WE'RE PEOPLE TOO

For more years than I like to admit, I have railed about getting older and becoming irrelevant. Boy, I am fed up hearing it. Imagine how everyone else, even people with unlimited patience, must feel. My kids. My friends. Complete strangers who make the mistake of remembering me. Like Webb, the co-owner of a B&B in Maryhill who fell into the trap when he said: “You’re Larry Solway. (my VISA card says “Lawrence.”) “I always liked your commentaries.”

Here I go again!

He may have said “I always listened to your commentaries.”
My other response is, thinking to be funny by poking fun at myself: “You’re not old enough to remember me…etc.”

What my friends are most tired of hearing, especially those who by some miracle that has passed me by, are still working, is: “It’s terrible to become irrelevant. I’m not out-of-touch, but no one believes me.” Hey Larry – stand that up against your constant railing about “kids” (anyone under 40) who are hotwired to their IPods or spend hours text messaging, or have conversations that display rank indifference to the “real” world. No wonder they think you’re irrelevant!

I have had my time in the spotlight. I used it. The spotlight went out. Whatever happened, it happened. It is a fact. No amount of elderly carping will change it.

I have had an awakening. (Here we go again you say!) Not an epiphany, a kind of eureka moment of sudden discovery, more like a dawning, a slow and steady arrival of light.

Last week my wife and I went on a brief tour of some of Ontario’s prettiest country, the area generally referred to as “Mennonite” country – the rolling lush farmlands north of Kitchener, which is where I met Webb at his B&B. After he realized who I used to be he asked: “Are you still on the air?” It’s a question I am always asked. My reply, trying not to sound irritated: “No one asks me any more.”

Whining gets you nowhere. It closes more doors than it opens. It makes me think of dismissive comments like: “You want a friend? Go get a dog.”

Originally this was going to be an Email to someone at CBC Radio to present an idea for a show called “We’re People Too.” Not, I pray, another advocacy program trumpeting the rights of seniors and threatening government with Grey Power political action.

No. It would be about older people, for older people, but even more, for the families, the caregivers, and the ones like my own family, who all too often have to listen to me rail against real and imagined ills. Intolerance is still one of my major (?) assets!

There is a great need for younger people (by that I mean “youngsters” in their 40s and 50s) to learn how to cope with older folks while we older folks learn to cope, not just with each other, but with a very fast-changing world.

I wrote about all this in the book “Don’t Be Blindsided by Retirement.” I have tried to take charge of my life. There are millions like me. There are more millions who will soon be like me, And there are today millions who are care-givers because they are family. I want to turn this dialogue into a regular radio show which would include other seniors, geriatric specialists, and especially the kids and families of the CARPing generation. If you have a contact button you could push - I'd like that.

As Joan Rivers always says: “Can we talk?”