“LOST MUSKET DIARY” Thursday February 5, 2015
Fog, then some Sun 75°F/24°C in Rancho Santa Margarita
Buongiorno,
As my
biological clock keeps ticking, I am realizing that growing older is a much
more complex process than I thought at age fifty or even 65. But now, I’m 74
and firmly ensconced in retirement mode, trying to enjoy my “Golden Years.” It’s
an era nervously anticipated by every generation. Back in the early 1960s as a
twenty-something baby-boomer, I was binge-reading Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels.
Fleming always wove wonderful literary digressions into his verbal tapestries
of spies, sex, blood and violence, suspense and adventure on a Cold War
backdrop, and I happily read each and every one of them until I had acquired
the entire paperback collection. Here’s an excerpt. It’s my blog set-up for today.
I’ll get to my main point, following this brief flashback.
“Everybody’s
making easy money in America these days,” said Solitaire. “That’s always bad
for the customer. All they want is to strip a quick dollar off you and toss you
out. Wait till you get down to the coast. At this time of the year, Florida’s
the biggest sucker-trap on earth. On the East Coast they fleece the
millionaires. Where we’re going they just take it off the little man. Serves
him right, of course. He goes there to die. He can’t take it with him.”
The beautiful Solitaire, James Bond’s
love interest in Ian Fleming’s 1954 classic spy novel Live and Let Die is
explaining the realities of Retirement-American
Style to Agent 007 as they cuddle on the crack Florida-bound train Seaboard Phantom, making their escape
from New York and their nemesis, the Harlem-based master criminal, Mr. Big.
“For heaven’s sake,” said Bond, “what
sort of a place are we going to?” “Everybody’s nearly dead in St Petersburg,”
explained Solitaire. “It’s the Great American Graveyard. When the bank clerk or
the post-office worker or the railroad conductor reaches sixty he collects his
pension or his annuity and goes to St. Petersburg to get a few years’ sunshine
before he dies. It’s called “The Sunshine
City.”
You’ll love it,” she smiled maliciously at Bond. ‘You’ll
probably want to settle down there for life and be an “Oldster” too. That’s the great word down there … OLDSTER!” “God forbid,” said Bond
fervently. “It sounds rather like Bournemouth or Torquay. But a million times
worse. I hope we don’t get into a shooting match with “The Robber” and his
friends. We’d probably hurry a few hundred oldsters off to the cemetery with
heart-failure.” (Fleming, Ian (2012-10-16). Live
and Let Die (James Bond Book 2) (pp. 111-112). AmazonEncore. Kindle Edition).
Now
we leave 1954 fiction and return to present-day 2015. This Oldster is a retiree in sunny southern California, not St.
Petersburg. What’s more we’ll be examining the challenges being faced by a
Michigan retiree. But these issues traverse not only the decades but the entire
country. Recently, as I scanned my on-line edition of the New York Sunday Times;
a headline in Opinion caught my eye. Mean Girls in the Retirement Home, (NY Times Jan. 17, 2015) read the headline. Under that catchy title,
Jennifer Weiner, recounted the tale of her 99 year old grandmother, and the
social challenges encountered when she moved into an “assisted living facility”
for older citizens. I perked up because, last year when I was apartment
hunting, my daughter found an “active
55-plus retirement community” in the area where I wanted to move. The kids
had concluded that it would be best to move “dear old dad” into a place where
he would be independent, but still have help nearby if he started to dodder.
So, last year, on my 73rd birthday, I moved lock, stock and
“Emotional Support Animal” into Fountain Glen. Now, after a year of living in my own “55-plus”
environment, Jennifer Weiner’s story, Mean
Girls in the Retirement Home caught my eye and I couldn’t help but
compare notes and what I read jolted me.
Sometime after she relocated her grandmother from Florida back to home
turf in Michigan, Jennifer Weiner,
described Nanna’s reply to her question "’Have you made any
friends?’ There was a pause. Then: ’They won't let me sit at their table!’
