Can Age Be Wasted on the Old?

None

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Back when I subscribe the Sports Illustratedand the magazine showed up in my mailbox
every week. I couldn't wait tosoak up the pros. This was pre
iPhone, pre social media. Weactually read things then. This one had
Michael Jordan on the cover after hehad led his Chicago Bulls to the NBA
World Championship. In the now famousFlu Game, he carried the Bulls to

(00:20):
a win while suffering from a massivecase of the flu. My favorite line
in the story was with Jordan,sometimes youth is wasted on the young.
I chuckled because he was barely midthirties, the implication being this is a
young man's game and mj is clearlyover the hill. Except that night.
Well, if youth is wasted onthe young, can age be wasted on

(00:43):
the old? Translation? Sometimes oldpeople don't behave with wisdom and experience,
and when that happens, people suffer. Be clear, this is not an
indictment, nor is it a criticismof older people. Some like ageless Iowa
Senator Chuck Grassley are a maze.He'll be ninety in September and yet watch
him. Listen to him. Hefunctions at a level thirty years below his

(01:07):
age. Contrast that with Mitch McConnellor Joe Biden or Dianne Feinstein. They
aren't just functioning at or below theirage. In some cases, they are
barely functioning at all. Feinstein,the ninety year old senator from California,
is an infirm, wheelchair bound shellof what she once was. A committee
vote the other day, she launchedinto a rambling speech, only to be

(01:29):
interrupted by a colleague and then instructedwhat to do by an aid. McConnell,
the eighty one year old, goodold boy from Sheffield, Alabama,
has been in the Senate from Kentuckyfor thirty eight years. Before reporters last
week he literally suffered a mini stroke, froze like a deer in the headlights,
had to be walked to a privateroom. Later disclosed he'd fallen down

(01:51):
several times recently. Pretty common foroctogenarians, but a problem when you're the
Senate minority leader. Kentuckians maybe readyto put Mitch out to stud. At
an appearance at the Fancy Farm's Picnic, Kentucky's biggest GOP political event, he
was heckled and booed. And thenthere is the pathetic case of the president

(02:12):
tries his handler's might. They can'thide his failing from the American people.
Pole after Pole showed the country.Even Democrats just think he's too old.
The blank stairs, the hollering wordsalads, the falling down, the handshaking
with ghosts, the confusion about whichdoor to walk through. He takes extended
vacations, and, according to hisdaily calendar, pretty much shuts it down

(02:36):
by mid morning. Do you reallybelieve he's running the country? So how
does Grassly do it? Genetics maybe key, but from what I've been
told by those close to Grassley,it's his lifestyle. He's been a fixture
in Washington, DC for forty eightyears, but he's just not that into
it. He gets out of thereas often as he can, heads back

(02:58):
to that new Hartford, Iowa farmof his to get his mind recharged.
President Reagan knew he'd instruct the staffto block out a week every month or
two so he could escape to thatranch in California's Santa in As Mountains used
to say, nothing is better forthe inside of a man than the outside
of a horse. Grassly does thesame thing. Swerves pass the Georgetown and

(03:20):
k Street cocktail parties instead of spendingtime with real people, asking them about
real problems, and then he thinksabout how to fix them. The man
is fanatically fit at eighty nine.He does forty push ups a day.
I know fifty year olds who can'tdo ten. Grassly reminds us the brain
is a muscle that needs a dailyworkout too, But he's rare. So

(03:46):
why did these others stay risking theirlegacy, ego relevance. Like Joe Paterno,
they are often harmed by those aroundthem, even family. To protect
their own lucrative gigs, these interloperscover up Miss Epps withhold critical information,
even gaslight them, making them evenmore and more dependent. Sadly, some
of these folks equate retirement with death. That is sad and untrue. For

(04:11):
I believe seasoned, experienced Americans inthe right dosage are among our greatest natural resources.