Columns

By Debbie Lindsey

Ageless

"I need three people to ride in the van with me to go pick up the folding tables.” I joined in with my fellow food distribution volunteers, and one of the guys said, “Ma’am, you can have the front seat.”

“Thanks, but please don’t call me ma’am, or I’ll have to hurt ya. When you get older, you’ll understand how ancient this makes one feel.”

We all laughed, and the driver shared her first ma’am moment and how, even at 35, she had felt kind of insulted, too. I felt that I had achieved my point and was hopefully on my way to being regarded as an equal and not some delicate elder— until we got to the pick-up spot for loading the tables. My back just couldn’t equal the strength of the three 30-somethings. I joked that I might better accept a “ma’am moment” and spare my lower back as I uselessly stood by.

Damn, damn, and double damn. Anyone can have a back issue, but when you get to my age, you simply appear old. Yes, my birthday is around the corner, and most of my November columns lean towards this inevitable thing called “getting older.” It happens to everybody once a year. Oh sure, one day doesn’t make it happen; it is an ongoing process. But on your birthday, a number officially changes. I will be 68. And damn if I don’t feel like it. But I sure as heck try not to act it—unless there are heavy-ass folding tables to load into a van (when did they get heavier, and when did vans start being so high off the ground?).

The other day, I went to pick up a supply of cat food from my veterinarian. It was a small, lightweight case of cans and a medium bag of dry kibble. My car was mere feet away, yet the young and thoughtful employee offered to carry it for me. I said, “Oh, this is nothing. I just got through lifting 80 pounds.” Yes, 80 pounds! What in the world would anyone other than a weightlifter or construction worker be doin’ picking up 80 pounds? I just had to prove to the helpful young woman that I did not need help with 10 pounds. Now she must think that, in addition to being old, I am also delusional about my superpowers.

Funny how I have no problem admitting my physical shortcomings to a friend of like age. And if I have the upper hand in the dialogue when addressing the young and supple, then trashing my own looks, caused by the ravages of age, can be rich! Just seeing the fear in their eyes that one day this will be their reality is rather satisfying. I am fodder for stand-up comedy—I could work the AARP club circuit. I might call myself an old fart, but don’t even think about saying that to me or anyone of a certain age if you are young. And it’s not just that getting older has become personal and real to me. I have always felt anger when someone older is disparaged in any way relating to their age or looks. I remember when I was bartending at a restaurant (I was much younger then), and a waitress referenced her customers at one of her tables as “the old couple over there.” Thought I would come out of my skin.

“Couldn’t you just say the couple at table 51?”

Why mention their age at all? (I hoped that they would stiff her, but then, of course, she would have bitched about how “old people” are lousy tippers.)

My parents had me when they were older (not old), and they would often be mistaken as my grandparents. This really got under my skin (and I assume that it annoyed them, too). I suspect my sensitivity to ageism has much to do with my parents and the role models they unwittingly became for me. They were my first up-close and personal example of age having nothing to do with ability. They could hold their own against any of the younger parents. They simply did not ever use age as an excuse not to rise up to whatever life threw at them. As I entered adulthood, they would become my friends, and I always expected my younger friends to treat them as equals. Many a party of mine included Mom and Dad—they were Veronica and Phil to everyone, not a Mr. and a Mrs. And now I, too, request that my friends’ children call me by my first name. Give me respect as a person—not because I am older or have the advantage of height over some five-year-old.

When I start to feel my age in a negative way—like a prelude to a permanent interruption of life—I look about me and see role models everywhere: people older than I, creating, politicking, policing, governing, legislating, and singing their asses off. Oh, Tony Bennett, croon me a love song! Germaine Bazzle, uplift me with your scatting. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, you will always continue to inspire me; please look down upon our Supreme Court, sending it strength and righteousness. And, let’s remember, regardless of your political leanings, the next president will be well into his 70s. When I think of the power that we have and the opportunities still available to those willing to jump in and be engaged, my sagging butt seems like a minor distraction.

Let’s forget ageism and think ageless. So, show me some respect and skip the “ma’am” formalities, get to know me, and expect—always, please expect—a lot from me.

