You’re going to spend a hefty chunk of your life being old.
Americans can expect to live to age 78, give or take. When does old age — or the golden years, or senior citizen years, if you prefer — begin? I’d say at age 50, and for two reasons:
1). Age 50 is the year Americans traditionally join AARP.
2). When you reach 50 your boss starts to seriously contemplate firing you and hiring someone younger and cheaper to do your job.
So, that means you can look forward (if you are lucky) to being a senior citizen for close to 30 years.
When we reach age 50, do we actually undergo some kind of change into seniordom? Or is the change not in us but in how we are perceived?
Until age 50 I am a person, a guy. Then when I reach age 50 I’m a senior citizen. How am I different? Am I different? I’ve wondered about this ever since I turned 50, ever since I became a senior citizen.
True, at 50, I couldn’t perform the physical feats I could when I was 25. But that just didn’t start when I was 50. Other than not being able to do many push ups, I couldn’t see how I had changed when I became a senior citizen.
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I held the same political beliefs. I still read the same authors, liked the same movies, professed the same religious beliefs and still would never order bacon on a pizza.
No, I have been a senior citizen for several years now. And essentially I am the same person I was at age 35. I just don’t see as well and I take more pills.
So, I never have been able to understand what are these senior citizen activities and attitudes I now should have — or, actually must have — because I am in this age group known as senior, or elderly, or old.
So, when I hear that the week of May 14-21 is Celebrate Seniors Week at the Oak Park Public Library I perhaps don’t get as excited as I should.
The library and the Oak Park-River Forest Township Senior Citizens Committee is offering an entire week of programs, concerts, films and discussions celebrating the present and future contributions of senior citizens.
Are we to celebrate the accomplishments or the age? I’m all for celebrating accomplishments whatever the age of the accomplisher.
Is it that society at large doesn’t expect accomplishments from the elderly?
Alas, that probably is so. So programs such as Celebrate Seniors Week are a good idea.
The programs will be held at the main library, 834 Lake St. For details, call the library at 383-8200.
Paul Sassone is a freelance columnist for Pioneer Press.