A Deeper, More Introspective Steve

Since I’m not in an overly humorous mood today, I’ll just tell you a joke and then get on with what I want to write about. Now, don’t let my mood ruin your day. I’m not unhappy, it’s just that I’ve discovered one of the secrets of life, about which I have pondered since I turned forty.
I’ll get to that in a minute, but first the joke, which kinda highlights what I’ve been thinking about.

This ritzy woman pulls up to the front door of an exclusive hotel in Beverly Hills in her fancy schmancy automobile and starts directing the bellboys to unpack her luggage. Her fat little ten-year-old son is buckled up in the passenger seat next to her. She orders one of the bellboys to pick up her son and carry him to her suite.
“What’s the matter,” the bellhop asks, “can’t he walk?”
“Of course he can,” the mother snaps back, “But, thank God, he’ll never have to.”

Okay, enough hilarity. That joke encapsulates my recent epiphany. I’ve been wondering, for more than a decade now, why our parents and grandparents (by “our” I’m speaking basically about us Boomers), never warned us about what it would be like to get old. As miserable as it is to acquire a new pain every day, and a new pill at least once a year, it seems that somebody should have told us that this getting old thing was not going to be a lot of fun.
Truth is, I don’t think I ever thought I would get old. I thought old age was for old people. I thought my parents and grandparents were somehow just born to be old, but not me or my generation.
In retrospect, I feel kind of stupid, but I have somewhat been blaming it on my forbears (this has nothing to do with the Maymont Park thing). I kept wondering why they didn’t warn me.
Well, now I’ve figured out the answer. I think those earlier generations had a much greater sense of their own mortality from their childhood on, than do those of my generation and offspring.
Think about it, our parents and grandparents had experienced the Spanish Flu pandemic. They had lived through the Great Depression and World War II. They were survivors in the true sense of the word. And, they had plenty of friends and relatives who did not survive.
Then, World War II ends and things suddenly look rosy, by comparison anyway. The men come home from the war, marry the women, and start having us. And one thing they wanted to make sure of is that we’d never (“thank God”) have to experience the things they’d gone through. And they did (make sure) and we didn’t (suffer like them).
Those in my age group were never terrified at the mention of two little letters – TB. My generation rarely heard the word “polio” without the word “vaccine” right behind it. The only thing we had to fear was the fear of the needle, which immunized us from all those dread diseases with which our parents and their parents and their peers had contended.
Yep, we were immunized from what life had really been like. Some of our immunizations came in the form of a serum, or a pill. Others came from the hard work of our parents, determined to give us a better life than they had endured.
Somehow, along the way, these medical miracle workers of the fifties and sixties, didn’t live long enough to come up with a vaccine against old age. And so, we got old. Suddenly, unexpectedly, we looked in the mirror and we were old.
We had spent our early years relishing our presumed immortality. We figured it would just keep getting better and better. And, now, when it seems we should be fully enjoying our lives, we discover we’re fat (and likely to die that way), we’re diabetic, we’re arthritic, we have heart disease, and the list could go on and on. I’ll spare you any additional gory details.
I remember vacationing with my grandfather and step-grandmother when I was a kid. When they opened their suitcase, the prescription drugs took up more room than did their clothes. How pathetic, I remember thinking at the time. But, I concluded that’s what old people had to put up with. Thankfully, I wasn’t going to get old.
I may not have been quite that shortsighted about it, but if you’re a fellow-Boomer, I’m guessing you get the picture. Well, the joke was on me. Ha Ha. I’m laughing all the way to the emergency room.
I hope this hasn’t been too depressing. Actually, I’m happy I’ve figured out why I was never told what to expect. The only problem is, I’ve learned enough now, to be able to look at my 81 year-old mother and know that I’m looking at the coming attractions. And, to be perfectly honest, I’m not giddy with anticipation.