Can't Prove It By Me

Late last night I had a conversation with my brother and SIL in NJ. Somehow we got to the "They" everyone always uses (a running theme these days in convos). Who are "They"? "They" are the people who tell us things that we're supposed to believe. In the context of our conversation, it came up as the official declaration "They"'ve made that we're all living longer. Which made my brother pipe up with, "What? Bullshit. Look what happened just today." Our brother was 62. Our eldest brother was 58. Pat , who may as well have been family since I was 4, was 53. Seth was 41. My husband was 36. And let's not go thru the dozens of friends who first died in Vietnam; then from drugs and car crashes; and then in their 20s, 30s and 40s during the AIDS epidemic while Reagan smiled. There is no huge population of Baby Boomers left. I want to see real statistics. Because from my vantage point, of all My Guys that I came up with and have loved in my 50+ years, only Billy, Little Eddie, Armando and Stevil remain. If you go back to before 1988, it's only Billy and Little Eddie still standing. So I say Bullshit, too.

Back 2 generations, my one grandmother was 94 at death. But the other three had died in the 1920s and 30s, all before they were 50. My mother's English fostermother and father managed til they were 69 and 84, respectively. Both my parents died at 72. My older brothers' father died, I think, at 59. And my stepfather died exactly one week after his 70th birthday. Six weeks after quitting work, to the day.

Where is all this healthy old age we're being told we're living til? What "Golden Years"? Where's the stress on Social Security? Everyone's dead! And they all had paid in for decades of working. Where'd you put all the money, Reagan? Oh, that's right- you borrowed from it. And then Clinton replaced it. And then the Bush Regime spent every cent and borrowed a lot more on top of it. That's where it went. But don't even try to tell me SS is a financial burden or that there are too many Baby Boomers. Nobody has lived to a ripe old age in my family since 1966.

"They" lie.