Electing An Old New President

THE OLDER I GET, the more I like older people. About a year and a half ago, when I turned sixty, I spent a few months in denial, then hustled right over to the local senior center and joined up. I haven't looked back, or had a single moment of regret. The new friends I have made and the wisdom I have gained are invaluable to me, plus, you can't beat the well balanced, delicious three dollar lunches served Monday through Friday at precisely eleven thirty. Its really a sweet deal, being the youngest in the room again, babied by all the eighty and ninety year olds. Unless my memory fails, thirty and forty years ago there was hardly such a thing as a local "senior center", particularly in small towns like mine. With the aging of the baby boomers, a huge number of Americans are becoming seniors, and organizing. American society has become more inclusive, recognizing the values of disabled people, minorities, and women, equal pay, equal respect, equal social status. God Bless America for this wonderful and amazing evolution. We are unleashing the power and energy of people who were previously consigned to a back room, hidden and forgotten. Like I said, the older I get, the more I like older people. Having said that, aren't Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump just a bit, shall we say, "old", for running for president? The oldest pair in history, aren't they? It seems like just yesterday that I and my fellow liberals were expressing faux outrage and shock that a man as old as Ronald Reagan had become president. Just for the record, that barely worked out. We barely got away with that one. Late in his second term, Mr. Reagan was obviously in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, and within a few months after he left office, could barely carry on a normal conversation. People are living longer, there are now a couple hundred thousand Americans over the age of one hundred, and both Hillary and Trump look to be rather fit for a pair of seventy year olds. But still. They are at the stage of life when most us us figure that what we have already done in the workforce will have to do, and decide to hit the golf course or the beach. And haven't those two done enough already? Whatever impact either of them will have on the future as our next president will be lived and experienced by people far younger than they, people for whom Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will be historical figures from the past; neither of them will live, in all probability, to witness the full impact of whatever they do while in office. Shouldn't the world in which the next generations will live be designed and constructed by the next generations, rather than by leaders from preceding and receding generations?---------PLEASE KEEP THE CONVERSATION GOING. SHARE THIS SITE WITH OTHERS! THANKS!