Of Strength, Defending Oneself and Ageism -

Of Strength, Defending Oneself and Ageism - Part I 

 February 16, 2014
Last week on our local news there was a story about a man who fought off a would-be robber by defending himself and his cash by threatening the would-be robber with a big stick of some sort. I could post a link with all the details, but none of that is the point. (Besides, maybe the man really wouldn't want to call more attention to himself than the situation already has.) The story had an even happier ending when the criminal was later caught, as he tried getting away with cash he'd taken at another establishment.

The man who chased the would-be robber away runs a gas station (and maybe convenience store) The news reports and a lot of others in the man's community said that the owner of the gas station has always been a hard-working man who seems dedicated to providing good service to his customers.

As it happens, the man's accent would indicate that he has come to America from another country. As it also happens, the man is 74 years old. So, besides having so many people admire him and/or be happy for him; the fact that he's 74 may mean that the robber thought he could take advantage of an older man. Of course, maybe the robber didn't think things out that much. Maybe he just wanted cash and saw some opportunity other than something related to the man's age. But, on the chance that the man's age made him more of a target for this particular criminal then, obviously, there was just that little bit more satisfaction in knowing the man showed the criminal otherwise.

So, while I imagine the man was shaken up (who wouldn't be?), and while I hope he was OK over the days that would follow, it was a nice story with a happy ending.

Take from that story what you will for now. I'm going to go somewhat off the subject for a minute and say a few things about getting older..... 

Of Strength, Defending Oneself and Ageism - Part II 

My mother was 75, I guess, when she was talking about dealing with Rheumatoid Arthritis and some other serious health issues. She said, "What people don't understand is that you feel the same as you ever did, only you can't do the things you used to do and would like to do. Even with her health problems, however, my mother did a whole lot of things that a lot of thirty-year-olds don't have the energy to do. She took care of all kinds of people in any number of ways, including making big meals, taking care of young children, helping people financially, and pretty much doing everything she'd always done (including her own housework, grocery shopping, and whatever else needed to be done) - only slower sometimes (at least when substantial physical activity was required). RA, however, is not a condition of the elderly. Children have it, of course. My mother's was diagnosed when she was in her fifties. So, when she spoke about "what people don't understand" wasn't so much related to aging, but to her worsening mobility problems.

I'm nowhere near 75, but I've had a little (well, a big) taste of some of the things that " people don't understand" after having a couple of serious leg injuries that have involved years' worth of slow healing and strengthening. Again, not the point. The point is that I've had a taste of having people have opinions about what I should be doing with one or another injury, associating the injury-related mobility "issues" with my age (I may not be near 75, but I'm not near 30 either). Without getting into all kinds of examples and details, I've had all kinds of "tastes" of not getting one thing or another (including not getting that I've done everything in my power to get the injuries back to normal, which hasn't been difficult because they're "equal to fractures" but because they've been very serious and complicated and related to (among other things) more than one ligament. So, for what amounts to "six leg-/injury- years" I've had a real taste of what it must be like to be perfectly sane, perfectly capable, and perfectly pretty much everything other than able-to-walk normally - and that "taste" has been particularly rotten when I've realized that this is the kind of thing so many elderly people must live with all the time (whether they're problem is something like Arthritis or some other condition).

Take from what's immediately above what you will as I once again switch gears a little and talk about how getting older has felt to me - and that's whether I've been thirty, forty, or any other age up until my present age of "fifty-eleven" (hey, some of us are more gracious about some things than others are :/ ).

Everyone is different, of course. So, how anyone would describe what getting older feels like is likely to be different too. None of what I'm about to say is scientific or researched. It's just how things have felt to me.

What getting older has always felt like to me is as if I'm the same person now as I was at, say, three y ears old; but it's as my "self" was once a simple, basic, circle (kind of a "core person"); and as time went on, and experience and knowledge were accumulated what started out as a single circle became a matter of concentric circles, with, perhaps, the color or size or even pattern of each of those outer circles being made up of any number of things involved with accumulating more time as I went along. Of course, when you're three and you're physically growing with each week, month or year; those changes would factor into whatever outer circles were forming. So, too, it would seem to me would any physical changes involved with, say, going from early middle age to later middle age. I'd think (or at least I imagine) that in the case of someone like my mother, that RA would have its impact on the nature of any of those later, more outer, circles (just as my almost-good-as-new leg injuries have "colored" any of my own more recent ones). Still, the real point is that the imaginary concentric circles are about who/what I am as a person, and on the inside - not whether I can walk normally or not. In fact, now I can walk normally (knock on wood, and at least for now). Still, while I'm now the "same me" walking-wise as I've always been, additions and changes to those imaginary circles have resulted in my "having more to me" - not less.

