I just returned from a six-day adventure in Sedona, AZ with a group of 13 people. I was the youngest at 37. The oldest was 73. The median age was about 67.
If you ever listen to “All Things Considered”, you’ve heard the ads for Road Scholar. I’ve always been fascinated with deserts and I love to hike. So on a whim, I signed up for one of the hiking programs run by Northern Arizona State. It was only sometime later that I realized the thing was targeted to retirees, not people in my age demographic. But I wasn’t fazed. Since the program was rated “moderately challenging”, I figured no one older than 60 would be interested.
So imagine my surprise when I showed up at check-in to find a bunch of grandmothers–and not the kind who look too young to be grandmothers. But the same folks you might see wearing applique sweaters at the church potluck.
To be honest, I instantly felt a little disappointed. No way we were gonna be doing the intense hiking that I had been dreaming about for half a year. And then I was worried how everyone was going to treat me, the “baby” of the group. Over dinner that first night, everyone talked about all their exotic travels and adventures. I asked a lot of questions, but had few stories of my own to contribute. Everyone had children and grandchildren or spouses at home to brag about. Again, except for me. After every cultural reference or joke, someone would say, “Wait a minute! Poor monstro probably doesn’t know what we’re talking about since she wasn’t born then!” Whenever I politely asserted that I wasn’t that young, they’d playfully roll their eyes and laugh. So initially I felt I’d unintentionally placed myself in a situation where (yet again) I was the odd girl out.
But then we started hiking. Suddenly those grandmothers didn’t seem so old anymore. I wasn’t at the back of the pack or anything, but it’s not like I was always in the front either. One of the most hardcore in the group was this little lady in her 70s. The previous week she’d hiked all up and through the Grand Canyon.
I have always gotten along with people considerably older than me. When I was a little kid, I was always “friends” with teachers rather than girls my age. Even now, I’m much more sociable with the coworkers who are in their 50s than the ones who are in their 30s and 40s. But I have never really liked “old” people. And prior to this experience, I would have said the 70s is when most people start getting “old”. That’s the age when folks stop censoring themselves. That’s when they start being more openly smug and judgmental and condescending. That’s when they start being more stubborn and set in their ways. And that’s also when they start becoming detached from what’s going on with regards to technology and pop culture.
Sure, I encountered some smugness. But it wasn’t smugness directed at the younger generations–which is what I expected (and dreaded). It was directed at other “old” people! Like the retirees just sitting at home, watching TV. Or old people content with sight-seeing bus tours, who are too “lazy” to actually walk around and experience things up-close. Since my parents could be described like this, I felt a little defensive when my hiking mates would start on their tirades. But it was interesting nonetheless, because it’s like they thought those old people made them look bad. It made me wonder if they were pushing themselves so hard on the trails to prove something.
Another thing that surprised me was that no one complained about anything. In my experience, if anyone’s going to complain about something, it’s going to be the old person (lady, especially) in the room. But not so this time. Even when it was clear that the group leader had lost his way for a bit and forced us to cut through a couple of miles of tough terrain, no one in the group uttered a single negative thing. One lady quietly confided in me that she thought we were being pushed too hard, but she didn’t say so to the group. I wonder if they would have been more comfortable being “negative” if they had been 30 years younger.
Everyone made it to the sixth day intact. No one injured themselves. No one fell off any cliffs or had heart attacks. The only people who skipped out of some of the hikes for rest and relaxation purposes were the two women in their 50s (if I was the “baby”, they were the “teenagers”). Everyone else was totally hardcore. I was thoroughly impressed with our collective performance and by all the splendor we got to experience.
Age really is just a number, ya’ll. I think if everyone was able to have a vacation like the one I just had, no one would be afraid of getting old.
