Diversity Essay Showcase

Old People and Me: A Revelation
By Adam Stover, Central Mountain High School, Clinton County
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I know, I know, old people present a dangerous health-risk in society today with their careless driving and crossing across crowded streets, while stopping in the middle to inspect a certain crack on the cement that wasn’t there 100 years ago. Sometimes other drivers can't see them driving, because they sit so far down in the seat "A car just went by, and there were NO people in it''. They are often the subject of young people's jokes as shown above, and they always complain about our lack of manners. They are old fashioned-not translating well into our generation with advice and ideas. But after one looks at the amount of pure hell that they went through to get here in one piece (not all made it), we should all realize that we should appreciate them and their experiences of the early and mid 20th century. Perhaps, just maybe, we should help them cross the street or just talk with them to let them know that they're cared about.

1929's Black Thursday, one of the ten worst days in the world, started us, once again on a path headed directly for war. Without the United States keeping a poor Europe afloat, it allowed tyrants to rise to power. At home, there was little money, starvation, and little hope. Just when the Great Depression was thought to recede, things took a turn for the worst. This isn't a history lesson, but rather peoples' lives. They lived this fear everyday, not knowing whether or not there would be food on the table, or money to pay the doctor if they got sick. Even worse, our neighbors across the Pacific Ocean were become more and more land hungry, thus plunging us into the most frightening times ever seen.

Picture this-the President of the United States going on the radio waves to let the whole country know we would go to war with the Empire of Japan. Not only that, but every man who was of appropriate age was going to be given a machine gun and thrown on an island with 50,000 suicidal Japanese soldiers who would rather die in battle than return home the loser. How would you feel? This is what the elderly people of today went through, being whisked away from their present lives, and thrown into a huge conflict in which they wanted no part. On top of this, Hitler declared war on us also. We were sending young men no older than I into machine-gunned deaths on both continents.

Once they got back from this, if not in a coffin, they were part of the facade of a happy nation in the 1950's, only to have it ripped off, leaving only the moral and political strife that was cleaving our country in two. They were exposed to "counter-culture", drugs, and worst of all, hippies. These were dope smoking people wearing tie-dye that didn't bathe, hoping to get across their "make love, not war" slogan. After realizing this, I immediately give my respect to all those who didn't go absolutely crazy at Woodstock with a bunch of high, smelly morons running around.

The disco years yielded more drugs, sex, and stupidity. Unlike the 60's, the 70's did not produce any memorable music. After this came the 80's with the big hair and goofy looking glasses, up until we reach my generation, a bunch of neo-hippies, irresponsible juveniles, and rebels-without-a-cause. It's like someone wrapped up the bad qualities of all the past generations and put them into ours-bad music, drugs, sex and a sheer apathetic approach to life. The elderly feel we have strayed away from the more traditional sense of American life, such as shown in Leave it to Beaver. They are right. The teens that protest this bad stereotype are not the ones who make the elderly upset; it’s the exemplary few that actually want to succeed in life.

I know that my views aren't going to make my ignorant generation appreciate sacrifices the elderly made when they were our age, or make the elderly see the world from our point of view, but one never knows. The next time I see some old guy walking down the street I will stop him and say, "I know you’ve been through a war for our freedom, a time when everyone thought that they were happy but really weren't, a God-awful time with people that didn’t bathe, irresponsible sex, drugs, big hair and a bunch of kids that are totally unappreciative. I care about that."