Baby Boomers Never Fade or Get Old
There was a great piece recently in the Sunday Globe right on Page 1. It seems senior centers are having a hard time recruiting new members for their organizations.
They point out Baby Boomers are especially reluctant to accept their aging status. My mother never thought she was old. She wasn’t a baby boomer but a member of the Greatest Generation. Ma must have been ahead of her time in her aging denial. I remember when I took her downtown to Summer Station for her T senior card. She hated saying she was old, but she told everyone it was to save some money on fares.
Last year, I went to the same subway station and signed up for my T senior card. Like my mother, I hated the idea. I even put it off for five years pretending I was still too young for the card. Like my mother, I only did it to save some money riding the T.
I’ve talked to lots of older people recently. Alas, most of my friends are now older, too. They don’t like getting old. Days, weeks, months go by too fast. I joke and tell people I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.
I must say that like my mom, old folks are anyone who are older than me. You are only as old as you either feel or want to be. I go to senior centers from time to time to write up a newspaper story of mine. Maybe someday way off in the future, I will feel differently, but for now, I don’t need any old people lunches or rides to the beach.
Baby Boomers are old enough to remember the good, old days when candy bars were only a nickel and Coke and Pepsi came in glass bottles. Age is but a number, and I am old enough to know my number is getting higher, but like my mom, I just keep plugging away.
Senior centers need to find a better name. Life is ongoing. I still think old people are around a good 10 years older than me but I said that 10 years ago, too. Today’s older people (Baby Boomers) still feel younger enough not to be called old. Sometimes denial is a good thing.
It keeps you breathing.