Seniors deserve to be treated better

Our modern North American society seems to be the only one I can think of in the world that doesn’t hold our senior citizens in high esteem.

First Nations certainly do. At traditional powwows, there’s always a space reserved for elders and, until recent years when they began dying off, powwows often had a special area reserved for war veterans.

Koreans are nuts about elders — they’re rock stars. They have knowledge, they have life experience and they understand.

Instead, North Americans toss our old and frail in understaffed, for-profit facilities where the food most nights is lousy.

This isn’t a knock against all care homes, most of them are great. Care workers in the homes are very special people. There’s just not enough of them.

We’re a society where, in the workplace, we can’t wait for someone to turn 65 so we can force them into retirement. Yet, the work ethic of older people often exceeds millennials.

Too many consider it an inconvenience to visit — or even phone — aging loved ones on a weekend. Society holds children in high esteem — we heroworship our kids (which is good) — but disregard people when they’re near the end of their journey. We should be ashamed.

We’re a society that doesn’t like old baseball parks — everything has to be new and modern. Tradition be damned. Europeans appreciate old architecture and buildings, many North Americans do not.

Closer to home, the school board in Penticton, combined with the council of the day, made no effort to save the historic Pen-Hi auditorium from a wrecker’s ball back in 2008. Now, Penticton is left with nothing. We need to be careful or the same fate could happen to Memorial Arena.

My examples are generalizations, of course, but if COVID-19 has taught us anything it’s that overall we’ve failed at caring for our seniors.

Let’s start by paying our care workers a better wage and improving the quality of food in retirement homes.

We’re all going to die. But, every human deserves to die with dignity.

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On a lighter note:

— I got sucked in to taking a

Facebook challenge, naming seven albums that helped shape my life. I went with: “Bat Out of Hell” (Meat Loaf); “Elton John’s Greatest Hits”; “Reckless” (Bryan Adams); “Ringo” (Ringo Starr), “Sgt. Pepper” (The Beatles); “The Stranger” (Billy Joel) and “Saturday Night Fever”.

—The perfect social-distancing exercise you can do with others — disco dancing. You never have to touch your partner. In a few more weeks we will all have bad hairstyles so all we need now are tacky clothes.

— Repair Express at Riverside Plaza in Penticton saved me having to replace my phone by simply doing a basic check of my device. I offered to pay and instead the owner said, “Just give us a good review on Google.” I’m stepping it up by mentioning it here in my column.

— The governor of Florida is taking a page from the plot of “Jaws” by reopening the beaches amid COVID-19. Mayor Vaughn: “Martin, it’s Fourth of July weekend.” Chief Brody: “But Larry, there’s a killer shark out there in the water” Quick, someone cue John Williams’ score. Dum, dum. Dum, dum.

—The best performer at “One World Together at Home,” hands down was Mick Jagger. He’s still amazing!

— Allow me to again thank a group of unsung heroes who are helping others during challenging times — newspaper carriers. Thank you to all our great carriers with The Daily Courier and the Herald who are bringing a daily newspaper to your doorsteps five mornings a week. Also thank you to our drivers, dealers and press guys for their dedication. I know people are looking forward to a paper now more than ever for a link to the outside world.

James Miller is managing editor of The Penticton Herald. To contact the writer: james.miller@ok.bc.ca .