GUEST COLUMN | DENNIS STREETS

An unrealized vision

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I will soon be traveling to Seminole, Florida, where I spent my youth. As you might imagine, I am filled with memories.

I will be attending the wedding of the daughter of one of my best childhood friends who passed away several years ago.     

In 1970, he heard me give the graduation address to our high school class. As seniors, we had witnessed the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. We felt and feared the divisive Vietnam War. We heard U.S. Astronaut Neil Armstrong say, “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind,” as he became the first human to plant his feet on the moon.    

I used my remarks that day to express my hopes and share words to inspire our future endeavors.

I expressed my desire to see an end to war, yearning for peace around the world.

I also challenged us to come to know what we had not experienced. My Florida high school was all-white (even though we had students of color in our district) and most of us baby boomers lived in middle-class families.

Among what I suggested was that we needed to know what it means or doesn’t mean to:

• be old and discarded by labor and family;

• have a skin that is not white; and

• eat or not eat the same meager foods every day.

I cautioned my classmates that until we understand such things, we will neither have the will nor create the means to change what needs changed and preserve that warranting preservation.

Although more than 50 years have passed, sadly we still face many of the same issues.

Per the Council on Foreign Relations, there are currently more than 25 conflicts around the world, including the war in Ukraine. We also regularly feel the pain of mass shootings, including those in schools. 

According to an October 2020 report of the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis, “Unemployment rates for workers 55 and older exceeded those of mid-career workers for the length of the pandemic — the first time since 1973 such an unemployment gap has persisted for six months or longer.” The analysts found that “older workers who are Black, female, or lack a college degree experienced higher rates of job loss and are more exposed to retirement risks.”

While families really are the backbone of long-term care; it cannot be ignored that the perpetrators of nearly 6 in 10 cases of elder abuse and neglect are family members.   

And then there is the lingering issue of malnutrition. As the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture reported in 2021, 33.8 million people lived in food-insecure households. It is estimated that 12.5% of households with children are food insecure. The risk is twice as high among Black and Hispanic children. 

While we have seen progress since 1970 — and in some cases may have helped bring it about — this boomer remains committed to helping our younger generations achieve greater success.      

I concluded my graduation address by paraphrasing words of the late U.S. Senator Robert Kennedy. “The future is not a gift; it is an achievement” — a challenge and struggle to be won.      

Dennis W. Streets is the retired director of the Chatham Council on Aging.