As we get older, we get the impression young people feel we are not smart.
Not true!
It is just that our brains are on overload.
Remember, we are pre-computer, pre-cell phone, pre-automatic transmissions, pre-pumping your own gas, pre-automatic checkouts, and pre-fast food.
There was a time when we had to fix our own cars, and we knew how, until car manufacturers made them impossible to fix.
There was hardly any frozen food, not like today. Some of us had ice boxes. The phones were all land lines, and there was a phone book in case you needed to look up a number.
You walked more, and were healthier for it.
It didn’t take a college degree to figure our your taxes, and the taxes weren’t what they are today.
We did not have the traffic to deal with, and the lack of parking. The price of gas was 25 cents a gallon — and someone pumped it for you!
It was a simpler life back then. Young people fell in love and got married, and there were not as many fatherless children running around, not knowing who their parents are.
We had family doctors who cured you, but not those with large staffs of medical professionals, throwing a lot of different pills at you, and saying take these and you’ll be cured.
We had drug stores who knew how to make a decent milk shake. And a hot date was dragging the Main.
There were no school shootings. Think about that.
We had guns but they were for hunting. Gun violence on the street wasn’t an everyday occurrence like it is today.
Not all of our homes had air conditioning. Many had swamp coolers, and we felt that was pretty good in its day. Now we have to have air conditioning everywhere we go. Maybe it is only a matter of time before we wear air-conditioned clothes which you wear all the time to stay cool.
There is something which has not changed, and that is family love; however, family members are so spread out, you never see them anymore. Many young family members leave for college and never come back.
We remember when meals were simple: meatloaf and mashed potatoes. The french fry was still in France. Our food was healthier because it didn’t have so many preservatives which gave it more shelf life.
Yes, the brains of old people are on overload. We often have to have our grandchildren show us how to work our cellphone. Parents used to help their children with their homework. Not today, because the parents don’t understand what is being taught, that is unless the kids are home schooled.
And why are they home schooled? Because today, we can’t trust the school system to teach our children the way we want them to be taught.
We have legislators in Sacramento who have never taught in a classroom making laws which require professional teachers to teach in away they often would not teach otherwise.
We are reminded we are old and do not understand, but we may just understand, and not want to deal with it.
We liked the way things were, and don’t want to change for changes sake.
Yes, we are old, but we are not dumb.
Our government thinks we old people do not understand what is going on. We do, and we fight for a government which works for us, and not itself.