Last Saturday my eldest son, Frank, turned 68. He did not do a lot of celebrating, he was busy doing his job at the radio station.
Next Satrday my sister Pat will be 91. I don't know what she plans to do but most likely it will involve beer and darts or indoor bowls at her local R.S.A.
Next Wednesday I am going to a lunch party for my friend Rita. She will be 100 years old. I will giver her some fancy salmon lures to celebrate because she likes to go fishing. She still drives her car and reads without glasses.
So to-day I went shopping for suitable birthday cards. Frank's had been eas cards with pictures or beer, cigars, fishing rods, sports cars and busty blondes leaping out of champagne glasses and humourous greetings. But for Rita and Pat's age group nly prissy pastels bouquets and 'improving' verses about being proud of being their age and exhorting them to look back on their achievements Yukk!!!
Card manufacturers, get real, study your market.
Rita's generation grew up in the 'roaring twenties.' They wore very short skirts and silk stockings, they performed indecorous dances like the fox-trot and tango. They were called 'flappers' and 'gay young things' before'gay' changed its meaning.
My sister's generation took over men's work during world war 2. Pat drove a truck in the Army Transport Corps.That is why she likes to drink a beer and play a round of darts at the Returned Dervices Club. We had our indecorous dances too. Jive and Jitterbug shocked our seniors.
And the women reaching their eighties, nineties and 100's now are the people who battled for real women's rights - like permission to wear bikinis on the beach, to wear trousers as everyday wear, to use cosmetics without being labelled 'fast', to go into a bar and have a drink if we feel like it.
They deserve more than bland and patronising borthday cards.I commented to the girl in the stationery shop.
"Wait a minute, I know just what you want," she dashed away and from another section of the card display showed me a cartoon of a middle aged housewife in fluffy slippers making love to her washing machine. It was hilarious.
So Rita is getting that on her birthday.
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