That goes back to exactly what my mother used to say, which is that "you feel the same on the inside". Of course, some elderly people develop one or another form of dementia and eventually do, to one extent or another, "become less". Not all do, however. It's the same with things like arthritis, heart conditions, or any number of other health conditions for which there is a higher rate once people are over the proverbial "certain age". Who develops what medical issues is different from person to person, and some folks have relatively few (if any) of those "age-associated" conditions either until they die suddenly or develop one or another thing that then leads to yet more conditions that contribute to a "jump ahead" in aging. (Well, for example (and again knock-on-wood), the world is full of people in their forties who complain about one kind of joint pain/stiffness or another; yet even with the two injuries (knee related) that I mentioned, a number of fractures years ago, and a couple of other injuries; so far I have no signs of joint problems or Arthritis at "fifty-eleven". I'm not bragging. I'm making a point, and one point is that I really don't like it when a forty-five year old with joint stiffness or Arthritis assumes I must have the same, and probably a lot worse, since, of course, I'm so much older than he.)

Take from what I just said what you will, because now I'm going to get back to the man with the gas station and that stick....

 

Of Strength, Defending Oneself, and Ageism - Part III 

Based on the accent that man had, I can only assume that some his imaginary circles must include whatever he has been through (for good or bad) in order to leave his home country and establish his business in the US. What his life is, or has been until now; based only on the fact that he's quite a bit older than I, I can only assume that his overall "circle" has to have a larger diameter than someone younger's. What each of those circles is made up of, I have no way to know. They could be simple. They could have all kinds of patterns, colors, information, etc. etc.

Also, I don't know whether this man has a joint-pain at all, any other medical condition, or how bad any such conditions may be if he does. He is obviously at least capable of running and working in his business, as well as swinging a giant stick and effectively scaring away a would-be-robber.

Now, I'm thinking this man did the exact same thing last week that he would have done ten years ago, twenty years ago, or however long ago if someone had told him to hand over his hard-earned cash. When he showed the reporter how he chased away the criminal he demonstrated how he headed toward the criminal, held the stick up high over his own head, and angrily demanded of the criminal, "YOU WANT CASH??? !!! " He then repeated, "YOU WANT CASH???!!!!" With only limited time to demonstrate how he chased away the robber, he did - at least on the news - add, "I"LL GIVE YOU CASH!!!" as he held the stick. I won't guess if he added that, but I was certainly expecting to hear him say that before they went to another part of the story.

Now, I may be being "nit-picky", or maybe I just have a real "attitude problem"; but here's what bothered me about the presentation of the man's story:

While the man's customers and neighbors said he'd always been a hard-worker (in other words, he worked hard for his money and didn't deserve to have it taken by some slime-ball), the news people referred to him as "feisty". We see stories like this involving people of all ages all the time. The message is most often, "....fought off a would-be attacker" or "fought off a would-be robber", to which is most often added, "Police say they don't recommend doing this, but.." (since it worked out OK, great). The word, "feisty" isn't used when a forty-year-old man is involved, or a fifty-year-old man is involved. It's only when people "over a certain age" are involved, or in the case of some woman, when "feisty" is used. When it's a teenager the word, "brave" is often used. I don't recall ever hearing "feisty".

When telling this man's story, why not stop at the word, "brave" or "determined" - or even "foolhardy"? This guy looked like a big, sturdy, man. He looked very much like the kind of man he probably is - a hard-working, capable, man who doesn't work in an office and who, instead, is out scraping off people's windshields in eight-degree weather (and a man who has managed to keep his business up and running for years - and enough years that people in the community seem to know him quite well). Whether or not this man has, say, Type II Diabetes or a couple of arthritic knees (and I'm just using those hypothetically), I still wouldn't want to be the person who saw him headed toward me with his giant stick (or whatever it was).

Yet, if he had been a forty-five-year-old, "white-collar", man who, perhaps, worked in his "Daddy's" software-design company, who weighed 150 lbs, had skinny arms, and wore running shoes, and who had been a pampered American kid; would anyone even have considered calling him, "feisty"???

Some Dictionary/Thesaurus References on "Feisty"

www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/feisty

www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/feisty

www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/feisty

www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/feisty

If you look at some of the definitions of the word, "feisty", at some the synonyms and other "related words" you'll probably see that a few of them may actually be appropriate - but only a very few. In general and in the largest number of possible "interpretations” the word doesn't even really apply. Even that, however, is not really the point; because most of us have a pretty good idea of how the word, "feisty", is most often used. And, what that word brings to mind to most people is most often "smaller and weaker" (and more likely to lose in a physical confrontation).

I don't know the man who fought off his would-be robber, whether or not the criminal was either riddled with some substance that would either make him slower/weaker or else faster/stronger than he otherwise might be. I don't know how tall he was, but he definitely looked a lot younger and thinner than the man who did not become his victim. On his second attempt to steal money he didn't appear to confront anyone. Instead, he skulked behind a counter and took money from a drawer (or something like that). Nobody called him a "feisty, would-be, robber" when he confronted the first target and demand he give him money. (Again, consider some of those words/definitions associated with "feisty".)

