Fellow Boomers, has this ever happened to you?  It probably has, and it’s infuriating.  Something must be done.  First, the background.  My friend was spending some time in Florida recently away from the frigid temperatures of her home state.  I don’t have a clue of her age, but let’s say she remembers the same songs from growing up that I do.  And, I’m sixty-one.

She is active, works hard to be healthy and to stay in shape and takes pride in being someone her grandchildren says is “cool.”  We’re not talking a slouch here, OK?

While she was in Florida, she stopped to get gas and couldn’t unscrew the fuel cap on her rental car.  There were two young men filling a truck at the next pump, and after enough failed attempts to get the gas cap removed, she asked them for help.  Very politely, one of the two young gentlemen easily removed the gas cap and commented that it was a “child-proof cap.”  However, as the nasty disrespectful punk swaggered away, he commented to his friend, “It’s also old people proof!”

My friend nearly fell to her knees with surprise and sadness. “I feel so young,” she will tell you, “and my grandchildren think I am, too.”

Later in the day, she and a grandson were rollerblading at a local park.  After they had made a couple of trips around the park, Nana looked ahead and saw that she was fast gaining on “Mr. Disrespectful Swagger.”  She recognized him immediately, his rude appearance having been etched into her aging, but quick and active brain.

As she and her grandson skated past Mr. Swagger and his buddy, my friend “accidentally” bumped him.  He tripped and tumbled into the grass next to the sidewalk.  Even though advanced in years, she is polite.  Walking up to the young man, she reached down to help him up and said, “I never know what these old legs of mine are going to do.”

Skating off, her grandson commented, “Nana, you need to watch where you’re skating.”

“I was honey," she smiled.  "I was.”