Health
Humor in the Second Half of Life
GETTING OLDER? A MILLION LAUGHS? APPARENTLY SO.
I get them on my email. I’m sure you see them too. Like this one: Two elderly gents were eating breakfast in a restaurant one morning. Henry noticed something funny about Arthur’s ear. “Art, did you know you’ve got a suppository in your left ear?”
“Hank, I’m glad you saw that thing. Now I think I know where my hearing aid is.”
Or this one: Two elderly ladies had been friends for many decades. Over the years they had shared all kinds of activities and adventures. Lately, their activities had been limited to a few games of cards every week. One day, one looked at the other and said, “Now don’t get mad at me…I know we’ve been friends for years…but I just can’t think of your name. Please tell me what your name is.”
Her friend glared at her. For at least three minutes she just stared and glared. Finally, she blurted, “How soon do you need to know?”
Humor at the expense of second-halfers seems quite common. Allia Sobel’s book of cartoon humor The Joys of Being 50-plus is but one example of this insulting sophomoric perspective on aging. While the book appears to target Second Halfers, my reading of these “funnies” made me shudder at the prospect of getting older. Apparently, author Zobel believes there is nothing to look forward to upon reaching 50 except wrinkles, stupidity, self loathing, and insults from the rest of society. Thanks for the laughs, but I’m just not laughing.
Another effort at poking fun at the aging process entitled “The Perks of Getting Older” include these screamers:
- You can eat dinner at 4 p.m.
- Your eyes won’t get much worse
- Things you buy now won’t wear out
- You sing along with elevator music
- Your investment in health insurance is finally beginning to pay off
- Your secrets are safe with your friends because they can’t remember them either.
There was a time when America made fun of blacks and Jews. There was a time when jokes about dumb wives brought gales of laughter. Quips and witticisms about people with disabilities—stuttering or wheelchairs—had their day, too.
Apparently the time is not yet nigh that laughing at older people or the aging process no longer seems so funny. It’s easier to laugh at Alzheimer’s disease, apparently, when only 1 American is 100 is affected by it. That percent will increase by 350% over the next 30 years, three times the rate of increase of the population at large. At some point it becomes no laughing matter.
American media—magazines, TV, music, movies, newspapers, radio, and the internet—has been hi-jacked by very young adults. Because these industries operate on increasingly narrow profit margins, they are the province of 20-somethings just out of school. From the creative staffs of ad firms, to the producers of radio talk shows, to the editors of magazines, it is hard to find a major decision-maker over 40.
The result? The bright, and occasionally caring, young media leaders just don’t get it—no matter how intelligent they might be. They don’t have a clue what aging really is about. The mirror they hold to society is a false mirror of an aging that is invariably poverty-stricken, decrepit, stupid, and constantly in misery.
Today’s newer “map” of aging reflects little of that antiquated mid-20th Century perspective on age. Unfortunately, the hot shots in media haven’t picked up on the fact that a new generation is headed its way: 60-year olds back in school, 70-year olds starting new businesses, 80-year old marathoners, and 90-year old newlyweds.
Sadly the ultra-sophisticated and politically correct New Yorker magazine still hasn’t seen the light. Here are several of their cartoon jabs at aging:
· A bald, bespectacled tiny old man, seated at a swanky restaurant with a blonde one-third his age, suggests…. “Perhaps, given time, but not too much time, you could learn to love me.”
· The inscription on a memorial statue in a park reads… “Fred Philpot, born 1944. Let it all hang out 1967-1979. Stuffed it all back in 1980-2004.”
· A doctor turns to a woman standing over a hospital bed of a man hooked up to an IV and informs her… “It’s a very senior moment—he’s dead.”
A million laughs, don’t you agree?
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Friends
My parents were among the most social people I’ve ever experienced. They had tons of friends, from high school, college, work, and play. They lived their lives from age five on in the same town. They had bridge and poker clubs, the Elks Club, the PTA, the Masons and Eastern Star, the Tennis Club, high school reunions, and dance clubs.
They had so many caring, rich friendships from their first half of life, they didn’t need any more for the Second Half. Or so they thought.
By their last five years, and thanks to their own above average longevity, they had out-lived most all their good friends. At a time when my parents became less and less mobile, their friends had either passed away or moved to warmer climates…and out of their lives.