Be proud of all you have learned and weathered
- col-lee-elliot-aging-graciously
- February 13, 2025
- 853
I promised a positive column for this week, so I hope this will be. You may not realize it, but those of us who were born between 1930 and 1947 are very special. If you are above ground and still breathing, you are part of an incredibly rare group of which only 1% is still alive. Before moving on, let’s thank our lucky stars.
By the time you reach our ages, it is easy to simply take for granted all the momentous happenings and miracles that have contributed to our lives. Just take the simple everyday act of acquiring food.
One of my fond memories is of our milkman, who delivered glass bottles of milk, cream and cottage cheese every few days. He drove a horse-drawn buggy we all got to ride in until foolish next-door Richard fell off and broke his arm. There went all our fun. Over the years the super markets intervened, and we went to them. Isn’t it ironic that today we are excited the grocery stores are now delivering again?
Think of the medical field. While we have certainly been better with prevention than with cure, we have nearly eradicated mumps, measles, chickenpox, polio and many other potential killers with vaccines.
My high school graduating class was caught in the last polio epidemic. We lost many students and saw many others crippled for life. We saw the advent of antibiotics, particularly penicillin, and stood by as we, our friends and families received artificial hearts, liver, kidney and lung transplants — all designed to allow us to live in this rare group still hanging in there.
Through the magic of communication, we are able to know what’s going on in the world at any given minute. I vividly remember getting week-old news on the radio and watching it in the five-cent movies.
After radio, black and white TV turned to color and grew from about a foot in size to nearly movie-screen magnitudes. I have watched the coronation of Queen Elizabeth and her funeral. We have watched space being conquered from the first jet passenger planes to the first men on the moon. As we used the first party-line phones, who would have thought they would one day develop into those little computers we carry in our pockets?
How many wars have we watched or participated in? World War II really affected our lives. I was 4 when my father was drafted to serve and 8 when he returned. We did without a lot for the “war effort,” but I don’t remember it causing us to feel we were suffering loss. All these years later, we are still at it, still fighting, and we have seen it all.
If you take a minute to sit down and think of everything we have witnessed in our lifetimes, it will astound you. So feel very special today. Be extremely proud of what you have learned and weathered. Most of all, be grateful you, along with the other 1% now living, have been given this gift of long life that so many others missed.