We all pretty much know why it was this man in his seventies wasn't just called, "successful at defending himself and his business" or "effective at fighting off a would-be robber". Twenty years ago that's what people probably would have said about him doing the very same thing. Now, regardless of whether his body is nowhere near as strong as it once was, is almost-but-not-quite as strong as it was twenty years ago, or is every bit as strong as it was; and regardless of whether his imaginary concentric circles are twenty-four years bigger in diameter and how-ever-many times richer and more colorful and complex now than they were back then; the rugged-looking "Mr. Talk-Tough-and-Not-Only-Carry-But Swing-A-Big-Stick" gets called, "feisty".

Take from that what you will.
Based on the accent that man had, I can only assume that some his imaginary circles must include whatever he has been through (for good or bad) in order to leave his home country and establish his business in the US. What his life is, or has been until now; based only on the fact that he's quite a bit older than I, I can only assume that his overall "circle" has to have a larger diameter than someone younger's. What each of those circles is made up of, I have no way to know. They could be simple. They could have all kinds of patterns, colors, information, etc. etc.

Also, I don't know whether this man has a joint-pain at all, any other medical condition, or how bad any such conditions may be if he does. He is obviously at least capable of running and working in his business, as well as swinging a giant stick and effectively scaring away a would-be-robber.

Now, I'm thinking this man did the exact same thing last week that he would have done ten years ago, twenty years ago, or however long ago if someone had told him to hand over his hard-earned cash. When he showed the reporter how he chased away the criminal he demonstrated how he headed toward the criminal, held the stick up high over his own head, and angrily demanded of the criminal, "YOU WANT CASH??? !!! " He then repeated, "YOU WANT CASH???!!!!" With only limited time to demonstrate how he chased away the robber, he did - at least on the news - add, "I"LL GIVE YOU CASH!!!" as he held the stick. I won't guess if he added that, but I was certainly expecting to hear him say that before they went to another part of the story.

Now, I may be being "nit-picky", or maybe I just have a real "attitude problem"; but here's what bothered me about the presentation of the man's story:

While the man's customers and neighbors said he'd always been a hard-worker (in other words, he worked hard for his money and didn't deserve to have it taken by some slime-ball), the news people referred to him as "feisty". We see stories like this involving people of all ages all the time. The message is most often, "....fought off a would-be attacker" or "fought off a would-be robber", to which is most often added, "Police say they don't recommend doing this, but.." (since it worked out OK, great). The word, "feisty" isn't used when a forty-year-old man is involved, or a fifty-year-old man is involved. It's only when people "over a certain age" are involved, or in the case of some woman, when "feisty" is used. When it's a teenager the word, "brave" is often used. I don't recall ever hearing "feisty".

When telling this man's story, why not stop at the word, "brave" or "determined" - or even "foolhardy"? This guy looked like a big, sturdy, man. He looked very much like the kind of man he probably is - a hard-working, capable, man who doesn't work in an office and who, instead, is out scraping off people's windshields in eight-degree weather (and a man who has managed to keep his business up and running for years - and enough years that people in the community seem to know him quite well). Whether or not this man has, say, Type II Diabetes or a couple of arthritic knees (and I'm just using those hypothetically), I still wouldn't want to be the person who saw him headed toward me with his giant stick (or whatever it was).

Yet, if he had been a forty-five-year-old, "white-collar", man who, perhaps, worked in his "Daddy's" software-design company, who weighed 150 lbs, had skinny arms, and wore running shoes, and who had been a pampered American kid; would anyone even have considered calling him, "feisty"???

Some Dictionary/Thesaurus References on "Feisty"

www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/feisty

www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/feisty

www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/feisty

www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/feisty

If you look at some of the definitions of the word, "feisty", at some the synonyms and other "related words" you'll probably see that a few of them may actually be appropriate - but only a very few. In general and in the largest number of possible "interpretations” the word doesn't even really apply. Even that, however, is not really the point; because most of us have a pretty good idea of how the word, "feisty", is most often used. And, what that word brings to mind to most people is most often "smaller and weaker" (and more likely to lose in a physical confrontation).

I don't know the man who fought off his would-be robber, whether or not the criminal was either riddled with some substance that would either make him slower/weaker or else faster/stronger than he otherwise might be. I don't know how tall he was, but he definitely looked a lot younger and thinner than the man who did not become his victim. On his second attempt to steal money he didn't appear to confront anyone. Instead, he skulked behind a counter and took money from a drawer (or something like that). Nobody called him a "feisty, would-be, robber" when he confronted the first target and demand he give him money. (Again, consider some of those words/definitions associated with "feisty".)

We all pretty much know why it was this man in his seventies wasn't just called, "successful at defending himself and his business" or "effective at fighting off a would-be robber". Twenty years ago that's what people probably would have said about him doing the very same thing. Now, regardless of whether his body is nowhere near as strong as it once was, is almost-but-not-quite as strong as it was twenty years ago, or is every bit as strong as it was; and regardless of whether his imaginary concentric circles are twenty-four years bigger in diameter and how-ever-many times richer and more colorful and complex now than they were back then; the rugged-looking "Mr. Talk-Tough-and-Not-Only-Carry-But Swing-A-Big-Stick" gets called, "feisty".

Take from that what you will.