The Old Folks at Home

Before I go on with this let me be the first to say I am sixty years old, and I am probably closer to death than I am to my high school graduation. Forty three years ago the concept of actually being sixty years old, was to me, a nebulous image of living in Florida with a bunch of other old people waiting to die. Well, I am not waiting to die, the rest of it is pretty close to reality though.

So here it is. All you youngsters up north in New York, Chicago, and everywhere in between, Quit packing up grandma and grandpa every November, and sending them down to Fort Lauderdale. I've seen them at the airport, and wandering through the shopping malls down here, and they don't look all that happy to be here. They look lost. Have you ever even asked them if they really want to spend the winter in Florida?

Last Monday when we were returning from Boston, we had twelve (I counted) folks from age seventy to a hundred and seventy, in wheel chairs trying to get on the plane. On top of that there were the ones with the walkers with tennis balls on the tips, shuffling around, and bumping into the wheel chairs. When the gate attendant announced that folks who need extra help could board early, all the wheel chairs and walkers moved towards the entrance en masse. The only people left at the gate to board normally after that were me, Mark, and a couple of geezers who slept through the initial announcement.

I just got back from shopping for dog food, and cat food, something I do constantly for some reason, and I couldn't get over how many old people were clogging the aisles at Publix. I don't mean old like me, or even like my mom, I mean old like they actually witnessed the first airplane flight. So please, please, won't you consider asking grandma and grandpa if they'd like to stay up north this year? Ask them if they'd rather be doted on by their loving grandchildren, and children all winter, instead of driving up US1 with their door open and the left turn signal blinking for miles. Because honestly, it's dangerous enough with Mark out on the roads, and me pushing the cart through the super market.