Old People

C. teased me one day about liking things that grannies like. We were at a scrapbooking place and I was shopping for little doodads and things called brads and grommets. I peered over a display of fancy metal embellishments to look at my fellow shoppers and, well, C. was right. I was amongst the hearing-aid set. People with walkers. Seventy-somethings with white fuzzy perms. (I have seen Marge Simpsons' sisters in living flesh!) People who spend their retirement checks on making scrapbooks of their rosy-cheeked grandchildren. They make their own greeting cards and send them out during birthdays and Thanksgiving and Halloween with twenty dollar bills hoping their grandkids would spend these on postage to write them back... and to hell with that thing called e-mail! Computers are evil and impersonal!

I was reading the Sunday paper today and saw that it had a section called "Grandparents Bragging Page" where seniors can send pictures of their grankids. And just last Wednesday I drove to 25 miles to Proctor to take advantage of a free hearing screening because I've always suspected na medyo bingi ako. When I got there, haha, I was the only person under 60 and who did come there for the hearing aid testing.

I never really noticed above-retireable-age people back in Manila. Maybe it's because we die younger there. It could also be because Caucasians look so much older, especially when they are older. I see lot of retirement homes in Duluth. Some of these call their establishments retirement resorts. Some are called Assisted Living centers. And many have names that want to convey a sense of elegance, grandness or goodness: Thunderbird House, lakeside Manor, Faith Haven, The Waters at Park Point, Green Acres Plus. If anything, I know that Green Acres is a better metaphore for twenty-somethings. Baka naman mas bagay ang Golden Acres.

Retirement homes make me feel sad. Isn't old age the time of a person's life when one needs his family the most? And isn't it so lonely to spend it in a place that is transient and you can't even call your own?