Unfinished business; Aging But Not Aged - Program 2

Unfinished business. Our unfinished business. A series of programs tape recorded designed to acquaint you with unresolved social welfare problems produced by the Ohio State University under a grant from the Educational Television and Radio Center and cooperation with the National Association of educational broadcasters. Today's unfinished business aging but not aged. Along with ME the best. Is Yet To Be.

The last of life for which the first. Was me. The quotation you heard a moment ago written by Robert Browning. Thanks so heroic and happy picture of old age. The Golden Age as it is also called. Unfortunately a most aged persons in this country would not agree with these descriptions. Too often old age is neither happy nor heroic nor golden. Why it is instead more like the story I'm going to tell you now. Here is a family well not exactly. Here is a little more than one of them

only. We have a mother a father a daughter and a grandfather. It's a very nice family like the folks next door or down the street. This is the home of the Franklins. Everyone in this house has the last name of Franklin. Grandfather is Harold Franklin's father. Harold is Barbara's dad. That's Harold drank over there right now blowing the lawn getting ready for a very special Friday. Daddy did you order the favor is I have a yep Biodome They'll be here right on time. Oh oh oh oh oh yeah how's things going you are doing OK. Yes I think so. I just pray that it will be a great big thing. Honestly. It isn't I don't know what I'll do now don't worry honey everything will be just fine. Oh if I could only have a party as nice as care on Danny. Yes my room what is it. What can we do anything with. I mean is there any place grandfather can

can he go someplace while the party's gone. Oh I know this sounds cruel and and maybe awfully selfish but. Well if anything happens it's it's just that he's so old and I'm scared that this will be your way. Well yes I know what you mean but I'm afraid we just can't do that dear. But he's already bothering mother and me to death. If you'd only go someplace or or just sit down and rest and leave us alone to do things. No you say you want to help and this makes him feel sort of useful and worthwhile but he can't help. There's enough. You can do it now it's a tough problem. You see all his life he's been busy and now that he's not working anymore he's got to keep doing something you do understand that don't you. Oh daddy I understand it but you know what doesn't make the situation any better. I don't want anything else. Well the party it won't now just stop worrying your grandfather isn't going to interfere at all. He only wants to feel useful. Yeah I was.

Oh well there you are. Who know what a party. I don't party we're going to have a barber. Yeah yeah. Here now. Let me finish the yard for you how don't I have it done in a jiffy and you can help in the home no no no father it's too hard for you to mow this yard over here just like I can mow just as well as you can as Yes father I know but but it's got to it's just about done and it's really too hot and too hard for you too hot too hard work for me got petrol here around here I could mow yards anyway. Well as anyone else well after all I'm rough in my grandad I'm now Father please let's be sensible don't get I don't know where you're coming from and I need that. All right Sarah just a minute. Your mother wants me Bob are you coming too. Yes dad maybe it's something I can help with. Remember father knowing I'll be back in just a minute. No moaning no help to Dargon rest. So when I hear my own granddaughter has a big party and I can't even

get her a bird to get ready for when I can work just as well as the rest of them mow the yard are always short. Anybody want to guess how I left them. Well Harold's father mow the yard as you heard and the damage was done. It was too hot. The work was too difficult and grandfather had a heatstroke. He became ill right on schedule. That is just as Barbara's friends began to arrive for the big party. As you can well imagine the sadness of this house is deep tonight. Party is over. Her grandfather is better but forced to rest in his bed. But I just. Something what happened was I was I was just stopped their daughter and you heard me young lady. You were being unkind. You sound cruel and callous and that isn't like you at all who how do you know I am the most important part in my whole life. I've been looking forward to it and planning it for days and days and what happens.

