We senior citizens are members of a minority that is not protected by the nitpicking rules of political correctness. Brash young comedians do not tread lightly when they’re telling jokes about the foibles of the superannuated. And that’s the way it should be for oldness sake!
Actually, we’re a very big minority with about 50 million members in the USA. That’s almost one out of seven Americans who are older than 65 and the census experts predict by 2035 we’ll outnumber children under 18 for the first time in our history.
Maybe by 2035 the joke about the 80-year old movie-goer won’t work. He’d seen the ad about seniors being admitted to the theater free of charge on Wednesdays, but the cashier explained that, according to the fine print of the ad, he had to be accompanied by his parents. That might be possible by then, but of course his parents would have to pay the full price unless their parents were also on hand.
We oldtimers don’t complain to our Congressmen that we’re being mocked. We don’t mind it if we’re told our brain cells are getting down to a manageable quantity and we’re subject to less peer pressure every day because our peers are passing away by the thousands.
And there’s some truth in the claim that seniors read the Bible more than any other group because we’re cramming for the finals. I enjoy these knee-slapper jokes up to a point. My knees are getting very tender and they can’t take a lot of slapping.
Most of us are still young at heart with all the instincts and urges of youth, simmered down of course, but still there. There’s the report of the old fellow sitting on his front porch watching a pretty young thing run buy in a nifty jogging outfit and suddenly his pacemaker goes wild and opens his garage door.
Talking about urges, there’s the doddering playboy sitting at the cocktail bar who winks at a pretty young blond sitting nearby. “Tell me, Honey,” he says, “do I come here often?”
There must be hundreds of jokes about our forgetfulness. Our memory banks are so crammed after decades of collecting, it takes a while sometimes to come up with even everyday words . Lunching at the senior center recently I sat near enough to hear a husband using endearing terms while talking to his wife. She was “Sweetheart”, “Darling” , “Dearest” and “Honey” throughout the meal.
I met the old guy later and asked, “I happened to overhear your lunch conversation with all the loving terms. Are you two on your honeymoon? “
“No, we’ve been married over 50 years,” he said. “It’s embarrassing to admit it, but I haven’t been able to remember her name today.”
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Imagine That 