Trust me on this: The AARP — the American Association of Retired Persons — knows where you live.
I don’t care how out of the loop, insignificant, or well-hidden you think you are; turn fifty in the U.S. of A. and, within a week of your birthday, you’ll receive by mail your first of many invitations to join this organization. I’ve heard that, with their cadre of dedicated moles, they even ferret out people squirreled away under new identities in the Federal Witness Protection Program. They got to me a few years ago, before the reality of half a century’s breathing in and out had really registered, and indeed it was that letter, more than anything, that signalled to me my passing of that milestone and certified that I’d become that most feared, maligned, and misunderstood of contemporary figures — a geezer.
From my standpoint, that’s not as horrible as it may sound to some of you. To begin with, until recently the noun geezer had nothing to do with age (unless prefixed by the adjective “old”). According to Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, the term probably came from the Scots guiser (one in disguise), and meant “a queer, odd, or eccentric man.” In that sense, I’ve been a geezer since my teens. And even now that the word has ceased to be gender-specific and taken on the connotation of superannuated, I don’t dread it. Just survey the size and quality of my cohort, chum; I’ve got good company, and plenty of it. We’ve already commissioned Bruce Springsteen (who’s turning 50 as we speak) to write our anthem. If you plan to muscle us out of the way, you best bring an army, and a lunch.
Beyond that, I don’t look my age at all; indeed, I still get carded at the supermarket when buying beer. (There are witnesses to this, and sworn statements available upon request.) And I’m hardly retired, or retiring, or even thinking about it. But when the AARP’s letter showed up, I couldn’t deny that I’d reached the age I had, and I realized they had my number and would keep after me from then on. They’re relentless. So I did the only thing that made sense: I bought the ten-year membership, for a very reasonable fee. I plan to live to see the turn of the century after this, so they’ll end up losing money on me. That’ll larn ’em.
One of the benefits of membership (aside from the discounts at hotels and motels, and ain’t it fun to ask for those!) is my lifetime subscription to the magazine Modern Maturity, which arrives like clockwork every two months. It’s a well-edited, well-written, attractively designed and substantial periodical whose only unnerving aspect is the advertising (concentrating as it does mainly on geriatric prosthesis and leisure clothing in synthetic fabrics). I look forward to reading it, with the exception of the contributions of one of its regular columnists, Roger Rosenblatt, whom it would be generous to classify as a smug, uninformed gasbag.
In the magazine’s 1998 year-end issue, they ran a ridiculously Luddite piece by Rosenblatt on why he wouldn’t touch a computer with a ten-foot pole and how this instrument, in conjunction with the World Wide Web, would destroy anything resembling quality in anyone’s writing and scholarship. One of my first acts of the new year was to fire off the following response:
January 2, 1999
Editor
Modern Maturity
601 E St., NW
Washington, DC 20049
To the Editor:
Why have you published an essay by a man who boasts proudly that he’s never used a computer or done research on the Internet, and never will (“Why I Don’t Compute,” Roger Rosenblatt, November-December 1998), comparing writing by hand or typewriter to using a word processor and library research with Web research?
Mr. Rosenblatt is fortunate to have “forbearing editors . . . willing to enter my typewritten pieces into systems for me.” I don’t. Most of the editors here and abroad with whom I collaborate require electronic submission (not to mention e-mail correspondence). My last six books were submitted to their publishers as electronic files. I edit and publish an elaborate electronic magazine on the World Wide Web, and do a good bit of research using that medium. I still love and use libraries; I remain capable of putting pen to paper, and often do for notes and first drafts. But it’s hard to image my working life without the computer and the ‘Net. And, despite Mr. Rosenblatt’s cavils, I’m known as both a stylist and a meticulous researcher with an unusually wide range of “serendipitous” references.
As a widely published writer, I’d certainly listen to the reasoning of any thoughtful colleague who’d tried both methods and then opted for the analog forms of writing. But, to use an archaic term, Mr. Rosenblatt is simply a know-nothing, and you have paid him to brag about his ignorance and arrogance, without even offering your readers a contrary view.
Yours,
/s/ A. D. Coleman
Now, Rosenblatt had voiced what most people assume is the unanimous geezer take on computers and the ‘Net. So you might expect that the majority of readers of that magazine — the AARP’s membership — would side with him; after all, we’re the working definition of a bunch of geezers, the largest and most powerful geezer lobby in the world. They never published my letter, and the reader response they did print — six letters in all — in fact ran 2 to 1 anti-computer and 100% pro-Rosenblatt (a mere two readers cheered him).
But the editors did imbed Rosenblatt’s uninformed rant in an issue otherwise devoted entirely to thoughtful consideration of computer matters as they pertain to this constituency. Moreover, also included in that winter issue was a mail-in questionnaire for readers, the results of which poll subsequently showed that (to the extent that this survey is representative) the majority of AARP members have decidedly gone digital. Turns out they work on computers in their professional spheres, use them at home for purposes both practical and recreational, surf the ‘Net, post personal home pages and maintain more elaborate commercial and non-commercial websites, communicate by email, shop online, play computer games . . . everything that their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren do with those technologies.
That fact was kicking around in my head on July 21st and 22nd as I wandered through MacWorld Expo in New York City’s Javits Center, snagging assorted merchandise giveaways, scarfing down expensive oxymorons (jumbo shrimp that cost one booth’s generous sponsors $2.50 apiece — I ate a dozen), licking a free blueberry sno-cone (designed to match the original iMac’s coloration, of course), networking, sitting in on demos, and being very, very afraid.
What scared me? I’ll tell you next month.
(Part 1 of 2.)
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