Bobby and I played music before a theater of people at the Vista Retirement Community in Wyckoff, New Jersey. The Vista is a giant cruise ship on land, minus the lifeboats, slot machines, and go-go dancers.
The theater was dark except for randomized blinking medical alert bracelets, glowing like fireflies in the night. Parked next to the theater entrance was a corral of aluminum walkers tied to the hitching post.
I looked across a sea of white hair in the auditorium and realized I was the youngest in this room.
And here is no happier feeling than being a kid in the presence of one’s elders.
Americans are afraid of their elderly. Our culture is terrified of aging. Thus, our elders are often herded to the proverbial outskirts, and largely ignored.
If you don’t believe me, look at our advertisements, commercials, and media. Young, young, young. You will not see white hair on television unless it is a commercial wherein Joe Namath heartily encourages you to apply for a reverse mortgage.
Prescription commercials show actors who are SUPPOSED to be elderly because they have grayish locks, except they are in their early 40s, with nasal piercings and sleeve tattoos.
We glorify youthful skin, physical beauty, muscular macho-ism, perpetually colored hair, ripped abdominals, and perfect butts that defy the cherished laws of physics.
You will not find a single ad featuring a lead role for someone over age 40. What you will find is youthful pop stars, dressed in dental-floss thong bikinis, taking the stage, earning billions for shaking their pelvis on camera.
Which is why Elvis deserves an apology. Elvis might have shaken his pelvis on camera, too. But at least he never took it out and showed it to anyone.
So anyway, it was a lovely theater at the retirement home. Bobby and I stood on a grand stage and did our best. Bobby played a banjo. I tortured a fiddle.
But the real delight came after the show. Afterward, we shook hands and hugged necks with a throng of older people. The eldest was late ‘90s. And I have seldom felt so blessed.
Oh, to be around your elders. It just makes you feel good. It makes you feel loved. If you listen carefully, almost every word a senior says is laced with latent wisdom. With experience. With a gentle knowing. It’s just how they are.
Namely, because your elders have ascended to the next level of life. The next level of spiritualism. Sure, they might look like ordinary aged persons, spending their days working on jigsaw puzzles. But do not be deceived. They are society’s contemplatives.
Our elders are our guides. Their youthful, ego-fueled ambitions have evaporated. They are no longer fiercely engaged in a struggle for one-upmanship. They are not possessed with a mania to be successful. They simply are.
And if you listen to them, they will remind you of only one all-important message of wisdom. The meaning of life itself: Life is a gift.
After our performance, an elderly man from the back of the crowd came forward and shook my hand. He was small and slight. He still wore a wedding ring although he had come alone.
“You look like my son,” he said.
We released hands. I thanked him for coming.
He replied, “Thank you for visiting us. A lot of people forget us. But it feels so good not to be invisible.”