Some people seem to believe that senior citizens are frail or hard-of-hearing or have trouble communicating, but as I have found with every visit we make, that’s not true. At a performance, I met a beautiful woman, who had served in the army during WWII. She is 96 years old, but will turn 97 soon. She explained that after her service, she continued to keep an active lifestyle: she regularly goes for walks, keeps up with the news, and votes in every election. She says that she is concerned with the direction that American politics are headed in, with all these wars overseas and economic hardship here at home. She says she’s not sure what the future will hold. I reassured her that while there are a lot of problems in our government and society, our generation is going to fix them, and I sincerely believe that we will--she and other WWII veterans fought some of the greatest evils in human history so that we could have basic freedoms and liberty, so it’s the least we can do. But we can also repay her and other senior citizens more directly, by casting aside stereotypes and preconceptions and just taking the time to meet and interact with them, like they're normal people. Because they are normal people. At Vintage Voices, this is what we do!
-Naeem Alam
