Understanding The Elderly

Old people are the last bastions and examples of civilized behavior.  They are needed more today than ever before. 

Old people hold the door for the next person.  They trust strangers and are respectful to women.  If you bump into an old person on the sidewalk, they’ll be the ones who apologize.  

They are annoyed by disrespectful behavior and bad manners.  They are repulsed by all the numerous forms of verbal vulgarities and the public vulgarity routinely displayed on TV, in movies and on social media that are inexcusably disrespectful to our women and children. They are revolted by alarming levels of selfishness, deceit and lies that routinely go unchallenged. 

Old people are uncomfortable with disrespectable displays toward our flag and national anthem.  Yet they know this activism is protected and encouraged under our constitution.  They know it was this rebelliousness that led to the formation of our nation, propelled the labor movement, led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ended the Vietnam War, stripped away Watergate lies and gave us equal treatment and protection for gays.  They know that taking a knee during the anthem is our only hope for ending our sixteen-year wars in the Middle East, halting the spread of a rapidly advancing police state, achieving advances in health care and ending the callous indifference toward the middle class, the poor and underprivileged. 

Old people are outraged by the acceptance of the blatant national hypocrisy surrounding our young military men and women.  For all our lip service, no efforts demanding an end to our wars, demanding our troops be brought home, or demanding an end to our wasteful spending and loss of life is not being demanded.  

Old people remember World War II, Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, Normandy, and Hitler... They remember the Atomic Age, the Korean War, The Cold War, the Jet Age, the Berlin airlift, and the Marshall Plan, The Cuban Missile Crisis. 

Old people remember exactly where they were the day President Kennedy was assassinated and, on those days, when Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy where shot to death. 

They remember exactly where they were on “Nine- Eleven,” when the first American walked on the moon, when the US hockey team won the 1980 Olympic Gold Medal, when President Richard Nixon resigned from office, the day the Vietnam war ended and the day they discovered they would forever be in love.  

They more than likely will tell you that the very best days of their lives were the days their children and grandchildren were born. 

Their life is simple and their cares are few.  While their days may be short, they have never been more peaceful than now, knowing that they have achieved the joy and contentment of being loved by those they love most in life.