Old Men

“Old man, look at my life
I’m a lot like you were
Old man look at my life
I’m a lot like you were

Old man, look at my life
Twenty four and there’s so much more
Live alone in a paradise
That makes me think of two”

~Neil Young, “Old Men”

That’s it for songs about old men. It’s a song about a young man who wants to be seen by an old man. It isn’t a song about old men.

Go to Amazon and search the term, “old men.” There are 16 items for sale and only three of them use the term. There is the movie, “No Country for Old Men,” “Grumpy Old Men,” “How Not to Be a Crotchety Old Man,” and eventually, you get to a story about a retired espionage agent. It takes until page 2 for you to find an audio version of, “The Old Man and The Sea.”

If you think the term, “old man,” is any better. It isn’t.

That’s because older men are dismissed and invisible in our culture. They are “out to pasture.” They are retired. They are forgotten. This even though many older men are not out to pasture or retired.

They are ignored as being irrelevant.