We Americans waste a lot. Sad but true. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), nationally, we throw away about 30 to 40 percent of our food supply annually. That is roughly 133 billion pounds of food or $161 billion based on retail prices. That is a lot of food, and that is not all we waste. We waste people.
We warehouse our seniors. We prop them up in front of a TV set or a table full of puzzle pieces. They waste away until they lose enough muscle tone or interest in living and die. The brain is not a muscle, it is an organ, but like a muscle, it is use or lose. Moreover, from a very young age, humans strive to meet expectations—the more you expect, the more they will do. We not only expect less from our seniors—we also encourage, and sometimes force, them to do less.
Instead, I suggest we reorganize the Gray Panthers. There are only 25 chapters nationwide. What better place than here to organize a 26th?
Maggie Kuhn founded the Gray Panthers in 1970 after she was forced into mandatory retirement at the age of 65. Kuhn lived for another three decades, organized the Gray Panthers, and fought tirelessly for human rights. Kuhn said, “old people and woman constitute America’s biggest untapped and undervalued human energy resource.”
Well, women have made strides, and for many jobs in many places, the mandatory retirement age has gone up to 70 or evaporated altogether. And yet, the prejudice lingers. One woman, shaking her head, said she felt sad about it, but obviously Biden could not continue to be president, “Look at how he walks.” I reminded her that, for four terms, Franklin Delano Roosevelt served as president from a wheelchair, unable to walk at all.
In the Lord Peter Whimsey detective stories, the aging Miss Climpson is his secret weapon. “[Miss Climpson] asks questions which a young man could not put without a blush … I send a lady with a long, woolly jumper on knitting needles and jingly things round her neck. Of course, she asks questions—everybody expects it. Nobody is surprised. Nobody is alarmed. And so-called superfluity is agreeable…”
Without ever saying exactly how old she is, Agatha Christie’s Miss Jane Marple is typically referred to as “an elderly spinster” or an “old lady.” Her age was estimated to be between 70 and 80. She is described as having a sharp mind, keen powers of deduction, and accurate observations of human nature.
Perhaps these women are meant to be exception but not necessarily. There is an advantage in survival; there is wit in the ability. Longevity grants facts and wisdom.
We live in a time when there is, if not a dearth of knowledge, then certainly a lack of respect for facts and truth. We live in a time when there is little consequence for coloring outside the lines. At minimum, my father taught me that I can break any rule of grammar or style if I know I am doing it—only if I know I am doing it and why.
As a nation, we are, in some way, out of control. We need someone to say, “Not now—everyone back in line.” It will not be Gen X, Millennials, or Gen Z. It is their job to challenge the rules—but only if they know they are doing it and why. Only if they know what the rule was and why it was first promulgated. They may not know that, but their elders sure will.
We need to recognize potential. We need to truly understand prejudice, the purposeful misunderstanding and undervaluing of any group. We live in a land of plenty. That does not justify waste, but it enables it. If we do not recognize potential, if we continue to waste resources, our country suffers. Perhaps now more than ever before.
Try to talk and listen to your elders without condescension. Walk away with a sense of wonder for what we learned, not with a sense of superiority. Frankly, we are not doing so well. It may not be a shining moment in our history, and this may not be quite the shining city on the hill, but it can be. If we use and don’t abuse our resources, human and material, we have all we need to prevail.
