TRAILS of OLD: Baby in the BATH

Yes, I am getting old-ER, vintage, senior, aged, elderly, mature, decrepit (no, let’s NOT use that one!), the list goes on.  But what does that really mean?  Doubt I can cram that into a post, but here goes an old college try. Wonder who remembers that cliché?!  Per usual, I digress – most likely a dis-ease part and parcel of all those cute little terms aforementioned... 

There's a cliche that comes to my mind of late; Don't throw out the Baby and the Bathwater".  Though my writing teacher might entertain immediate eye-twitching at the hint of the word cliché, they can sometimes gather-in a melange of ideas that give their own, unique idea, thus expressing more depth and power to a thought with less verbiage. (Now THERE is a class I need to take).  They can then, actually present a more succinct expression of an idea, though this may seemingly appear to be a contradiction in terms.  Or not.  Now, for the old college try…

www.merriam-webster.com/ defines vintage as; “A period in which something was made or was begun.”  Okay; I am then – vintage, but so is everyone, correct?

www.dictionary.reference.com / defines mature as; “Fully developed in body or mind, as a person.”  Well, again, a definition generally applicable to most people.

www.wiktionary.org/  says aged means; “Undergone the effects of time, improving as a result.”  Wow, my new favorite website!  But seriously, again a word that is not so different from the masses – of general (my emphasis) adults in society.

www.thefreedictionary.com/  defines elderly as; “Being past middle age and approaching old age; rather old.” Well, okay, not my favorite website.  But still, not quite herding ALL grey-hairs into a far-off nursing home with stinky feet and Pablum for lunch.  AHA!  How many of you “adults” remember Pablum?  See – digression-be-good!

www.google.com/  says decrepit means “Worn out or ruined because of age or neglect.”  What does Google know – it’s VERY young!

The point here is...“Throwing the baby out with the bathwater.” If ‘we’ older folks are so much like all the other ‘folks’ (definitively, that is), why is it our/my world is more an alien one lately, than a familiar one where we are all in the same boat; (my writing teacher is now leaving the cliché-room red-eyed and screaming)?  But – a valid question, nonetheless.

I think the simple answer may allude to the simple premise of ‘volume’.  There is not room for newspapers on every corner and the addition of all electronic stores that put out computers and other communicative devices that now fill the edges of city roads and malls of all sizes. 

There may not be room for the large areas needed for corrals that maintain horses and mules next to the much larger acres needed for John Deere tractor companies to display their monsters-on-wheels (that cost LOTS MORE to ‘feed’) and the dozens of immense ‘dealer lots’ displaying dizzying amounts of vehicle designs and types (again – the hay versus gas discussion for another post).

Selling everyday ladies clothes that cover up most female body parts along side current everyday clothes that generally appear more erotic than warm or ‘ready-to-wear’ (remember the first batch of polyester fashions coined ‘ready-to-wear?), might overwhelm store space at Macys and Target.

Baby AND bathwater.  Why not keep some of the old AND some of the new/current everything. Then, we might feel less ‘alien’; the newer ‘demographics’’ would be used to our saggy bodies perusing the isles at Macy’s and WalMart, buying what would no longer be ‘weird’ clothes, due to familiarity!  And, the more ‘alien’ available products might please our ‘group’.  Gee, our group might actually be a part of the ‘now’.  So just maybe – this chasm between the aged and the newbie’s…may be corporately generated; a deep thought. 

To my ageing logic, our current world would seem less alien - not only to the group ‘belonging’ to these weird clothes/phones/furniture/animals, etc. but also to the newer generations who sometimes (maybe moretimes) tend to view the largest age group of Americans existing as…something less than an errant variety of predator from some Jurassic Park redo…gone astray.

Instead, the small come-back of the now ‘alien’ things of our generation, are labeled “retro” and set aside as a style, a throwback design, something unconnected to the present reality of – I dare repeat, the largest demographic group in the nation.

Let it be known here and forever…we are real; we are intelligent; we are experienced;  we are buyers and would like to be able to buy some of the ‘things’ we know as ‘real’.

But – if tossing the baby AND bathwater works for the now, the new age, the cell phone citizens of now-land, then who am I to question…..  I am - my ‘group’ is; WE are - after all, just the babies…

One of my favorite - oldies-but-goodies, comes to mind. But I wonder if the now-adults remember the form of communication used here.....




As always, NATURE prevails.