who is old today?

My grandmother died at age 102 five years ago. For the last five years of her life she lived as part of a world that was a mix of the past and the present all rolled into one. She mixed us all up, but she called us specific names. For instance I was honored the day she thought I was Grandpa. As far as she was concerned, I was Grandpa.

Folks debate these days if the world has changed or how much has changed and/or what to call these times…emerging culture, post-modern culture, 21st Century culture. (I wonder when the words "modern" and "contemporary" were accepted as the norm to describe the 20th Century?) You know what, it doesn't matter what you call it, it is what it is. And 90 year olds may say the don't like the change today, but they live in it. They use the scanners at the grocery store…either on their own or by the clerk. They use cars that to the most part are no more than 5-10 years old with very different technology and design than in the 1950's.. They listen to radio stations and they watch tv stations that communicate far differently than they did five years ago. They use medicines that weren't even known of three years ago. They are able to live at home or they live in retirement/assisted living settings that were no where on the radar 15 years ago and to the breadth they are around in the last 5 years.

So, are a 90 year old and a 13 year old are living in a different kind of culture? Oh sure, they may listen to different music (but not all of them!). Yet, the context is much more alike than different. A 90 year old today is closer to my 14 year old in living style, than even to my grandmother when she was in her 90's. The understandings and expectations are much more the same between the 90 and 13 than to my grandmother's 90. Most of my grandmother's peers didn't move to Fla. Oh sure, they traveled some, but most of them stayed put in Wauseon, Ohio until they died. This adventure for travel and moving to a different setting is much closer to the adventuresome spirit of today's teens than the previous generations senior citizens. I see the same anticipation for a move to Fla for seniors (citizens) as I do for going to college by seniors (in high school). It is a life change they anticipate. A new adventure. Something new and different. That value was not part of the living experience 20-30 years ago. There was anticipation for some things new, but not to the degree that it is accepts as the norm for all generations today.

So, what are are "good old time" values in this context? I think there are values that transcend the generations. But, I also think, today's 90 year olds accept much more than my grandmother did at 90. So, whose memory do we rely on for the good ole days?