Sharon Kennedy: 'People' rated No. 1 response
A few weeks ago I was doing what I do every morning — drinking coffee and checking my Facebook feed. I have a tendency to ignore most posts, but I stopped when I came upon a non-scientific poll that looked interesting. You know how these things go. Someone asks a question — sometimes silly, other times serious — and folks who are bored or have nothing better to do respond. As an oldster, I have lots of time so I decided to glance at the answers. Here’s what I found.
Out of 20,000 comments to the question, “What do you dislike most about growing old” at least 8 out of 10 respondents said one word: “People.” At the time I noticed the post, there were 304 shares. By now, there might be double the comments and triple the shares, so there’s a strong possibility there was a greater variety of answers. I don’t know and I’m not going to try and track it down, but that one response surprised me.
Of all the things older folks could complain about, it appeared “people” are the most frustrating. Not gas or food prices. Not weekly trips to the doctor’s office. Not crooked politicians or unethical Supreme Court Justices. Not the weather or the fear of losing Social Security benefits and Medicare. Not even open southern borders. Sure, some made the list, but very few compared to “people.”
It only took a minute to understand why that response was popular. People are to blame for everything even changing weather conditions if climate change, once known as “global warming” is true. Data appear to illustrate that actions of humans produce reactions from the weather. And it’s not just people who are fiddling with changes in the weather. According to the experts, even herds of cattle create enough phosphorus and nitrogen in their dung to pollute rivers if the manure is used as fertilizer and runs into nearby water sources.
So what’s a person to do? We’ve become so enlightened and so advanced in the way of technology, we’re likely to snuff ourselves out before too long if the current trends continue. It’s not just climate change that bothers me. It’s all those genetically modified food products we consume. Cows can’t stop the call of nature, but their owners could stop injecting them with growth hormones and heaven knows what else. And now that 23% of the global seed market is owned via patent by four major companies, seeds are being genetically modified at an alarming rate. We have no idea what’s in our food.
Call me a grumpy old lady, but I miss the days when pastures were dotted with dairy cows munching away the afternoon until called in for their evening milking done by hand. I miss the sounds of birds as they perched wing-to-wing on the electric wires and sang throughout the day. I even miss the gravel road, full of ruts and mud. Things were “normal” in those days. Tell me what’s “normal” about today’s trends and the groups who push them?
It shouldn’t surprise anyone past the age of 65 that “people” was the number one irritant to oldsters. We’re not mad at everyone, just at the stupidity of people who accept lies as truth, artificial intelligence as sacred and political dung as normal. It’s all hogwash, from freeloading preachers to corrupt judges to fish genes in corn. We’ve lost our common sense. So I repeat: Hogwash. All of it.
— To contact Sharon Kennedy, send her an email at authorsharonkennedy.com. Kennedy's new book, "View from the SideRoad: A Collection of Upper Peninsula Stories," is available from her or Amazon.
This article originally appeared on The Sault News: Sharon Kennedy: 'People' rated No. 1 response
