext. “Rush downstairs” implies the old apartment-house theater of urban community, where entertainment finds you. Not chasing it doesn’t just signal fatigue; it signals retreat from the sidewalk, from spontaneity, from the shared civic moment. Benchley makes that retreat funny, but the punchline stings because it’s recognizably real: aging is when even happiness requires planning.
Quote Details
| Topic | Aging |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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