Monday, June 20, 2011

What's in a Word?

Now that's a Senior!

What’s in a Word?

If words have power --- and I believe they do --- I’m about to create a wholly new definition for a word whose multiple meanings are about to be reduced by one!

That word is "SENIOR."

I’ll explain.

Baby Boomers are the first generation of Americans to possess their own unique and sociologically bestowed name.

We were Baby Boomers when we were watching Captain Kangaroo and Romper Room, Baby Boomers when protesting the Vietnam War and the perceived high price of pot, Baby Boomers as we maneuvered our way through mortgages, minivans, and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and Baby Boomers today when we flick on the TV and just about the only person who looks like us is Wilford Brimley.

Baby Boomer ---That is our name. We need no other.

Boomer does not carry implicit within it the concept of age, complacency, decline and decrepitude.

Call someone a Senior and he or she craves warm milk and a nap and thinks someone like Carson Daly is hip. 

Call someone a Boomer and he’s scaling the high Himalayas, the heights of passion, and anything and everything except scaling back!

Before we proceed, there’s a detail or two to be hammered out.

Many restaurants feature an economically priced but ill-termed meal known as a Senior Special.  How much more uplifting to be greeted with  "Good Evening, my name is Claude, these are tonight's Boomer Specials ....  and, never fear, Greatest Generation, got your back as well!"

As for Senior Living Communities, well, why choose to reside somewhere where the youngest person you know thinks the cute perky one is Regis?  Yet if live there you must, keep this in mind: when the men in your water aerobics class begin to have bigger breasts than the women, switch to the 8:35 A.M. class, re-name it Boomer Aerobics, and for god’s sake, exercise those pecs!

Here’s the definition promised.

From now on, the word "SENIOR" shall be defined only as:

a) A father of a male child, Protestant and possessed of a trust fund, bearing the same first name as the male child,  provided that name is John, JamesChauncey, or Muffin.   

b) Someone who will graduate from a high school or other institution of higher learning at the conclusion of the current academic year provided he or she does not have to take math.

Got that?    I’m calling the OED people tomorrow.

Think this much ado about rien de tout?  Think the words we choose to call one another don’t matter? 

Try telling that to the nearest African American, Italian, Hispanic, Jew, or just about anybody else on the planet!

BTW, I plan to shortly also redefine the words elderly and aged. Preliminary projections indicate that both will be reconfigured to refer only to former President of the United States Jimmy Carter.

With me, Boomers?

Or are ya cravin’ that nap?
 
~~~~~~~~~~

More to Come!

4 comments:

K.D. McCrite said...

I will respond to this after I wake up, before I drink my prune juice, and while I listen to "Born to be Wild" -- the Muzak version, of course, because it's more soothing that way, and not as loud.

Joe Olson said...

Good one, I was embarrassed at the golf course the other day when I got the senior discount without asking. Boomers discount sounds better. Now let's get the message out there.

Perry Block said...

Okay, kd, you've certainly earned your right to be called a "senior." When it comes time though, I will fight to the death to protect you from "elderly!"

Perry Block said...

Joe, That's the whole point! Let's get that message out there! So far it's resonated with you, me, ummm ... did I mention you and me?

This better work because I'm already losing palpable dollars to Boomer discounts I could be taking but for the current misbegotten nomenclature ...