Monday, February 02, 2009

Little Old Men

Why is it that some little old men feel the need to make comments to a strangers children? Today while shopping at Fred Meyers with the kids, some little old man walked up and asked Johnathan if there was no school today. Johnathan politely answered him and said it was a teachers work day. The man laughed and then said how lucky kids are today to not have as much school as he had in his day. Then he tells told the kids he had to walk to school up hill for two miles and that walking home was also up hill. Both of my kids had smiles on their faces but kept shooting me looks like Mom what is this guy doing talking to us! The kicker was when he said that he did all this walking without shoes. Hannah being a little girl with a big heart, told him how sorry she was that he didn't have shoes when he was little. This made the old man laugh and confess that he had been joking with them. Then he just turned and walked away. I don't know if this is done out of loneliness or what, but it has happened before when I have had the kids at the store. And I can remember the same types of things happening myself when I was little. Wonder if I will get to that point when I am old and alone. Will I just walk up to unknown women and their children and start telling tales of my childhood? Kind of makes me feel sorry for that little old man.

2 comments:

Roxanne said...

I think older people are often left out of society today. We, as a society, tend to be very focused on youth and vitality, and we are also a lot more private. In his era, neighbors actually talked to each other. Imagine that! :)

When I went to a veterans' home for a Christmas party a few years ago, one of the old guys had a hat that said, "World's Greatest Grandpa" on it. I asked him about it, and he started crying! I guess nobody comes to visit him, not his children and definitely not his grandchildren. He was so sad, and I felt awful for saying anything.

I wish people would treat older people better than they do, instead of just dumping them in nursing homes and forgetting their existence.

Amanda said...

I agree we should take better care of our older generations. I don't know what happened to make us change our values so much that older people don't count for anything anymore.

I got a kick out that little old man giving the kids a hard time. And I was impressed at how polite my kids were towards him, even if they didn't understand at first that he was only joking with them.

There are some things I wish we as a society would change and go back to. Being nice to one another and actually getting to know your neighbors and people in the community is one of them. Oh I know this won't happen because everyone is to busy for anything like that, but it would be nice to show our kids what a community is really like.