Thoughts on Ageing and the end of 2007
The ever increasing numbers of Senior Citizens (people age 65 and over) have drawn a lot of attention from our Nation's leaders as they debate measures designed to save the Social Security system and fix its heath program, Medicare. Several prior amendments to the law by Congress have contributed to the present crisis such as making it possible for millions to draw monthly checks who have never contributed to the fund. Another instance is: a child worth millions of dollars, may draw $500 per month until age 18 when one of their parents dies. But major changes are not imminent since no elected politician is going to commit political suicide by voting to make major changes necessary to solve the problem. A lot of people still believe that there is a free lunch!
Just prior to reaching age 65 in 1986, I dutifully reported as directed to our local Social Security office to claim those benefits long promised by our Government and her politicians. I said "thanks" but "no thanks" when I learned that the law would only allow me to earn a small amount of money if I drew my monthly social security stipend; I would wait until I reached age 70 to draw when there are no limits on the amount of money one can earn. (This restriction has now been changed,)
Sixty-five seems to be that age where one acquires sufficient experience to lose his job. Unlike furniture that increases in value with age, people are worth less as they age. What a waste of valuable resources by limiting the productivity of healthy senior citizens because they want money they have contributed to a retirement fund during their working years. Our big, benevolent, Government continues to panders to a gullible electorate that scarcely knows the names of their representatives in Congress. It is too bad that we don't require citizens to pass an basic civics test before they can register to vote.
Retirement from working is programmed in us almost from our first job as we ask about benefits and yes does the employer offer something other than contributions toward social security? Through our working years we dream and save up for those exotic places that we wish to visit when that magic day arrives when we no longer have to punch a time clock. "Retirement" is our dream of that "pot of gold" at the end of the rainbow when we join that parade that takes us to those mythical "Golden Years" where our lives are supposed to be less complicated with fewer cares to mar our world.
It is too bad that we live in a youth oriented society perpetuated by a media that continues to focus our attention on the young, the beautiful, the photogenic bodies belonging to a fresh, "empty headed," immature generation hardly out of their teens. If you are not young and attractive, forget about being elected to high national office because television and its news people won't allow it. Based on photos of Lincoln and some of our other notable leaders of the past, it is doubtful that they would be recognized by today's standards because they were not handsome and thus their political talents would have been lost forever. How many gifted people are we dooming to oblivion today because they fail the "beauty contest" with the news media. Oh yes, the media has its share of dumb reporters. I still chuckle when I think of a news conference held recently by a group of doctors who had just completed a liver transplant when one of the reporters asked how the donor was doing.
I never thought very much about "old age" during my more than 78 years of fun living mostly because I never expected to live to be old considering my semi-adventurous, maybe even reckless, lifestyle. Few life insurance companies wanted to insure me and those that would charged me additional premiums. Maybe the insurance companies didn't like some of the activities that I engaged in such as combat flying for almost two years with unfriendly Germans shooting at me and sometimes making holes in my airplane. Then perhaps it was my flying through Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean hurricanes when it was unnecessary, or it may have been my encounter with hostile “Huk” guerillas in the jungles of Luzon, or the brush with bandits while searching for gold high in the Andes of Bolivia, or my aimless flying around lost in the North Atlantic with an incompetent navigator while engines were running on fumes that caused concern for my longevity. Whether it was fighting the frigid cold weather of Greenland and the Arctic or battling humid, steamy, tropical jungles of Africa, or surviving in the arid Sahara Desert, there was always some excitement in the job I was doing and not many dull moments. I have been extremely fortunate to have jobs that were fun where I looked forward to going to work every day and many times stayed longer than necessary.
My travels today are far from the fast lane but still full of fun and excitement with daily challenges that my everyday life presents. Old age is an attitude as long we don't assign a numeric value. I refuse to join AARP or any other senior citizen organization so they can sell my name to some entrepreneur who wants to sell me something I don't need or want and use my money to hire some high paid lobbyist to fight for or against some legislation in Congress. If age 65 is the age when we become senior citizens, then why does the AARP recruit members from the early age 50?
Many of my friends and associates, both male and female, are many years my junior, but no one appears to care about age difference. I like to think that we grow old not so much by living, but losing interest in living. Senior citizen discounts don't appeal to me for once again that would relegate me to a certain group to be stigmatized by a label.
By a combination of good luck, good genes coupled with medical science, and a kindly deity, I have, along with thousands of other old geezers, kept actuaries busy revising their tables for insurance companies and meanwhile I plan to focus on enjoying all the good things in my life, which reminds me that it's now time for evening cocktails so enough of this rambling rhetoric on ageing, it might make me begin to feel old. Cheers!
Aubrey L. Ross
ALR@gulf1.com