Grandfather spoils it all by doing something you wasn't supposed to do. However this isn't the first time. It's always like this ever is the dream to live your Listen dear. Please try and understand the situation. It isn't what anybody really wants. Not even your grandfather but he's alone in the world and there's no place else to live. He has very little money. Why do we have to he can't live in a decent restaurant without having more money than he or we can afford. Believe me he feels much Burse about what happened here this afternoon than you do. You feels that he's not needed here. That is often a problem in the way a nuisance. This is terrible for him. It hurts his pride makes him oddly miserable but it's just impossible. How do you know it's just impossible when I can't even watch. Television shows I want to see and I can't be alone with my friend as a child I suppose it is impossible in a way that is three generations want different things. Look at things differently.

There's no reason to expect you at your age or any young person to understand the problem. That is all the problems allow. Can one of the biggest problems is trying to make your grandfather believe that he is wanted here and needed. When he isn't really needed but he is wanted. But half heartedly when we really tell the truth about how we feel but you must first realize we must all realize this that your grandfather is on the happy and as nervous about his being here with us as you are or your father and I are about it. He knows he doesn't really belong. That's one of the tragic things about this terrible situation. He must stay year. There's no suitable place for him except with us. And it isn't a good situation in itself. Not for any of us. Yes mother I know it. At least I think I do a little bit. And we so terribly sad and have flown all my about all of this.

Should I go up and see. I feel so guilty not Barbara please don't begin to blame yourself but I do I do. If it hadn't been for my party and I'm not just stop it. If it hadn't been for your party it would have been something else. Your grandfather is bound to get in trouble come into conflict with the rest of us just as long as he remains a man just as long as he wants to keep his dignity. How can it be otherwise. No dear. I wouldn't blame myself for this thing that happened. It's no one's fault it's not even your grandfather's fault. And I think I wouldn't go up to see him just now all your followers up there with him still. They'll be talking. Here father take this. Can you hold it by yourself. Yes. Yes Harold I I think so. Come on in the hatch where you are. How does it taste. Not so bad. Could be worse.

How long am I going to be down in bed on my back. The doctor says a few days but you'll be down longer if you don't behave and stay put. There's no point in telling you again how sorry I am about all this. Now that's all right I might as well be dead. Father don't talk like that. I'd be a lot less trouble now. Sarah will have to work even more on a kind of me. She would feel that she has to take care of me. Things won't get better they get worse. That's the way it is from your own. You have no money. You know how it was. I was reading an article the other day in a magazine about how they're planning to make things better for us older folks so that we can stay alive as long as we live you might say Well well well what Father where we don't expected to be

better today or. Tomorrow or maybe even next year. We don't want to wait too long. And we do not have much time. That was a home where a teenager wrestled with the problem of trying to be kind to her grandfather and still enjoy her own normal social life. Now take this couple with a slightly different problem. What are we going to do about your mother. I don't think she's happy here. She doesn't like to be alone up stairs and well I can't bring her wheelchair down. I know Marge and I don't think it's fair to keep you in the house all the time taken care

of or you don't get out at all anymore. That's all right but. But I do get awfully tired going up and down. I know I hate like the dickens to see you trying to take care of three children and an invalid besides. We just got to do something. Do you think we could get her into a nursing home. Oh I don't know I sure wish we could but well you know what we found out about the only ones we can afford that one for $85 a month where they serve such awful meals. Beans and all those other things are hard to digest bossom are like animals in a zoo. And that other place where they don't even let you come in to visit them when you can. And there's nothing for them to do. No recreation no hand-work nothing. But there there was that nice one up on Park Avenue you know marginal We can't afford to pay a hundred $90 a month when a mom only gets 65 a month for a pension. I wish we could afford it though.

