Be Young!

Lately on Facebook I have been observing several posts that say, If You Remember This, or Age Test. Regardless of the caption, the inference is that to remember is to be “old.” Well, I have decided, after looking at many of these items, that I must be “older than dirt,” as not only do I remember them, it doesn’t seem that long ago. I’ve seen pick-up sticks (which I played with my children), Captain Kangaroo, Mr. Ed, Petticoat Junction, The Walton’s, Our Gang, and Gilligan’s Island. There were egg beaters, video and audio tapes, rotary phones, table jukeboxs, and S&H Green Stamps.

What made me decide that I must be “older than dirt,” was not recognizing the items or shows, but seeing all the posts from the generation under me talking about getting older. Now, that has a disturbing effect on the “baby boomer” generation, which is my generation. First of all, we refuse to “get old.” We think we are young, so then we are. We shed the clothing of previous older generations and said, “I can’t wear this, why? Just watch me,”… and we did. We still drive the “wow” cars, and frequent the gyms (sometimes).

We have discarded every trappings of old age except, maybe, one. We fought every step of the way to being grandparents, often reminding our children we were simply not old enough. But, to our dismay, they refused to listen. And did we refuse to be grandparents? Heavens, no, it took only the first look at that beautiful face, and we were sucked into the world of grandparenting with love and joy. We even accepted being called Gran, Granny, Ma-maw, Papaw, Paps, or any other name those “wonderful children” could think up. And did it make us feel old? Of course not, we felt more alive and vigorous, if anything.

As I said, we refused to “get old.” As every “baby boomer” knows, we are on a first name basis with our doctors. That doesn’t mean we’re old, we just want to keep in touch. Pharmacists know us by name, and we’ve become acquainted with Chiropractors. Dentists get rich from our vanity and we made glasses fashionable. Lasers are our friends and hair color designs are our passion. We love herbs and excite the world of cosmetics. But, we refuse to acknowledge getting older. We feel young… well, actually, there’s the rub. The joints just “ain’t what they used to be”… and the long swims have become somewhat shorter. But, worst of all is the generation under us undermining our position of refusal to get old. They are trying to push us into “old age.” After all, they believe they are getting old. So, younger generation, stop… think… be young, before it is too late for us all!