Too Old?
Most of the time I do not hide the fact that I am 73 years old. Most people think I am a good bit younger, a compliment I greatly appreciate, but the fact is that I am 73. At this age I’m not sure I need to be running anything other than a road race.
It is true that I run 7 days a week and have barely slowed down my travel schedule, even in today’s awful airport experience. I rarely take elevators unless the building has more than six floors, and I hold down five part-time jobs. Still, I don’t think I should be running anything. The closest I come is in my job on the town board.
It is not because I am not able. It’s that I’m a Baby Boomer and in great numbers we Boomers are refusing to get out of the way. Joe Biden is from the Builder Generation. Except for Rupert Murdoch and a handful of others, most of the Builder Generation folks got out of the way a long time ago.
It is time for younger generations to take over. Gen X, the Millennials, Gen Z, – they are all chomping at the bit to lead, except that we won’t let them. You saw the same debate I saw. That was an old man who was lost on that stage. I think he is the finest president in a generation, but at 81, it is time for him to step aside.
In the church world I inhabited, CEOs and lead pastors usually left somewhere between 60 and 65 years of age. I stepped down as CEO at 60 and left the company at 62. Thirty-five years was enough. I intended to stick around as non-executive chair for about 8 more years but my transition abruptly terminated that plan.
I am terribly concerned about the future of democracy in our nation. This election is one of the most important in our 248 year history. If Trump is elected again, I am terribly afraid of the kind of nation my granddaughters will inhabit. My own wellbeing is at stake as well.
I have an acquaintance who is vacationing in the Middle East this summer. I mentioned to her this week that I could not visit that nation. I could be arrested and imprisoned. While I still think it is unlikely, with the current makeup of our Supreme Court, I am afraid if Trump is elected there could be parts of the United States where I could not travel. I’m already terribly uncomfortable in Texas, a state I must pass through frequently. It is telling that I felt much safer in Scotland this spring than I do in the southern United States. Our children and grandchildren deserve a better nation than the one we are leaving them.
I would prefer to see an open Democratic convention, with a limited number of presidential candidates suggested by Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Hakeem Jeffries. I figure the chances of that are pretty slim.
I don’t write about politics much, because outside of my work as Mayor Pro Tem, I am hardly all that knowledgeable. But I have written to my congressman, both of my senators, and the president himself to ask that Biden withdraw from the race. It feels like a civic duty to have done so.
And so it goes.
