"Most men die at 27, we just bury them at 72"
- Mark Twain
It's interesting living in the human equivalent of the fabled "elephant graveyard." My town is a place where the climate is, by any Canadian standard, idyllic. It's as though there was a by-law prohibiting extreme weather, cold or hot. Places like mine are magnets for the geriatric set and not just my fellow British Columbians either. Geezers from Saskatchewan, geezers from Ontario and the dreaded Alberta geezers descend on us in swarms like locusts. Unfortunately they bring their half-assed ways and attitudes with them. Stephen Harper thanks them for that.
The trouble with old people is their insatiable urge to remake the very world they're so soon to depart. Can there be a greater conceit in human nature than for those nearing the close of life to demand that it be restored as it was when they found it?
Recently our community paper printed letters advocating the reinstatement of our schools of the Lord's Prayer and the daily singing of both "Oh Canada" and "God Save the Queen." They wanted public education reset to what they recalled as the good old days.
The Lord's Prayer, really? Surely the religious youth is not so lacking in opportunity to recite that mantra that they need another chance, this time out loud at school. But these crotchety old farts aren't worried about the religious youth. Rather they're after the kids who don't recite their prayer enough or at all for whatever reason.
Societies change, civilizations evolve. We should still be living in sod huts with hard packed dirt floors if every generation of old fogies was allowed to reset society to the backward state in which, in their own youth, they had found it.
Screw old people.
Don't worry. Youth know how to deal with them. Listen respectfully and then ignore them.
ReplyDeleteHarper! I will worry about.
ANYONG HAS WRITTEN....What about you MOS...are you not riding the road toward 70 like many of us? How offensive that you should put all older people in your offensive category. Are you the only person who thinks in a progressive open manner? I don't think so. By the way, I am back living in Alberta where my pension will allow me to live within a reasonable life style. ANYONG.
ReplyDeleteYes indeed I ride that same road. And it would be silly of you to assume that I put all older people in any category but it is from their ranks that we get nonsense about restoring the Lord's Prayer and such crap. Only the irrelevant resort to that form of arrogance and a pox on their houses.
ReplyDeletePlease don't tar all seniors or old people as you call them with the same brush. We aren't all trying to recreate the past -- we would just like a little civility -- surely that is something every person of every age can appreciate. S McCabe -- a 70 year old young person
ReplyDeleteMany old people give great advice. Such as George Bernard Shaw and Abraham Lincoln and many more.
ReplyDelete2:45 PM In that case MOS use the word some and learn to admit when you have made a mistake.
ReplyDeleteThere is not one thing wrong with singing the Canadian Anthem in school.
ReplyDelete@Anon, unless your emotions overwhelmed reason you'll notice I did not focus on anthems at all but only prayer. Keep focus.
ReplyDelete@LD, you're absolutely right that many old people do give great advice but the great majority turn insular, timid, angry and then vote rightwing. As Mark Twain observed we bury them at 72 yet they die at 27.
10:30...you included the singing of the Canadian National Anthem in your disgust for old farts requesting it be returned to the classroom. Who needs to keep focus??
ReplyDelete