Feral Elder: Not Crabby. I Just Miss Yesterdays.

By VALERIE HERSHFIELD, The Feral Elder, InDepth NH

Welcome to the “Sweetie Pie Senior” column. Not really, but my daughter said my last columns could more aptly be titled Grumpy Elder. So, let me say, despite all I find annoying that comes along with aging – being underestimated or ignored, or having well-meaning people say goofy things, such as “You look good for your age” — I am extremely thankful for being here at 80.

For instance, I believe being old (and polite) got me out of a speeding ticket recently. I also skated with a “warning” for not stopping completely at a stop sign a year ago. The same young officer took pity on this grateful old lady.

I am on the leading edge of the “baby boomers.” Boomers are often considered the luckiest and most prosperous generation, owing to growing up during a time of post-WWII prosperity. There’s the ability of home ownership alone to consider. The previous “silent generation” made more money than their parents. According to Google (and Google wouldn’t lie to me, right?) the boomers followed by making about 27 percent more than their folks. The silent generation embarked on the “free love” movement — quietly. We boomers blew that one wide open — loud and proud — during the 1960s and 1970s.

Let’s hear it for Medicare. A great boon for which I’m most appreciative. It’s not our deliberate fault, but we are the largest group of lucky recipients (for now) eating through it at breakneck speed. We are a really big bunch with generally longer lifespans than those before us (another blessing – for us). The next generations are smaller, thus making a smaller workforce putting less cash into the system. Not their fault

Oh, and the music. I’m taking nothing away from Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny or any other of the top performers today; they’re talented, exciting and smart. But classic rock is alive to this day, boomers having passed it down. It has been re-exposed through TV, movies and the internet. As young teens, my best friend Elaine and I would dance in her bedroom until we dropped, while declaring who we loved most, Elvis or Ricky Nelson. Later on I was batty for Paul, “the cute Beatle.”

There’s a myriad of books documenting the revolutionary benefits of the computer age exploding exponentially. AI! OMG! I’m no Luddite, but there was a certain beauty of not having 24-hour instant access to one another. Interpersonal relationships were necessary, and privacy was possible to some degree. Mean kids had to bully us to our faces, not anonymously in front of millions of people.

Sometimes I even have fun being the “old fogey.” The other day I explained to my teenage colleague (God knows why, but probably because old people do these things) that area codes were originally assigned by city population size (New York 212, Los Angeles 213, Chicago 312, etc.), so the numbers were quicker to “dial.” She was stopped at the concept of “dial.” I remember trying to dial quietly on our one hallway phone so my mother wouldn’t hear me late at night. Impossible, by the way.

We had more unstructured playtime. I recognize the value of some organized recreation, but I think back on how, as a 10-year-old, I would go off in the morning on “Blackie the Wonder Horse” with friends, returning home at dinnertime. My mom had no idea we were encountering rattlesnakes, rushing streams, and the tantalizing Boy Scout camp. Not many years later, there’s no way I allowed my child to disappear for hours. We also had not yet arrived at the age where kids were overscheduled with regulated activities, nor wedded to their phone screens. Wow, I do sound old and grumpy.

There were also horrible things during my younger years. There was the Vietnam War; people died on the battlefield, and protesting at home. AIDS arrived, an unbearably cruel disease affecting victims not only physically, but as a social stigma. Still, there were important positive movements for Civil Rights and Women’s Rights. I unapologetically fall on the “pro” side of these divisive subjects, but it brought community amongst like-minded people – on both sides. I’m not romanticizing the conflicts, and they’re on-going, but somehow, we seemed less insane than the vicious, and too often violent, polarization we live with today. Can we bring back harmless bra burning, please?

So, getting back to this column’s title, the dictionary defines “feral” as relating to, or suggestive of a wildness, not domesticated. I don’t see that as negative, but freeing. I think we should aspire to a bit of wildness at any age. I’m thankful for the fortune to have achieved this one through some amazing times. And, yeah, maybe I do look good for my age.

This story was originally published by InDepth NH.