Well I guess there's no way out. We surely don't want to go to the Kerry home. They wouldn't take her at that place even if we wanted to send her. We're supposed to be able to take care of her. Never mind there. It seems as though the question of housing for our senior citizens is not an easy one to solve even of our understanding and sympathetic couples who want to do the best they possibly can for those they love. What can we do about it. Some folks have found a solution in building an addition to their homes where their parents may live with as much independence as possible. This may be an ideal solution but it's impossible for those who do not own their own homes. There have been some colonies of housing for the Aging which provide cottages with garden space for couples advanced in years. Here they may carry on their own programme of activities but have available for their use programmes of group recreation in an assembly building and medical and hospital service when needed. However this leaves the

problem of what to do when these facilities are not available. Perhaps it's possible to raise the standards of the lower priced nursing homes by community interest and guidance encouraging meetings of the nursing home and rest home operators at which the sentiment of the community is made known in a constructive way. Sometimes a housing project for the ageing can be initiated by the community itself. Here's a woman of eighty nine who certainly needed help in her housing problem. You say you're just new here you're just new here. Yeah. How long have you been here. And so I just today I came yes. Oh you came yesterday. Oh I have a nice yeah. No I am strong for my money me for

it. But. I'm right capable but I just what brought you out here to the county home and let it go down at the right time to pay my way. I had the money and I had it when I'm feeling happy. And you are a victim you're no me you know. But the girl woman came before they came to me and she brought me here. Because I. Think the French are way that day they gave me one like three days after this three day three day notice. Even when the aging have their own housing and the opportunity for independent living they often need some assistance. Meals on

Wheels has attained great popularity in some places. Menus are planned in advance with the clients and their meal hours determined then hot meals are delivered to them by volunteers at specified hours. In this way those lacking strength and facilities are able to get well-balanced meals and any loss of appetite or illness can be immediately reported. Then there's the fine program of craft projects which is carried on in many areas so that even the shut ins may do useful things and get together. Most of us have heard of the Golden Age clubs which have sprung up throughout the country. Let's drop in at a center which has an extensive program for the golden age group and a chat with a couple of those attending in the background you can hear part of the program which is under way. First of all sir would you mind telling me just how old you are. And I really enjoy it here. Activity.

What are some of the things that you're doing. You belong to a golden age and I belong to the long and like a club down to the library. I have a hundred cards from men who have been retired for the permit and I call them on the first. Very light to go order. How often do you come to the center here you come every day. I average maybe about maybe three times a week. You know they have to keep track of there's not a small job. I do that and I come here and I always enjoy There's an old saying that the poor man's problem. And I think this is a step toward destroying that idea that a bar room is

a man's got a long way to go to sell the public. But I think they made a wonderful Starkey hold a golden age taught me doing a good job. But this place is open six days a week and I didn't come here the every afternoon and spend it faffing past 12 until five o'clock. I'm going to read. Listen to a doctor and we have the best form we have some programs here that are wonderful. May I ask if you're living along with your family. Right. And quite frequently. We.

Are there and this place is perfect except. To you. Would you explain a little bit about the kind of people here you make a lot of friends I suppose. They vary. Here.

Could you tell me whether there are more. Mostly mostly. Just talked with. It was 84 years old very happy and as a matter of fact all the people here seemed very happy there and he's very taken care with. We were thrilled by the outlook of a grandmother on one of our visits here and she gives a wholesome appraisal of the status of our senior citizens. I'm 65 and I'm very close to 66. I mean to most people that you reach the age of retirement and you're going to settle back and take it easy for a while.

How do you feel about that attitude Well the fact of the matter is that I never in my life felt that I had so much to do. I have felt that the rest of all years in my life that I've lived have been sort of wasted. I have a broad new horizon of ideas and these ideas are a lot of humanitarianism. I feel that in the mid years of it that we all have problems domestic problems and this problem and they have problems and we are blind to what's going on around us we have had they say and it's true that half the world doesn't know how the other half lives and I have discovered that older people have a definite place in life if they will if they can but see it and I have Jack strenuously to wasting my time in these golden age groups now there's nothing wrong with them understand they're all right. But the fact of the matter is they proven inferiority because the

fact that there is work to be done. And even though we are a little bit tired maybe we have rheumatic pains maybe we have this but it is a definite Christian idea if there is work to be done to do it. When I say pattern we have a pattern for an infant say a pattern for childhood a parent for you the pattern for middle age. We come to old age what are we supposed to do. Just gamble around like sheep in the pasture. He padded out in the back and say there your dear old thing you just do anything you want to for the rest of your life. Well that is no way to rivet the social mind that society mind on the world's mind that all people really amount to something and that their ideas have a great force and that they're here you have to do things and that they're not here to cringe and to be sorry over the fact that they are all in there out of things they have more things to do than they ever had.

