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NE DAY you wake up and the girl behind the counter at Wawa is calling you "sweetie."
And she's not calling you that because you're sweet.
Suddenly, people are addressing you as "sir" or "ma'am."
The same people who used to let doors slam in your face are holding them open for you like you're dragging an oxygen tank.
No thank you, sonny. Baby boomers can fend for themselves.
All this extra attention may sound nice.
None of it is good.
It can make you feel old and feeble when you're not.
Don't accept that. Cast it out. Stomp it to death. Shout to the heavens that you're not gonna take it anymore.
That's the theme of Sylvester Stallone's new movie, "Rocky Balboa."
Movie critics are mocking the idea of a geezer fighting, but Stallone's film is likely to resonate with boomers.
"Rocky Balboa," the Stallone sequel out this week, is about refusing to be counted out because of the calendar.
"It's over," a younger fighter snidely tells Rocky when he comes out of retirement.
"Ain't nothin' over till it's over," Rocky mumbles.
"Where is that from, the '80s?" the young fighter asks sarcastically.
"That's probably in the '70s," Rocky says.
In modern Western culture, perfectly capable people are continually pressured or shamed into stepping aside--or stepping down--because of age.
It's always been wrong. Now more so than ever, because advances in health care are keeping people competitive at times when their grandparents and parents were slowing down.
"People are gonna say you're crazy," Rocky's son says in the film of his desire to return to the boxing ring in middle age.
"What's crazy," Rocky asks, "about standin' toe to toe, sayin', 'I am'?"
Rocky's right.
The simple fact is that the American economic system won't be able to bear the weight of nearly 80 million baby boomers plopping themselves down on the couch at 55, 62, 65--ages when people used to be put out to pasture.
So we've decided to take an occasional look over the coming months at some things boomers can do to stand toe to toe.
The first thing we'll deal with is presbyopia, or farsightedness. Many people need to start wearing reading glasses around the time they turn 40.
I have two young children, and every time they'd ask me to read to them I'd have to stop and hunt for my glasses.
Buying more didn't help. I kept forgetting them, losing them, sitting on them--even stepping on them. I'm so klutzy, if I'd put them on a strap around my neck, I might have accidently hanged myself.
I was frustrated about getting work-related e-mails on my BlackBerry and not being able to read them because I'd forgotten to bring my glasses with me.
Nora Ephron, the writer, talked about this recently, saying she has 20 pairs and can never find them. She said no one likes to wear reading glasses, but it's a part of getting older and we just have to accept that.
No we don't.
"Boomer Surgery" can eliminate the need for reading glasses entirely--or at least greatly reduce that need. Its formal name is conductive keratoplasty. But it's better known as CK.
It's a new procedure approved by the FDA recently in which radio waves tighten the cornea. Much better-known Lasik helps people 20 to 40. CK helps those 40 to 60.
It's one way to keep fighting the good fight through middle age.
I had CK in August. Demi Dang performed the procedure. Dang, Arash Mansouri and William Coleman--all of Access Eye Centers--are currently the only doctors in the Fredericksburg area doing the procedure. It's noninvasive and takes only a few minutes.
Radio waves are used to flatten collagen in the cornea of one eye. Usually the nondominant eye is the one on which the procedure is performed. CK causes a slight reduction in distance vision in that eye, but restores near vision.
The result is monovision. As odd as it sounds, the brain quickly adjusts to seeing distant objects through one eye and near ones through the other.
I haven't needed reading glasses at all since September. And I still have 20-20 vision. Everyone won't get such perfect results, but CK almost always reduces dependence on reading glasses.
Now when my 5-year-old son asks me to read the tiny directions on a toy box, I can do it instantly.
A few months ago, I would've needed glasses to write this. Now I don't. Reading labels is no problem. And I can see and easily use devices that help me keep up, like my BlackBerry.
Those may seem to be small things, and they are. But they can make a middle-aged person feel disabled.
It's not for everyone, but having CK has made me feel like I'm on more of an even playing field.
And this really is about competing, not cosmetics. It's about genuinely feeling that getting older isn't a disadvantage, but instead a plus because of experience.
In the future, we'll look at other things boomers can do to keep battling.
"It ain't about how hard you hit," Rocky says in the film. "It's about how hard you can get hit and keep movin' forward."
It's all about not backing up in the face of Father Time. It's about going toe to toe with him.
Fighters fight.
To reach MICHAEL ZITZ:
Email: mikez@freelancestar.com
60 IS THE NEW 40 If you go by the gospel according to "Rocky," Balboa was 31 when he fought Apollo Creed for the first time back in '76. That means he's 61 when he steps into the ring for "Rocky Balboa." To put that in perspective, the oldest heavyweight champ in history was George Foreman, who won the IBF and WBA titles at age 45 when he knocked out Michael Moorer in 1994. --From wire reports |
INSIDE: See a review of 'Rocky Balboa' and Stallone's thoughts on making yet another sequel, Page D2. |
