Elder Occupy

On yesterday's post about a (non)answer from the White House in response to my letter about Social Security, Jan Adams, Letha, Frank Paynter and Linda all noted that this is an example of what the Occupy movement is about and that we elders need to do some occupying.

As serendipity sometimes provides (hat tip to Margie), on the same day at Campaign for America's Future, Leo Gerard wrote about the dozen elders, “men and women in their 60s, 70s and even 80s” who have been occupying a median strip in front of a closed Century Aluminum plant in Ravenswood, West Virginia since mid-December.

”In tents and under tarps, a small group stays overnight, despite hypertension, arthritis and other old age ailments,” writes Gerard...

“These vulnerable people expose themselves to weather extremes although some have no health insurance at all. Century cancelled it. That’s why they’re occupying Century.”

Here is a photo of the some of these occupiers that I copied from their Facebook page.

The Ravenswood plant was shut down in February 2009, putting 650 employees out of work. A comfort, however, was the company's promise through all the years of their toil that they would receive lifelong health coverage would be paid for by the company. Gerard explains what happened next [emphasis is mine]:

”Nine months after the shutdown, [Century Aluminum] announced it would terminate as of June 1, 2010 health benefits for retirees eligible for Medicare. Then on Nov. 1, 2010, Century told its retirees who weren’t yet eligible for Medicare that it would stop paying for their coverage as of Jan. 1, 2011.”

The recently fired CEO of Century Aluminum was paid $4.9 million in 2010 and given $6.2 million to leave the company last November. (The greed of the one percent never ends; he is suing for $20 million more.) But the company is still fighting the retirees over payment for the health coverage they were promised.

In an odd move, Century Aluminum has provided port-o-potties for the elder occupy protesters; I have no idea what to say about that. You can read of other developments in this story here.

Temperatures in Ravenswood were 39F overnight and expected to be 54F today so at least the weather is helping. The West Virginia governor and the state's senators are supporting the elder occupiers but there has been no resolution and I know it must be physically hard – I'm not sure I could be out there next to a highway day in and day out.

Here is the 2 January Facebook announcement about one of the occupier's health:

“A very sad day at Occupy Century yesterday. One of our champions, Sonny Hinzman, was taken to the hospital with indications of a stroke. Please keep him in your prayers.

“Sonny had no co insurance because it was costing him $1700.00 a month to insure just his wife and daughter with COBRA. It was cost prohibitive for him to include himself. This is why we will never give up and endure whatever weather is thrown at us! This is murder without a gun!”

You might want to stop by the Facebook page to offer some encouragement.

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At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Terry Hamburg: Cruisin'

The White House Responds and...

...there is nothing to know. Did we really expect anything else?

Remember last Friday when I posted a letter here that I had emailed the White House asking President Barack Obama not to sell out elders in regard to Social Security?

Yesterday, Tuesday, I received a reply. Well, I assume it is a reply to that note since I haven't sent any others in the past couple of months. It's hard to tell since there is zero reference to me or to the subject of my letter:

January 31, 2012

Dear Friend:

Thank you for taking the time to share your ideas. I appreciate hearing from you.

Our Nation faces serious challenges, and we will only overcome them by involving all Americans in shaping the policies that affect their own lives. My Administration is continuously working to engage individuals in innovative ways. I encourage you to explore www.WhiteHouse.gov, which is regularly updated and more interactive than ever before.

Thank you, again, for contacting me and providing your thoughtful suggestions.

Sincerely,
Barack Obama

Not even a personalized salutation like “Dear Ms. Bennett” or an “about Social Security” at the end of the first sentence.

I have no doubt many of you have received similar communications in response to your own messages to Congress or the president - that is, polite, knee-jerk phrases completely devoid of meaningful information.

What a bunch of hooey. I feel like a third grader who's been patted on the head by her elders for doing good work in school today.

I am torn in two directions about this stuff. On the one hand, I understand that there is not enough money for the White House (or members of Congress) to hire the number of people – smart ones, too – who would be needed to read through, consider and give a thoughtful response to every letter received.

On the other hand, it infuriates me that the only people who can get the president's (or a Congress member's) attention for a serious conversation about real issues are captains of industry and finance or those (usually the same ones) who can bundle millions of dollars for election super-PACs – as though the accumulation of money is the definition of intelligence, knowledge and thoughtfulness.

It seems to me that this system precludes – entirely – any conversation and policy ideas that do not benefit the wealthy to the detriment of everyone else.

It's not that I don't see the problems – probably insurmountable - in taking seriously letters from citizens. A large number of them are from cranks and crazies. I know this from hundreds of pieces of fan mail delivered every day that, in my youthful employment on radio and TV shows, were my job to plow through.

A whole lot more are from people who have no idea what they're talking about along with those who just want to chat, let the president know what's going on in their family and by the way, could he send an autographed photo.

Oh, and don't forget the ones spewing pages of vitriol about how stupid the president is and how much he is hated. That leaves one or two in a hundred that are legitimate questions or thoughts that in a perfect world should require a reasonable response and maybe even a conversation.

