There’s that old saying, “Can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”  Sometimes it’s said by old dogs, unwilling to learn a new trick.  Sometimes it is said by young dogs trying to force their “new” tricks on old dogs.

Young dogs are very tiresome to old dogs.  (I mean that in the nicest possible way . . . )  ; )

The older I get, the more perspective I gain and the more I wonder how anyone could possibly say that about older people!  Change, especially in this day and age, occurs with regularity, sometimes daily, referencing the technology “demon,” I mean, “angle.”   No, I will probably never get my mother to understand that texting is a crucial communication tool for keeping herself included in family conversations.  She just misses out. 

But old people have to adapt to something far more difficult and subversive than technology.  Our physical bodies are betraying us and no matter how athletic we’ve been, how diligently we eat the right foods, at some point genetics or environmental factors or our own bad habits just sneak up on us and what seemed to be fine ten years ago, twenty years ago, in ancient times, is now wreaking havoc and we are forced to stop eating the things we love, start exercising if we can, and the worst thing of all:  we are prescribed drugs to control the things our doctors don’t believe (and in most cases rightly so) that we will control by making the above necessary changes.

So when I was a teenager, for example, I ate fast food burgers, French fries, and crunched on ice, even drank a ton of mountain dew.  I could out run almost every girl in my class.  Even got the Presidential Physical Fitness award for breaking the long jump record.  I could throw a football with a crisp spiral and kick it further and straighter than any of the guys in my neighborhood.  If you threw me a baseball, I hit it.  Might not be a home run, but I smacked it good, no matter where it was over the plate.  I didn’t know how not to connect with it.

If you had put a slab of salmon in front of me after a five day fast, I would have gagged and gone hungry just a little bit longer . . . 

Now I can throw a football, sure.  Not as far, and sometimes way off target, and my shoulder would hurt SO BAD the next day I would cry.  (I know that for sure, because I tried!)  I have separate pans for cooking things that have gluten and things that don’t.  I don’t eat anything I love that has gluten.  I limit things like (sit down and take a deep breathe, this might shock you and cause pain) CHIPS and PIZZA and RED MEAT to essentially zero intake with very brief lapses where I wake up the next morning and remember why I can’t do that any more.

I COOK SALMON, and I EAT IT, and I LIKE IT.  I know.  I don’t believe it either.  My life is insanely upside down.

I am a folk singer who loved John Denver, who became a metal head when introduced to Queen and Bowie and Aerosmith.  Now I sometimes crave a little Lincoln Park and Of Mice and Men.  And, most surprising, I have learned in the last few years to love the Blues.  I even know some of their names and listen to them without being forced.

Basically what I’m saying here is that when young folks try to get older folks to do something and they balk at it, they assume it is because they just can’t learn new stuff any more or their stubborn and difficult.

But maybe . . . 

Maybe we’ve already been through that scenario, more than once even, and we already know where it’s heading long before it’s started and it was painful the first couple times so we aren’t wasting our hard earned old age on doing it again.  

Maybe we’ve just had to start taking our blood pressure every morning and walking for a half hour and balancing new drugs with new side effects with dietary restrictions that would horrify you young upstarts.  (Yeah, I’m talking ICE CREAM, ONION RINGS, PASTRAMI SANDWICHES)  I know, that was rough.  I’ll pause here for a second and let you recover.

Maybe we’ve just added salmon to our diet.  In place of the yummy things above.  (I think I need a hug.  Hang on.  Okay.  I’m okay.)   Wait.   Okay, I’m good.

Maybe our hips have refused to move without pain and taking the stairs makes our knees hurt REALLY BAD and sometimes our rotocuffs get that little catch and then hurt like crazy.  Sometimes for no apparent reason my right pointer knuckle hurts like crazy.

We pee sometimes and we are not in the rest room.  I know, it’s TMI, but it happens.  And WE have to deal with it. YOU don’t. 

YET.

Maybe we have already been through the Model A, the typewriter, the depression, the Nixon years, the Clinton years, Nine Eleven. 

Maybe change is how we have lived our very long lives and we are tired of stupid changes that unnecessarily make us keep track of one more stupid thing not being the same, simply because some whippersnapper thinks its the best new thing since French toast.  (Which was pretty awesome, I must admit, even though I’m not allowed to eat it anymore.)

Maybe I was the only one in my family who DIDN’T upgrade their iPhone that time when every body else had that OOPS! now stuff doesn’t work problem.  Because I saw that every time you upgraded your phone things disappeared, stopped working, exploded.  Yeah, I saw that time it became a brick and you had to spend seven hours at the Apple Store to get it backed off of that upgrade until they could fix the bugs in it.   So I learned the “I’m gonna wait until my kid’s iPhone works again to do that upgrade” new trick.  See what I did there?  

Maybe I have seen a lot more things in the years I’ve lived.  

Maybe my house didn’t have a TV until I was in second grade.  (Oh, yeah, that happened!)

Maybe, just maybe, if just once the younger people in leadership roles LISTENED to the wisdom of those who have gone before, those who have lived through more, MAYBE history would stop repeating itself over and over and over again.

Maybe.  

Don’t worry.  I’ve lived through this before.  I’m not holding my breath.