They never saw their age as a limitation. But what about the rest of us?
Waiting in the lobby, your name is called. A nurse shows you to the examination room. Annual checkup. "How's it going, young man? How are you doing today, young lady?" What is it about those greetings that rub the wrong way? Patronizing? Saccharine? A thinly veiled sympathy card in acknowledgement of this disease called ageing? The reduction of the older individual to a generic? Imagine greeting President Joe Biden, Dolores Huerta, Harry Belafonte, Nancy Pelosi, Willie Nelson or Jane Fonda in this manner? (See
SLATE magazine's December 2020 issue for "The Most Influential 80-Plus-Year-Olds in America.") Do they command more respect because they are a celebrity? Yes. But they also never saw their age as a limitation. What about the rest of us?