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White and Blue or Social Insecurity

Afew weeks ago, I made the mistake and can afford. I don’t appear suspicious, so of posting on social media that any time I walk into a saloon, the bartender I believed that there was no wants to know what I want to drink, instead justification for looting, the destroying of of making sure that the cash register is private property, and/or violence in what closed before serving me. I don’t look tough, should be civil protests. I released a virtual so that’s a plus. I don’t act tough, because, sh*tstorm of responses, one of which basically, I’m not. I’m pretty much accepted accused my viewpoint of being naive and anywhere I go because I’m just some old clouded because it was coming from a place white guy. I don’t know what it’s like to be of “privilege.” I was enraged. I immediately Black, Jewish, Hispanic, Palestinian, gay, a dusted off my cred resume to check off my woman, a person with disabilities, someone qualifications for the miscreant who would forced to live on a reservation, or anyone dare to label and libel me with this poison else who gets singled out for abuse or arrow that went to my heart. Privileged. dismissed for no apparent reason, except

Raised poor: check. Single parent, five that they are who they are. children, on welfare, in the projects: check, Self-actualization comes slowly, and check, check check check. Mistreated and with my short attention span, I had to maligned: check again. Second-generation repeat to myself the fact that in the real American, Vietnam-era veteran, retired world, I am invisible and pretty much and living on social security: That’s me. immune to the reality that there are Who would have the nerve to think me people out there having legitimate beefs “privileged”? This conundrum kept me with the world at large because the world from getting the peaceful rest that I so well believes, in reality, that they don’t, in fact, deserve (and have earned), causing me to matter. That old song: “The whole world is ponder both weak and weary. teeming with unhappy souls. The French

There was no systemic racism in my hate the Germans, the Germans hate young world, per se. Everybody almost the Poles, Italians hate Yugoslavs, South instinctually distanced themselves from Africans hate the Dutch, and I don’t like anybody and everybody who was not of anybody very much” fits well. And then, the their class, religion, and background. We oppressed have the nerve to bitch about were biased against (and were suspicious the oppressor. The nerve. of) Aryan Eastern Europeans, Asians, Blacks, In the screw-or-be-screwed world that Latinos, swarthy Mediterranean types, we live in, there seems to be little hope for Jews, Protestants, intellectuals, anyone what our venerated religious saviors have possibly Socialist, Fascist, or Communist, instructed us to do: love one another and and the possibility of persons who would treat one another the way we wish ourselves become known as the LGBTQ+ community. to be treated—with kindness, respect, and Also, those who had more money than dignity, with fairness and equality. Is that so we did, certainly those who had less, and hard of a pill to swallow? Obviously, it is. anyone who rooted for an out-of-town Well, I’m still rebellious, and although, sports team. In short, everyone around in the scheme of things, I’m still immune us. We all got along in social and public from the challenges that persist, I believe places (even making friends), and we never that seeking justice is the highest form pictured those people or ourselves as being of rebellion. So, I’ll continue to rebel underprivileged or disadvantaged—just against racism, sexism, classism, slavery, different from us all and everybody else. ageism, and bias. I’m for equality and

I was a difficult child—imaginative, the betterment of education, wages, intelligent, insecure, and headstrong. I got and housing, and the protection of the in trouble, pushed boundaries, and avoided environment. And, most importantly, I’m conformity, doing as I pleased, when I against labels, boundaries, and walls that pleased. What was I rebelling against? keep people apart from one another. In the words of Johnny Strabler (Marlon What I believe we need is for a level of Brando, The Wild One, 1953), “Whaddya intelligence to become common that will got?” I never considered myself part of a allow all of us to see past our preconditioned privileged class, until the other night when and preconceived ideas. All living beings the “get a clue” phone rang, and the voice need to feel safety in movement and on the other end said, “But, you’re white.” environment and to be able to live free and

It’s true. I am white. Walking down the without constraints. None of us should feel street, entering a business, congregating the need to protect ourselves because we with other white folks and being out and feel threatened by someone or something about in general, I appear harmless and different than ourselves, and we should nothing to be apprehensive about: “It’s okay, live the faith that that is totally and it’s just some old white guy.” unequivocally reciprocated. We should put

When applying for a position or attention, an end to hate and hurt. It’s proven to have I’m out on stage in my “normal” clothes, and a counterproductive track record. I put on my “white” vocal accent and use my Also, I still believe that there is “white” enunciation, and there I am: the old no justification in looting, violence, or white guy. I know how to work the system. destruction in civil protests. But what do I I can rent pretty much anywhere I want know? I’m just this old white guy.