A Boomer on the Bus

My daughter was telling me about the "rude" middle-aged guy on the bus, sitting, talking on his cell phone while women were standing. My first response was, yes, that's why I usually dated older men, they knew about the double standard, but then I got to thinking. The guys in my generation didn't have it so easy. When they became of age to date, the ERA was in the forefront. The boomer men didn't know whether to hold the door open, go dutch treat, or "just be friends." Maybe this bus ride is the only place in the world, this guy can just sit and do what he wants, without some woman telling him or making him guess. I still hear little blue haired women telling their greying or balding sons what to do. I always heard the ex-wives telling their ex-husbands what to do, or bad mouthing them in front of the children, their girl-friends, co-workers, and mothers. For some reason, the divorce decree seemed to make these same "incompatible" and "irreconcilable difference" guys, most accommodating. Then of course, there were the children of these "broken homes" that learned to be demanding and in control of all the grown-ups, involved. And now these same guys are just a decade or less from retirement and the world is crashing in again. Just as they are getting the child support whittled down to the last few kids with the second or third wife, the places where they work are downsizing or closing. And we all know the previous generation paid in 1-4% of $3.00 an hour, and it is their legal, moral, and American duty to bleed the social security dry before 2020, and they have the medicare to keep them alive to do it! The last person that told me how little they worked for "way back then," I just couldn't help myself, I had to comment, "making more than that now on Social Security, aren't you?" Okay, we female boomers take our chances where we can get them, too! I thought about the words my daughter said, and I thought, this guy probably did see her out of the corner of his eye and thought of the last check he wrote his daughter, of about the same age. And he probably did see that little old lady standing, and thought "she's not my mother, she can't tell me what to do." My daughter did say, the younger men are much more polite and will give up their seats for the ladies. To that I say good! I'm glad to see the next generation has good bus manners!
Rebuke not an elder, but entreat him as a father . . . New Testament