I second the welcome, Billy. I'm only 42 and have enough trouble remembering what I'm supposed to be doing; far be it from me to cast an eye on anyone!

Sadly, I must agree with you viz. the scourge of ageism in our society; I fear it is another symptom of an increasingly shallow, superficial and ignorant culture. Several years ago, my mother (then 75) was hospitalised for a double bypass; thankfully, she came through with flying colours and her health has improved. At the time, however, it was extremely stressful, especially for my 3 young sons, who are very attached to their Nana. I had a job which required me to supervise a number of college student internships, and one of these young men had an unpleasant habit of disparaging the elderly: "some old guy" had cut him off in traffic, "some old lady" held him up in a queue, etc.

Although I did my best to ignore him, one day I'd just had enough, turned around and told him that should he be fortunate enough to live to be one of these bothersome "old people", I sincerely hoped he would have acquired some wisdom, and thereby some interesting, worthwhile things to say, since at age 21 he was sorely lacking in either. He later apologised, having heard about my mother, and, while I accepted it, I took care to make the point that it was not simply my own family situation that made his remarks offensive to me, but the basic callous (to say nothing of callow), dismissive unkindness of his attitude.

Thereafter I never heard anymore of it from him, so at least he stopped doing it in my presence. In any event, my feeling is that, just as with racism, homophobia or any other prejudice, it behooves us to speak up and say that it is unacceptable.

Be well,
~D