By: Tina Lesher
Who ever thought that septuagenarians would be prime material for front-page news?
And yet, courtesy of the Presidential contests and the coronavirus, we have made the grade.
Heck, when I was a little kid in Scranton, and attending the same school as Joe Biden, I did not even know anyone who was as “old” as 70. My grandparents were all deceased; my paternal grandmother had passed away in 1906! If I met a person in his 60s, I figured he was ready to head for life at Maloney Home, the nearby nursing facility operated by the Little Sisters of the Poor.
I left the area to get an education; then, armed with a graduate degree in journalism, I came back to my hometown and worked for The Scranton Tribune. It still upsets me that the paper refused to let women toil as real reporters and relegated them (all two of us) to the society pages. (Frankly, I have written more wedding announcements that any living American). In the course of my work, I periodically dealt with publication of a photo of a couple celebrating their golden wedding anniversary. It would shock me, and I would remark to my editor: “How could anyone live long enough to be married for 50 years?”
Well, I now can look at my own wedding photo splashed on those 1970 social pages and think: Good God, my golden anniversary is this year!
Biden and Bernie Sanders have brought those in the 70s to the forefront of politics. (Should either win, he will be more than 80 at the end of the first term). President Trump also is in his 70s, so we pretty much have guaranteed that we will be led by one of those people whom I once termed “old.”
These days, though, my life, and that of other septuagenarians, is filled with taking trips, playing golf, seeing shows, discussing books and politics, volunteering here and there, etc. We are considered “the new 50.” We are far from OLD.
Or so we thought.
Along came the coronavirus and we are being told that those of us from 70 up are at risk more than any other age group. We should stay home. We should remember to wash our hands. We should go to the supermarkets during “senior” hours. We should stock up on toilet paper. We should avoid life.
Yes, we are reluctantly doing that…life is at a standstill for my husband, John, and me. Our regular active daily routines have been upended!
No regular swimming and dance classes for me, and no daily workouts for John as our Y is closed. No use of the tickets we bought for Broadway. No lunches and dinners at restaurants that we have frequented several times a week in our retired years. No movies at the local cinemas.
Oh, we do hit the grocery store because it represents our only real outings in Westfield as our other stores are closed to foot traffic. We are purchasing foods we may never touch unless we find a lot of recipes for pepperoncini peppers. The “senior” shopping hours are historic so we do not want to miss out at shopping during those times even if we need little or nothing.
Oh, and how many times a day are we told in person or on the Internet to remember to engage in social distancing. You think that is a new term in the lexicon of socializing? Heck, we did social distancing back in Scranton in the 60s when we wanted to avoid someone who might ask us to a prom.
My brothers, both in their 70s, and our friends keep in touch but their lives are as boring “at home” as ours. Abiding by the coronavirus “rules” is like a walk in the park for us. (Well, that is because most of what we can do is take a walk in the park). We would all rather be at the gym.
Am I scared silly by the coronavirus situation? No, not really. As a news junkie, I keep up with the stats. Of course, the reports often focus on victims who are in their 70s, but I see a lot more of people that age pictured on the obit pages, and it was not the current virus that claimed their demise. But the idea of pundits with no medical background giving their opinions on television actually makes me shake my head in disbelief.
As for John, he already penned his two cents about the whole thing in a blog he writes. (http://www.theleshers.com/blog-posts/2020/3/14/cxarr8hrkh1xnwf7dtrwn79x3dfzx5). Many Facebookers agreed with him.
These days, we are forced to listen to the voices of our offspring: Do you need anything? (No). Do you have enough food? (Yes). Are you following the recommended guidelines? (Yes.)
Our children know that we love to travel, and that we have visited about 40 countries. But now they are clamoring for us to cancel our golden anniversary trip in late summer: a transatlantic crossing and five weeks in Paris. Sorry, we are not budging until forced to do so.
Let’s face it. We hate being labeled or treated as OLD. Save that designation for centenarians. We septuagenarians just want to have fun, maybe even hanging out with others our age at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
(Tina Lesher of Westfield, N.J., is professor emerita of journalism at William Paterson University).