The MN Legislature passed a Bill (HF805/SF857 for those of you who follow these things) referred to as the Silver Alert Bill. It will establish a system similar to the Amber Alert only the goal of this bill is to protect our oldest children vs our youngest. It assists lost senior citizens with Alzheimer’s, Dementia or brain damage.

I’m not going to expound about the Bill, but I know it’s about me. Maybe not now, but I’ve entered that stage of life where you get dealt a new hand.  Suddenly Mother Nature starts taking back the gifts she gave you to use (obviously borrowed) such as hearing, vision, knees, memory, bowel control etc. And I am not alone. I move in a very large crowd previously known as Baby Boomers whom I now refer to as the Grey Tsunami. Right now we are a consumer group large enough to cause change in legislation, medicine and advertisements.

When I was growing up in a Worthington we had our own version of the “Silver Alert”. It was everyone keeping an eye on each other. If it was getting dark, when the one street light in town came on and Ol’ Johnny was still walking the streets repeating in a squeaky voice “Nice day for the ducks!” someone would simply walk him home. Now technology, dogs and people with guns will be on the lookout for us.  (Actually most of us mastered the wandering, dazed look at concerts in the ‘60’s & 70’s. They found us then…they can find us now.)

I first started to notice the impact of my generation in ads on TV right after I turned 60 (3 ½ years ago…yes, I’ve started to measure in ½ years). There was a catheter commercial on. I stopped, sat down and watched it…with interest!! It was then I noticed how many ads there were for every joint giving out, every organ beginning to fail and multiple miracle remedies for each. The only problems were the side effects  of the cure.

It reminds me of when my kids were little. My son was probably five and my daughter was three years old. I was cutting vegetables in the kitchen when I heard one of them whimpering. (We had a rule: if there isn’t blood or danger there will be NO screaming). But this was more of an “I want attention so I’ll pretend I’m hurt” sound. In my best June Cleaver impersonation I walked into the room and with a compassionate smile asked “What hurts?” When my son’s eyes caught sight of the large knife in my right hand he quickly smiled and said “I’m cool, I’m cool!” I had discovered yet another home grown cure.

The smooth talking announcer and extremely tiny print in ads scrolling at the bottom of the screen are like that knife. “We’ll improve one part of your body at the cost of destroying or irritating every other part of your being.” It becomes a never ending spiral because you then need another drug to protect some organ that will be damaged by your new medication.  But don’t worry there’s another treatment (with side effects) to counter the side effects of that.  On top of that, any organ that you may have already hindered on your own will prevent you from using the drug in the first place. (Livers come to mind.)

What fascinates me is when ads then tell you about revolutionary medical discoveries that may prevent you from going under the knife. I often wonder how one discovers miracle drugs from unlikely sources. I have visions from my childhood backyard. If just once, while watching a headless chicken  cover every inch of the yard, my Grandma had looked at the item in her hand and pondered “ What can we do with the comb?” we could have been rich. Yikes!

It is an eye opening experience advancing into this stage of life. The challenge is to accept the declining changes in my body without letting it affect my spirit. I’ve accepted that anything I do from now on will appear in my obituary under  the paragraph that starts “In her later years…” and hopefully will end “She finished strong.”

I am embracing this stage with a smile and wonder, confident there’s an Alert available in case I get lost.