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Ancient.
Over the Hill. Long in the Tooth. The Downside of 50, the Short Side of
Life. Is there a power verb or adjective available to replace the term
“senior”? If you have one rolling around on the tip of your tongue, AARP
would like to hear from you.
It seems baby boomers, the folks who invented the “generation gap,” are now
staring eyeball-to-eyeball at age 60. Wile desperately desiring to be
“seniors” in high school and college, that same designation supposedly
leaves something to be desired in today’s stage of life.
As with many of life’s major issues, I was totally unaware of the problem.
While “senior” isn’t my personal pick to describe the demographic group in
which I currently reside, it’s also true my peer group isn’t all that choked
up about my own personal favorite, “Geezer.”
According to USA Today, some people over the age of 50 want to be called
“Ageless Adults.” Excuse me. All that descriptive phrase accomplishes is
to activate the gag reflex. People preferring “Ageless Adults” are the same
folks who reside on a “cul-de-sac” rather than a dead-end street.
The USA Today article quoted a 34-year-old retirement community services
coordinator (how’s that for a job title) saying it was impossible to attract
participants to her “senior aerobics” class so she changed the title to
“ageless aerobics” and it was standing-room only. Changing “Seniors Day at
Chick-Fil-A” to “Breakfast and Bingo at Chick-Fil-A” resulted, or so she
claims, in an overwhelming response. Like we’re supposed to buy the concept
that nothing says “join the youth movement” like a promise of bingo for
breakfast.
Even AARP has gotten into the name-change game. What used to be the
American Association for Retired People is now just AARP. Using the
Kentucky Fried Chicken stratagem of making “fried” disappear by using
initials only and calling themselves KFC, AARP is now a letters-only
organization.
The term “mature” also appears to be hitting the skids. AARP once had a
monthly publication named Modern Maturity. Now it’s just the AARP
magazine. Locally “senior” has bitten the dust big time. Susan Capps’ fine
local publication, the Senior Beacon, somewhere along the line metamorphed
into just Beacon. It seems the only print media aimed at senior citizens
that hasn’t changed its name is the Grand Junction Rotary’s weekly
newsletter. (Obligatory Rotary joke.)
One can appreciate the problem. If “senior” is verboten in the title
of a publication, calling the paper “The Geezer Gazette,” “Codger Chronicle”
or “Blue Hair Journal” most likely won’t be considered a gigantic leap
forward in the effort to capture the hearts and minds of the “don’t call us
seniors” Social Security set. Yet whatever the publication is named, it
still has a picture of gray-haired people doing something wildly exciting,
like square dancing or bonsai, on the cover.
Looking back, it’s most difficult to visualize the generation that rocked
out to Dylan and the Stones, the same folks who wanted us to “Make Love, Not
War,” being reduced to fretting over whether “senior” is age discrimination
at its worst. But then again, maybe that’s not all that surprising. After
all, what “boomers” always did best was take themselves more than a bit too
seriously. |
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