MEL WALSH--LIFE & HEALTH AFTER 60

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Digital Missionary Work: Converting Computerless Seniors

I feel sorry for people who are netless, webless and otherwise suffering from computer deprivation. What they're missing is immense—the world at their fingertips. Almost anything you want to know, see, read, watch---it’s there on the World Wide Web.

And yet, and yet---some older people who were not online witnesses to the birth of the Internet in the early 1990’s have not caught up or caught on to its magical powers.

What's needed are Internet missionaries---people (maybe you) who will try to convert the computerless into net surfers whose lives are lit up by three letters: WWW. Even people who never learned to type can learn how to download videos and browse YouTube.

But how do you motivate a skeptical older person to get a computer life? The most powerful motivator: Staying in touch with family---not being left out of the family circle. This means learning to how to use email and download photos and videos of the family or even to use Skype or Facebook. Bottom line: The promise of closer family ties certainly motivates most of us with adult children and grandchildren.

I find just showing the computer-suspicious what’s possible on my laptop can get them interested. Then telling them about the classes available at senior centers or community college shows them an open door to a new world. Volunteering to help out when they get frustrated or stuck---that’s another way to break through the fear barrier.

The other barrier is cost, but small Asus netbooks are under $400 now on Amazon. The warehouse stores and Walmart sell desktops for less than a weekend trip to a gambling casino. And it would be a generous act to help any neophyte set up the computer and the broadband service.

So that's the deal: If you want to add to the world of a valued older person, you could enlarge that world by a little computer missionary work. You will do good for sure. I don't know one person who ever regretted joining the Church of St. Digitalus. 

 

GEEZER DIARIES: Photo - Cranky Pants and Mel, Engagement

Here he is at last. Cranky Pants is real and his name is Mac Small. Here we are, geezers getting engaged. 

 

GEEZER DIARIES: Birthdays---A New Approach

    I'd like to speak up against year-counting, otherwise known as birthdays. Far better not to know how old you are or how old anyone else is. For once the count is known, the expectations are frozen. And those expectations are often wrong.

    For instance, you are supposed to be mature by 21, this despite the fact that 21-year-olds are known to drink themselves silly with shots on that day. Immaturity at the bar. At the other end of the scale, you are supposed to be wise by the time you go over 80, but tell that to the husband of Anna Nicole Smith. (Well, you can't tell him because he's dead, but tell it to the maxi-yeared old guy with can't see his way past a fluffy chest.) Years do not necessarily correlate with wisdom. In fact, dumber than a duck at 20, still dumb as a duck at 80. 

The Downside of Year Counting

     What limits people's hopes for themselves when a new birthday comes round is the expectation that certain birthdays mean certain unchangeable things must happen in your life. At 40, you are supposedly over the hill. At 50, you are too old to start anything new. At 60, you are supposed to develop an unnatural interest in golf. At 70, an interest in pre-paid funerals. At 80, well, you are not even supposed to be alive.

    I think it's time we unchained ourselves from the straitjacket of these expectations and refuse to count at all. Serve the cake---yes---but hold the candles. And begin to think how old you would feel if you didn't know how old you were.

    Surveys say most of us think of ourselves as 15 years younger than we are, so that's good news. We are beginning to cut loose from the tyranny of expectations. People are starting new careers after 50 and even working on into their 80's and 90's if they like their work. I started a new career in my 60's, ditto for a new marriage and I am not alone, thank goodness. Many are the rebels who refuse to behave the way the candles say they should.

    I think the next step is to stop knowing how old I am. (I was always bad at math and do have to pause to remember my age. It's always changing on me.) Or maybe I'll just say that this year is the 44th anniversary of my 30th year. 

   
 

  

GEEZER DIARIES: The Ages of Age

    

    We older people get lumped together. Myth has it that everyone over 50 is ancient, uninteresting, pretty much the same and certainly over and done with. 

    Well, rats to that... as my grandmother would say, she who was never over and done with no matter how old she got.

    First of all, we in Geezerland are not all the same. There are ages and stages to this part of life. Take 50 to 62. That's when we imagine we are still-middle-aged. Well, our brains are, but our knees aren't. Some of our body parts turn out to be older than we are. Knees give out. Hips ditto. Which gets us to age 63 to 75...

    By then, we have to admit we are no longer in mid-life. (How many people do you know who are 126? That's 63 doubled.) We are now deep into the land of silver hair. Many of us are retired from the formal workplace, but some of us have trouble winding down, so we still work wherever and whenever we can.  

    Part of the impulse to work comes from a need to find a meaningful place in a world that wants to give older people the bum's rush. Part of it comes from walking around on sharp eggshells, fallout from the broken nest eggs of 2008-2010, the era of evaporating assets and thinking that Social Security is more wonderful than you had ever realized. Ditto for Medicare. When you love Medicare more than you ever loved Paul Newman or Sophia Loren, you know you have hit stage two of aging.

    Also, that's the time of life guys start comparing their knee replacement scars. If you see a group of older men with their pants pulled up, that's what they're doing. Also on life's agenda at this time: other positive repairs. Many of us start seeing better than ever because our cataracts have been removed and sent to cataract heaven. I see better now than I did at 10.

    Next there's stage three, 76 on up. I'm not there yet, but I know that the battle to keep ahead of misbehaving body parts gets more intense, but to compensate, so does living. So much more living has to be squeezed into so much less time. I have already bloomed into a period of intense gratitude for still being alive. 

    By the mid-seventies and beyond, every day is a bonus day. Realizing that fact is a gift of age. For there's nothing like peers disappearing from the planet to make you know down to your toes that it's a great thing to be alive. (Some, though, at this stage, start thinking about mortality and mourn the fact that they won't be present to hear all the good stuff said at their funerals, an event they'll miss by just a few days.)

    I've not yet travelled into the further geography of age, but am always asking personal questions of the 90-year-old set, one of my favorite ages and stages. They have nothing to lose by telling the truth about anything at all. If your spirit gets refreshed by honesty, get thee to an elder. The only thing they lie about is how they feel. My favorite over-90 guy would say he felt fine on an operating table, which is maybe how long-lived people survive so long. Their glass is always half full and they drink deeply of that.

    I'll raise my half-glass to that. It's a great attitude to pack for the trip through every stage of life.