Document text
--> --> April 26: Gullibility is booming off the charts By David Morrill Leaf through the pages of a magazine aimed at retirees and who do you see? Folks like Aunt Mabel, who broke her hip last year and spends most of her time in the easy chair, but who still manages to volunteer at the nursing home two days a week? Or Uncle Ted, who takes estrogen for his prostate cancer and suffers from hot flashes, who grows the best tomatoes in the neighborhood, but who recently was observed by Mabel urinating in the dog's back porch water dish? Hardly. More likely you'll see a silver-haired couple biking down an Arcadian parkway, expansive self-satisfied smiles on their tanned faces. If not on bicycles, they are assuming one of several other poses emblematic of the new generation of older people: hiking a mountain trail, sipping wine at an outdoor café, probably in France or Italy, having fun with the grandkids at Disneyland. If they're on the road, it's in an open convertible. If this is primarily an image manufactured by the advertising industry, it is not far from the one put across by reporters for the free press. In both the print and electronic media, one finds features touting the life-extending benefits of new diets, exercise regimes, medical procedures and herbal supplements. Pay the doctor, pharmacist and personal trainer, we are led to believe, and the elderly gain entry to nothing short of a second childhood. When the media report on the really old, say folks over 85, we see patronizing vignettes about Super Senior Ralph, 89, who consistently shoots his age on the golf course, or Stella, who plays piano at 93 like she did at 23. Rarely is there straight talk aimed at people like Ted: that things are bad and getting worse, and that you need to put your life in order to lessen the burden on your family during the difficult times ahead. If Ted's situation is dealt with at all, the media are more likely to address Mabel, quoting the experts, with an upbeat how-to guide on care giving, advising her of the great adventure that lies ahead. And gee whiz, shouldn't she be excited that her relationship with Ted is moving into a new, more challenging phase? Serious presentations on the problems of old age-problems most families work through quietly and with remarkable dignity-are rare. Programs that examine death and dying, such as Bill Moyers' series that ran last fall on PBS, are even rarer. It is easy enough to blame this makeover of old age on rampant commercialism, most notably that of the pharmaceutical, exercise, diet and financial services industries. But there is something else at work here. The recasting of the elderly is a production of the Baby Boom generation, now firmly in control of the nation's media, that refuses to face its own mortality. Who, after all, are those giddy, athletic retirees biking through Valhalla but the first wave of Baby Boomers? These are the folks, after all, who fancy themselves forever young, with time on their side. Check out the leaders of senior citizen advocacy groups such as AARP who preach the good news that old age is simply a state of mind. The 50- and 60-year-olds have muscled out the straight-shooter 70- and 80-year-olds. The marketplace, also controlled by Baby Boomers, attacks old age with an array of products and pitches that rivals the most outlandish snake oil merchandising of any Wild West medicine show. Laxative commercials move to the beat of 1960s rock-and-roll. To stay in tiptop shape, Boomers down at the dot com gulp dietary supplements originally developed for nursing home patients who couldn't tell succotash from pot roast. In an age when education levels have, presumably, never been higher, the level of gullibility is off the charts. This is a situation that promises to get worse before it gets better. It will be the younger generations, of course, that will be forced to endure the fatuous rituals of denial by their elders for years to come. For them, there will be little peace until the last of the Boomers is hauled away in what Ambrose Bierce called a hearse: death's baby carriage. David Morrill, a Baby Boomer, is a Florida journalist and a native of Northern California. Email your... Technical questions & comments to: WebMaster Daily Tidings editorial comments & questions to: Editor Visit our other Oregon Newspapers... | Albany Democrat-Herald | Ashland Daily Tidings | Corvallis Gazette-Times | | Lebanon Express | Newport News-Times | Springfield News | Cottage Grove Sentinel | Ashland Daily Tidings 1661 Siskiyou Blvd. Ashland, OR 97520 Telephone 541-482-3456 © Copyright 2001 Lee Northwest Publishing