I know… I said I was done. But this house has ways of throwing things in my path for me to have a look at. Last night I was standing in my boy’s room looking for a photo of grandma (his bookshelf holds our family photos) and I noticed a couple of albums kind of stuck off to the side. A couple of very old photo albums of Grandma’s and one that holds a bunch of memories the family put together for Grandma’s 80th. Her children, their spouses, and all us grandkids (plus two spouses), and a couple of great grandkids wrote out our memories of Grandma. Sharing them seems like a really nice way to honour a woman who has meant so much to us all.

I’m not sure where the “Profile of a Senior” came from – when I googled it I found a couple of copies of it written elsewhere – no idea where to credit it though. Grandma turned 80 on October 4, 1988 and as with most things, some of it aged well, some of it didn’t (pretty sure the “Coke” of their time had actual cocaine in it so….)

Profile of a Senior

Who is a senior citizen? What is one?

A senior citizen is one who was here before the pill and the population explosion. We were here before television, penicillin, polio shots, antibiotics, and frisbees. Before frozen food, nylon, dacron, xerox, Kinsey, radar, fluorescent lights, credit cards and ballpoint pens. For us, time sharing meant togetherness not computers; a chip meant a piece of wood, hardware meant hard work and software wasn’t even a word. Co-Ed’s never wore slacks, we were before pantyhose and drip-dry clothes, before ice makers and dishwashers, clothes dryers, freezers and electric blankets. Before Hawaii had Alaska became states. Before men wore long hair and earrings and women wore tuxedos.

We were before Leonard Bernstein, yogurt, Ann Landers, plastic, the 40 hour week and the minimum wage. We got married first and then lived together. How quaint can one be?

Closets were for clothes, not for coming out of, bunnies were small rabbits and rabbits were not Volkswagens. We were before Grandma Moses and Frank Sinatra and cup sizing for bras. Girls wore Peter Pan collars and thought cleavage was something butchers did. We were before Batman, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and Snoopy. before DDT, vitamin pills, disposable diapers, QE one, Jeeps, the Jefferson memorial, and pizza. Cheerios, instants coffee, decaffeinated anything, and McDonald’s were unheard of. We thought fast food was what you ate during Lent. We were before Boy George, J.D. Salinger, and Chiquita banana. Before FM radios, tape recorders, electric typewriters, word processors, Muzak, electronic music, disco dancing – and that’s not all that bad!!

In our day, cigarette smoking was fashionable, grass was for mowing, coke was a refreshing drink, and pot was something you cooked in. If we’d been asked to explain CIA, Ms, NATO, UFO, NFL, ERA, or IUD, we would have said alphabet soup.

We are today’s senior citizens, a hardy bunch when you think of how our wold has changed and the adjustments we have had to make!!