Those doggone oldies

One of the unfortunate aspects of climate change is the loss of countless little icebergs, the unhallowed chunks just big enough for a seal or two or a polar bear, or an ancient Inuit to stretch out on and float away into the great gray ether of sea and sky, never to be seen again.

That was once the native solution, we’ve been told: Place the oldies who could no longer contribute to the tribe’s survival on an iceberg. Let them disappear into the fog forever — especially if they keep telling their children how the youngest generation nowadays is nothing but a bunch of spoiled brats.

It’s a different take on Social Security, that’s for sure.

You’d have to find a lot of icebergs to solve the oldies problem we have here now, however, and

increasingly those are in short supply. So we can’t just fly them all up to the Wiley Post-Will Rogers Memorial Airport on the Chuksi Sea in Alaska at a latitude of 71.29°N, stage them at a taxi pick-up, and have them transported out to the next available iceberg somewhere. No sir, we’ll have to find another solution.

ELLEN WILLIAMS

But we better find it before long. By 2045, according to Florida’s Department of Elder Affairs, the oldies will increase to 8.4 million in number, more than 30% of the state’s population. With hospitals and assisted care facilities already overburdened and too costly for some — and given the lack of icebergs — things could get uncomfortable.

The Sunshine State currently finishes a disappointing second in the nation behind Maine, of all places, for the largest percentage of oldies defined as those 65 and up. We have 20.9% of nearly 23 million people fitting that demographic as spring arrives in 2024, Census estimates show.

In Maine, 21.5% of the population is 65 or older — but the state’s population itself, at just over 1.4 million, is somewhat paltry, slightly less than the population of Palm Beach County, for example.

In Palm Beach, 25.2% of the county’s roughly 1.5 million Floridians are oldies. But even that figure can seem comparatively trifling.

In Lee County, with roughly 900,000 residents this year, Census figures show that 29.3% of us are geriatric.

Among Collier’s roughly 400,000 residents, it’s 33.6%.

And in Charlotte County, a whopping 40.6% of the 204,000 or so residents have left 65 in the rear view mirror.

We know why so many old folks live in Florida: they came down one day for a sunny visit, grew senile, and forgot (conveniently in many cases) how to get home.

But why so many in Maine? That’s simple. They were napping in their easy chairs one afternoon when summer came and went. When they woke up just before dark they were too stiff and cold to get up and move to Florida.

So we have a lot of oldies, people we should view not as a burden but as a great resource, before they all disappear permanently to a better place — or a much warmer place, in a few cases.

Right off the bat, for example, we should enrich our vocabulary of reference, so we don’t have to keep saying, “retirees,” or “those 65 and over,” or even the stale “senior citizen” or “the elderly.”

How about “old farts” or “old honkers” or “the ancient ones.” Or one of my favorites, “old fogies.” Then there’s “golden agers,” “oldsters,” “geriatrics,” or just “old fools.”

Less frequently we could even use “old S.O.B.” But only when it applies, like at stoplights where they’ve fallen asleep at the wheel. My personal research reveals that 25.5% of the state’s current 4.8 million or so oldies may be accurately referred to at one time or another as “old S.O.B.”

I’ve mentioned all this in part because I’ve noticed, as you probably have too, that younger generations increasingly blame baby boomers for a range of societal maladies. A certain resentment seems to be building in the culture.

Just the other day in the big small town we call Facebook, for example, a young woman ripped boomers after she saw a post from one of them in a discussion about wealth.

It went something like this:

“Money isn’t everything. It won’t bring you happiness by itself,” the clueless old fart confidently declared.

“That is such a boomer thing to say,” replied the young woman in obvious irritation. “Money makes me happy. I want as much of it as I can get.”

Actually it’s not a boomer thing to say, and a lot of boomers would agree with her. Money’s what it’s all about, they insist.

People who argued the other line — money isn’t everything — go back to Socrates, in Plato’s “Republic”: “The greatest wealth is to live content with little.”

Or Jesus, in Mathew 19:24: “And again I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”

Boomers don’t go back as far as Socrates or Jesus — not quite. “You have to be wealthy in order to be great,” one old boomer said, in 2016. He was running for president. And he won.

There is one other solution to all this, however: All of us who can, take care of our own.

My wife and I, with our youngest son, have tried it with my mother, Ellen, for the last eight years. Now 96, she’s been blind since her 40s. Starting last month we’ve doubled down, with Amy’s mother, Cynthia.

It won’t free up your schedule, and it won’t make you monetarily rich. It’s hands on, and that can get a little messy.

But it confers great wealth. ¦

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