Year End Thoughts

Another year is about to end and I always get reflective at this time during December. I am not a resolution person because I don't think planning one's life is a very useful strategy. Most of what we are and what happens to us is accidental. Why try to plan or make resolutions with that hanging over our heads. So, I have no new year resolutions, or resolutions of any kind. What I have for you is a reflection or two about some of the simple, but usually unnoticed, changes in the life of an "older person".

In this era of fast changes, immediate technological absorption, and in an age in which tradition is almost disdained and ridiculed, it's no wonder that many changes in our lives go un recognized. More, we lose our remembrance of the little things in our lives, now gone, but somehow forgotten in the face of the mass of new things to which we must adapt. OPS! What ever hapened to....sometimes comes to us, and then is quicly forgotten once more., because we are overwhelemed in keeping up with the new.

For example, when I walk outside I see things I never dreamed of just a few years ago but I don't see things I once saw but thought would never be lost. When I shop it's at a big chain grocery store that has all the same things, mostly of little quality, not the corner grocery stores that made many of their own products and serviced the customer's individual wants. A gorcery t sore or bakery isnlt apart of us anymore. It is just aplace to buy something. Now I have to go to a "hair saloon" to get a haircut and pay three times as much as when I used to go to a barbershop. We are losing barber shops every day.

The people I see when I out in public are dressed like tramps, in T-shirts things and what people 30 years ago would call 'inappropriate" clothes. It shout, "me, me, me...my comfort is more important than is dressing respectfully." The days of men in suits and well dressed ladies casually walking down the street are long gone. We no longer dres for everyone's appeal. instead we clothe ourseleves wiht only comfort in mind.

When I take that trip outside now I expect other drivers to give me the finger, to barge their way in my traffic lane and to act rudely, behavior the age of rudeness in which we now live seems to expect. But I still remember courteous drivers, drivers who weren't always in a rush and who never forgot ettiquette as a result. If you are handicapped or old and weak and get on a bus today be prepared to stand when there are no seats. Today it is "the right' of the seat holder to keep his or her seat regardless as to whether another is more in need of it. Offering a seat, holding open a door for a person....these are rare now because today individual rights precede common sense and common courtesy.

When I go out today I expect to hear blaring music, ringing or loud chatter on cell phones, people walking in a daze listening to their electronic devices and ignoring strangers as if the world belongs only to they and their electronics. But I remember when walking the street or being in a public venue meant getting a smile from others, a hello nod, or even an impromptu friendly conversation. People were connected to other people then. Now they are connected to their electronics.

When I take that walk or drive out into the public morass today I don't see the humanity as much as before, and I miss that. Do you?