Nanna cried. ’Wait, what? Who won't let you sit at their table?’ Said Nanna, ‘you
try to sit and they say that seat is taken!'" Then it hit Weiner.
She
continues, “With that, I began to realize that, as old as you might get in
life, you never outgrow that feeling that every kid gets on their first day at
school, especially if your family has moved and your childhood and adolescence
is marked by the uprooting that goes with it, and that first day in a new
social setting.” Lo and behold, I thought when I read this, Nanna and I have
something in common. And, my shout-out to Jennifer Weiner and other seniors in
this situation would be, “Don’t feel like the Lone Ranger!”
Weiner’s takeaway on all of this
is that the notion that a threat to seniors originates with other seniors is
somewhat new. “Scientific research on the topic is on just now getting under
way,” she says, and she cites some other examples. “We've all heard sad tales of senior citizens being beaten, starved
or neglected by the people paid -usually underpaid -to care for them. The notion that a threat to seniors is their peers
is somewhat new, and usually
played for laughs…mean girls are not girls, or mean, forever.
High school doesn't
last forever, everyone
grows up. But Nanna's experience suggests otherwise,”
Weiner writes
Since I
took up residence in my 55-plus apartment, stories like Mean Girls in the Retirement Home definitely cause me to
perk up and pay attention. I can relate to Nanna’s experience. While I’ve
gotten used to the regular paramedics responses, I’m somewhat jolted when I see
Sheriff’s deputies’ show up, especially if three or four units respond. Recently,
one older resident called the authorities to complain about the vile language
and harassment of another resident. Another time a new acquaintance related her
experience of a neighbor trying to run her down with his electric wheel chair. On
still another occasion, I actually witnessed an incident with a neighbor (male)
who was swearing at the manager and threatening her with bodily harm. The
incident was resolved when Sheriff’s deputies removed the man from the premises
and offered him a choice – jail or commitment to a psychiatric facility. He was
evicted.
My own
experiences involve what I see as the “nickel and dime stuff”- the unwarranted
complaints about my toy poodle, the complaints that I park over the line of my
parking stall (I pay $25 a month extra for covered parking), the interminable
gossip and the attempts to link me romantically with one 80 year old or another
(I’ve been divorced TWICE. Get real!), and the numerous verbal reminders that I
am breaking some house rule or another- “your dog’s not allowed by the swimming
pool or in the social center,” or “you can’t open the front door for anybody
after 6 p.m.” (Yeah right! Even the uniformed guy delivering a pizza or the
EMT’s who are trying to get in the building in response to a 911 call from the
third floor, or even the neighbor who left his keys upstairs).
Weiner’s
NY Times piece cites a recent Cornell University study by Karl Pillemer to
underscore the point. The study shows that aggression among residents in
nursing homes and similar facilities is widespread and “extremely high rates of
conflict and violence” are common. As an example, the study’s news release
states that one in five residents were involved in a violent encounter during a
four week period.
My
takeaway on Weiner’s article in the NY Times is that the life of a senior
citizen mirrors life in society at large. Older folks are not just moving into
someplace where they have no problems or lifestyle challenges. They may be
older. (I know I sure as heck am!) And they are still people. Real People. I
think it’s a good thing that our society is paying attention. My curiosity was
piqued not only by the news that there are social stresses in living facilities
for older citizens, but the fact of the new attention and research being
devoted to it. We are gradually adjusting to the realities of an aging
population where the “baby boomers” of the post-World War 2 generation are
morphing into the “Golden Oldies” of the New Millennium.” And, because we are
growing older, if not wiser, generationally we are opening new frontiers.
Anti-social behavior among people who should have out grown it is one example.
I have a feeling that we will be hearing more and more on the subject as our
population continues to age and more older Americans are funneled into
specialized living accommodations like “independent living” residences.
Ciao!
MikeBo