You think of it so much better if more people could live by those patterns. This designed for old age in fact I think that the people living today the all people today by their own bootstraps and nothing of them must pull themselves up from the inferior status that they've had in society and the rivet on the public mind. This new type of all people. There are people who are to be respected to be. I won't say venerated I won't go back on that however to be honored and respected and why. Because they deserve it. That is. And I you know there's a great many many people that believe that once women especially wants to get gray hair and wear glasses and they lose their sex appeal at yet they just give up and they develop all kinds of ailments go to doctors and they end that by the way and that like being an institution but it's because there has been an age all pattern of all day. Society expects you to let down society is behind it all.

You know even today they think they're doing wonderful thing for all people that think what happened back in my grandmother's time I had it was our. You know. Idea it was their little shelter around them and said look out the window and so we've come a long way even though the golden age groups are happy just going out and they're staying off society's hook anyway to keep them out of institutions other well you know. Talk about for a point of view of on the road opportunities for of your employment for people of your group. Definitely not. Although it's not necessary at the present time for me to work. Fortunately I say very far to big because one if it were the standards that I have would mean that I would have to work. It wouldn't be possible for me to live on the pensions that their act that they give. Well I could but I'd be very unhappy. But if you suppose if I would go anywhere now my conversation with you men today through to

you that there is absolutely nothing wrong with my man thought process is my mental setup yet I am my age and if I were to go into an employment office and they where. They probably wouldn't be ruined but they just courteously ease me out do you think I'd get a jab. No I would not that I know I'm positive of it. So that Hanson is that question. There are definitely know there might be. Now the goodwill for the handicapped the handicapped are better off than they have been those who are not hampered. They possibly could. But as for me and probably thousands like me want to stop working. Now I think there is problem. I'm doubting there is one line of work I could do which but which I couldn't. I mean physically I would be not able to. I could work with children in institutions because you never get too old for that nest just to travel. Women that are not in good health or that are nervously.

Spam as I am and frustrated women should never work with little children and they are the very kind that do in most of our institutions unfortunately and that's another jab for the old people to change those conditions. If you think you can you find that you can give advice to younger people of the county over. Yes many of them do. They call me on the phone and they ask me and I love children very much and I feel and I can hear them going to vice because I believe that children should be disciplined I think that there should be a lot of love mixed with a discipline and a lot of understanding. This grandmother read for us a portion of an article she had written. Should we follow the curriculum has charted that we live to be 100. We will never grow or we will always be young. Our bodies may be wasted and weary but our minds are always fresh and young. The reason we are young. So it's entirely up to every person whether he shall grow old or grow old

young. The question is are we willing to pay the price for this eternal youth. Those who seek the selfish fleeting pleasures of the moment who are satisfied with material possessions and so many activities that most people care to take will surely as they grow older travel downward to the lonely valley with footsteps with the dirge. Well those that grow young will keep step to the music of the infinite and upward to the mountain peak to nap to death but to a new life. How shall we come into our golden years hands and hearts high or cringing in our fears. Will our lives and in jungles of dismay I mean bright manners on the king's highway. How shall we come. Each one of us decides those whose mass conduct evil overrides upward and onward ever marching along reading God's great to morrow with the song.

Not one of a series of tape recorded programs on the theme of unfinished business. Be sure to listen to the next program which will be short changed. Production consultant for this program was David Ayers the technician Harold Gorsuch and the entire program was under the direction of Fred Hines and William Ewing unfinished business was produced by station and cooperation with the school of social administration of Ohio State University grad from the Educational Television and Radio Center. This program is distributed by the National Association of educational broadcasters less sponsors speaking. This is the Taif network.