July 2, 2024 – Andy is in OurLitteCorner today

All of This Talk About “Getting Old” is Getting Old!

I’ve noticed as I get older that older people tend to increasingly dwell on topics associated with getting older.  Anymore, It’s rare for me to carry on a casual conversation which doesn’t at some point turn to one thing or another about aging. For want of a better term, I’ll call this elder-chat.

In a place like Glen Ellen, where the median age is around 59 years (according to city-data.com), you can bet that elder-chat is the rule and not the exception.

Exchanging stories about various age-related medical concerns is one of the more common forms of elder-chat. To illustrate, recently I was in a conversation with two cycling friends at our Glen Ellen bakery, Les Pascal’s. We’d been chatting for a bit when a woman at the next table leaned over and asked if we happened to be doctors.  She was a nurse and had assumed that anyone talking about so many different medical procedures must be medical professionals. I couldn’t tell if she was kidding or not, but it did make me self-conscious about the number of times such topics come up in my circle of friends.

Of course, talk about aging isn’t restricted to informal chats among friends over coffee. Comedians have long incorporated elder-chat in their routines. I recall Bob Hope and George Burns towards the end of their careers leaning heavily on aging jokes (incidentally, both lived to be 100).

• Bob Hope:
  • “You know you’re getting old when the candles cost more than the cake.”
  • “I’m so old they’ve cancelled my blood type.”
  • “I don’t feel old. I don’t feel anything till noon. That’s when it’s time for my nap.”
• George Burns:
  • “You know you’re getting old when you stoop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you could do while you’re down there.”
  • “It’s good to be here. At 98, it’s good to be anywhere.”
  • “I was always taught to respect my elders and I’ve now reached the age when I don’t have anybody to respect.”

And I always got a kick out of the “rocking chair” episodes from the Carol Burnett Show in the 1960s. As you can see in the following clip, Burnett was fluent in elder-chat (despite being only in her 30s at the time):

As if humor about getting old was not enough, we are constantly being bombarded from all quarters with reminders about our aging. There are books on aging, research reports on aging, essays on aging, poetry about aging, movies and documentaries about aging, and I would guess that there are musicals about aging. To top it off, we just had a presidential debate (debacle, is more like it) that put a spotlight on aging. It’s no wonder then that we older folks get so caught up in elder-chat.

I’m sure that there are those who think that elder-chat is not much good for anything beyond continually reinforcing the fact that, indeed, we are growing older. However, I would argue that there’s a positive side to elder-chat. Think of it as a form of small talk, similar to our how chatting about the weather can be considered small talk (something I blogged about earlier). In this sense, elder-chat can be an ice-breaker to get conversations started, a way to connect to others with shared experiences, and a source of humor or wit. In short, it can pave the way to more meaningful interactions with others.

So when you find yourself immersed in a bout of elder-chat, don’t consider it to be merely a banal exchange of empty words. Like the weather, aging has its sunny days and as well as its drizzly, miserable days. And like the weather, aging is a topic that anyone (at least anyone in our general age-range) can identify with.

Having said all of that, did I tell you how often I had to get up to pee last night?