Oohhhh, don't get me started. <g>

First, since the term geezer includes the notion of advanced age, the phrase old geezer is not simply redundant, it includes a superfluous repitition of excessive verbosity.

As a certifiable geezer, I can also comment on the content of this maudlin but incorrect piece. Geezer's used to believe in the words to the US national anthem when, as children, we were Boy Scouts and proudly carried the flag in courts of honor. Then we grew up and realized that the lyrics are only about war and blowing stuff up—something Americans excel at but not really any philosophical basis for believing in one's country.

Yes, geezers are polite to people but that doesn't necessarily mean we trust people, we just think society works a lot better when everyone's polite. There aren't that many of us left who remember “The War to End All Wars” but we do remember most of the rest of the stuff mentioned and we've learned that in the next great depression there will be no soup lines, no CCC, no WPA, no NRA, and anyone who isn't content to starve quietly will be shot. As Anatole France once wrote “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”

As for filth, most geezers are at least as fond of filth on TV or in movies as is the general population. We may not admit to wanting our prurient natures appealed to but that's only because we're hypocrites. After all, what separates mankind from beasts if not hypocrisy?

Geezers remember when regular guys volunteered by the millions whenever the country needed protecting. Geezers also know that regular guys don't volunteer anymore and the armed services are often just the only employment option available to those who join. Many National Guard members are unhappy now because they expected the Guard to keep them out of any actual conflict. Geezers assume that if the country seriously needed military protection now, millions of regular guys would again “flock to join the few.”

And, yes, this country does need people with decent values. Problem is that the geezers who have decent values are ejected, laid off, pushed aside, and trapmled under foot to make room for Gen-Xers who don't give a damn for anything but their own incomes and their starter castles sprouting up like mushrooms where proud family farms once stood.

Oh, and we've become a little cynical.

      - Mark