William Post passed away this week. He was the creator of POP Tarts, since 1964 the Official Breakfast of Young Children Whose Parents Are In Way Over Their Heads. A rectangle of refined white sugar and flour, high fructose corn syrup, unhealthy oils and virtually no protein or fiber, POP Tarts purport to be food. Which of course explains why annual sales of the “shelf-stable toaster pastry” exceed 1 billion dollars.
Now Elder Advice is not in the habit of giving gratuitous guidance … about diet anyway. He raises the issue because Bill managed not to drop off the twig until 96, no doubt because he was smart enough to make his children taste-test his noxious confection. And because if Bill had political aspirations and another four years I would have liked his chances of becoming President of the United States. Because, in 2024, U.S. Presidential politics is an old man’s game.
As time goes about its immemorial work of making everyone look and feel like crap, Elder Advice’s affection for older folk, and his intolerance of the young who associate age with declining cognition, has increased right along with his blood pressure and circumference. He has been spitting mad this past week when listening to the endless nonsense about the supposed association between the presentation of both Biden and Trump and declining cognitive abilities.
There are many signs of aging. Elder Advice found his first grey pubic hair the other day. It was on a pizza he ordered - but there you go. Age however, has nothing to do with a diagnosis that Trump is a profoundly ignorant, malevolent narcissist who is unfit to hold public office. On the other hand, while age likely has a lot to do with the fact that Biden has memory lapses, that does not mean he is cognitively impaired, much less suffering from dementia.
Even Elder Advice had to think hard before coming up with the name of the person in charge of Egypt these days, much less that he is not the President of Mexico. And Lisa has been confusing the names of her own children since she was 40.
Honestly, it would be nice if we all had family doctors again, so all the armchair neurologists could content themselves with diagnosing their own medical conditions from the dog-eared, ever-present copies of Reader’s Digest in physicians’ waiting rooms. Elder Advice himself determined he had diabetes, cirrhosis, arrhythmia and splenomegaly all from the “I am Joe’s Kidney” , “I am Joe’s Spleen” and every other organ series. And all before the age of 30.
One of Elder Advice’s favourite clients is a gerontologist who called last week to observe that memory is only one of the aspects of cognition. Judgment/problem-solving, language skills and navigational abilities are the others. Few, like Elder Advice, speak well, have impeccable judgement, sharp recall and an innate sense of direction. Almost everyone else exhibits different strengths in each area during their lives and it is only when an individual’s abilities diverge from their measured baseline and adversely affect their daily functioning that there is cause for concern. As far as memory goes, consideration must also be given to the fact there are incentives to forget many things - that time you accidentally saw your parents naked, for example.
The bottom line is that age and memory lapses, on their own, are not indicators of cognitive decline. Not all older people have dementia. Lots of folk in their 40s and 50s do. With others, it is hard to tell. Like my uncle Willy, who late in his life observed, without apology to the 17th century mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Leibniz: “Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana”. Which is as arguably genius as it is oddly troubling.
Elder Advice? Look. Elder Advice is not passing comment on whether people who are over 80 should be put up as candidates or whether the public should elect them. He is simply observing that it might be nice if they were evaluated for office based on what they have done and said that is of consequence. As both Republican and Democrat mouthpieces line up to deny their aging champion is in cognitive freefall, Elder Advice cannot help but wonder as well: FAA regulations require airline pilots undergo a medical exam with an Aviation Medical Examiner every six months. And not one of them has access to the nuclear codes. How is a battery of fairly rigorous cognitive tests not part of a comprehensive medical examination administered before taking office and every calendar quarter thereafter, by a team of qualified White House physicians, to ensure the person with arguably the most critical job on earth is up to the task? As a requirement of the job, not to mention the invocation of the 25th Amendment. I cannot help but think that Bill Post would have agreed and willingly undergone such examinations throughout his term of office from 96 to 100. Which makes Elder Advice all the sadder that we are now post Bill Post.
Of course, none of Elder Advice’s concern about correlation between age and mental acuity has the slightest connection with the fact he himself will shortly mark one of those birthdays with a 0 in the number - a number that, most will agree, is the youngest one can die of old age. And he will thank you not to mention that in the cards which accompany the gifts you now feel obliged to send.