A Rude Awakening to a Sad Truth

I am old.  And the odds are pretty good that you are, too.  Nevermind you went skydiving over the weekend or did a Century bike ride.  You're old anyhow because if you were born before 1960, we are living in a completely different world than the one we grew up in.

See if you can identify with this pre-1960 life:  Daddy went to work, taking the family car; Mother stayed home to watch the kids, do housework and cook.  Those newfangled television sets?  Let's not rush into buying one...

Saturdays the parents ran errands because the car was home again.  We routinely went to church and came home to a more lavish lunch than weekdays.  We enjoyed Fred Allen or Jack Benny on the radio.  In retrospect, it was a calm life because everyone knew what was expected of them.

Today?   Not so much. 

When and why did I realize this horrifying fact? (The Age Thing.)  It's my lamentable habit to read the Letters to the Editor columns in the newspapers, magazines and online columns in the pathetic delusion that this further research gives me insight into "what the people really want." 

Boy was I wrong!  The Presidential election proved to me beyond the possibility of any doubt that I was wrong.  Letter after letter vilified the sitting President.  He won.

And then I had a conversation with a friend who is 91.  She was lamenting child care today and remarked that one of her great-grandchildren has logged more air miles at a young age than she has in old age!  I chimed in with having a live-in nanny until until the child is school age when the nanny is dismissed.  Although this could be said to be a healthy lesson to teach the child  about the impermancnce of people...  Another friend, a university professor, remarked that a third of his class members pass their time with him texting away on their smart phones.

I thought, "Boy, it wasn't like that in my day!" and then, suddenly I realized that this isn't my day any longer.  It's "their" day and the best thing for me to do is to sit back and see what happens next.  Keep a prudent eye on my money, be more flexible in general and just relax.  A new day deserves new thinking, after all. 

Oh! And to turn my cell phone on when I carry it.