Last week I saw a really good movie starring Anthony Hopkins called “The Worlds Fastest Indian” which was based on a true story. In this film Hopkins starred as Burt Munro, a New Zealand motorcycle enthusiast who ended up setting the land speed record in the early 1960’s. His motorcycle was 40 years old at the time and he was in his early 60’s. All the other characters said that he and his bike were too old, too dangerous and too slow but he still managed to show them all and not only break the land speed record but through the course of his life he set several other records, one of which still hasn’t been broken.

This movie got me to thinking. Why in God’s name do we as a society regard elderly people as completely useless and obsolete? When most of us see an elderly person we think things like, “Hurry up Grandpa!” or we get frustrated and short tempered at them for any little idiosyncrasy that we deem annoying. “How dare they spend so long counting out change at the grocery line?”

Many cultures revere their elders with respect for the many more years they have spent living and learning the lessons of life, which frankly makes a lot of sense with me.

Think about an 80 year-old man. Born in 1926, this gentleman has lived through an unprecedented economic depression, most likely fought in a world war that claimed the lives of approximately 62 million people and then came home to face the daunting torment of another unprecedented horror: suburban life. Throughout his life this person has probably watched many of the people he loves die and become nothing more than a memory, and through all of this he is still going. Makes you feel just a little bit stupid for your day being ruined because you couldn’t get signal on your cell phone, doesn’t it?

So next time you’re behind a gold Ford Crown Victoria going 50 on the freeway, or you feel like telling a crabby person over 60 to pull something out of a certain part of their anatomy, or you think you are going to lose your mind the next time you see one of those little plastic coin purses, just think that those people changed your parents’ diapers.Cut them some slack for God’s sake.