An aide to Senate Leader Harry Reid once told me that the positions in all letters to senators are tracked. That is, if you write your senator supporting a bill, that's added into the others and compared to the number of letters that oppose the bill. (The aide did not say if the totals affect the senators' votes.)

I wonder if the White House tracks numbers of letters it receives on various policy issues.

Meanwhile, off on a tangent: Do you suppose there is such a thing as federal government or presidential grammar? If you look at the nation's founding documents, you'll see that compared with what we use today, 18th century scribes had interesting ideas about which words to capitalize.

Look at the capitalization in part of the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty...”

Odd isn't it, capitalizing People, Order, Justice, Blessings, etc. Now look at the capitalization in part of the email note from the White House:

“Our Nation faces serious challenges, and we will only overcome them by involving all Americans in shaping the policies that affect their own lives. My Administration...”

Nation? Administration? Weird.

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At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Jackie Harrison: Put on a Happy Face

What Old Timey Print Ads Tell Us

Within an hour or so of each other on the weekend, emails arrived from two friends – one from Nancy Leitz whom you know from her family tales at The Elder Storytelling Place and the other from John Brandt, whom I've known for nearly 40 years.

The serendipity of the emails is that they contain the same kind of material. The contents are not necessarily new; people have been forwarding historical print advertisements for years. But while looking at two different collections, what leaped out this time is how dramatically our culture has changed since we elders were young.

Nancy's images are from a 1934 Montgomery Ward catalog – Monkey Wards, my mother called it. Even if that date is seven years before I was born, the pages are familiar to me.

Here are some shoes that look almost modern; I've seen similar ones on young women dressed for work. I'm guessing the price has increased by about 10,000 percent.

Aren't we glad, however, that we aren't wearing these torture garments anymore:

This ice box is similar to the one we had during World War II. There was a drip pan at the bottom and my mother often recalled that we could never go away over night lest the pan overflow and flood the kitchen.

I realize that the Montgomery Ward catalog was a lifeline to rural America, but I was still surprised to see the listing for live chicks. And look at that price!

John's group of ads were designed for shock value showing how ignorant we were 70 and 80 years ago. Cigarettes, then, were widely used and look at by whom:

There is another with Ronald Reagan, then still an actor, touting Chesterfields. The Santa cigarette ad is likely from the 1930s or early 1940s since perhaps you too recall that “Lucky Strike green went to war and didn't come home.”

Ads pushing Coca Cola and 7-Up for infants were surprising enough; then there was this one:

If you have ever questioned what difference the second-wave women's movement of the 1960s made in women's lives and the importance of language in changing people beliefs and attitudes, take a look at these ads for a Kenwood mixer, a Pitney-Bowes postage machine and Chase & Sanborn coffee. It is hard to believe these images and language were ever tolerated.

Well, it's hard to say this many decades removed from the ad, if this is punishment or soft porn.

The one ad in John's bunch that portrays something that has not changed much is this one for the prescription drug, Thorazine. In some nursing homes today, elders today are routinely controlled through over-medication. The only difference half a century later is that it has become somewhat of a secret.

This has been an interesting little cultural survey of our early lives. Now here's your assignment for today: what do you think people in the future, 50 or 60 years from now, will find about us and our lives to be as odd, wrongheaded, surprising or shocking as these ads about life in the early 20th century are to us?

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At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Johna Ferguson: Superstitions in China

E-Books and Elders

Laurie Orlov who runs the excellent blog, Aging in Place Technology Watch, asked a good question last week: Why aren't seniors wowed by tablets?

Laurie's main interest was Apple iPads and the many Android copycat computer tablets that come with e-book readers but also the stand-alone e-readers such as the Kindle and the Nook.

As Laurie noted, according to Pew's recent survey, e-book reader and tablet ownership each nearly doubled over the recent holiday season from 10 to 19 percent. But – in a big exception – when broken down by age, ownership of tablets by people older than 65 increased from only five to seven percent.

Ownership of e-readers did better with the elder age group but only slightly, going from eight to 12 percent.

Laurie suspects that price may have a lot to do with elders' apparent rejection of these gadgets:

”...median income for women aged 65+ is $15,282,” she notes. “That's a barrier, as is broadband penetration (31%), enabling and potentially costly data plans. So those significant limiting factors are big deals.”

That makes sense as does Laurie's other suggestion – that elders are just too damned smart to jump for every new electronic gadget that comes along.

Generally, I do not see the need for a tablet computer. Certainly they are cool looking and fun to play with, pushing stuff around the screen with your fingers and all. But I mostly use my laptop not to play, but to write – email, blog posts, notes to myself, edit stories, personal business, etc. – and tablets have no keyboards. Well, not real ones you could actually use.

In fact, after you've spent $500 to $700 for an iPad, if you intend to write anything longer than a tweet, you need to purchase a holder to keep the iPad vertical on your desk and then add a stand-alone keyboard. You can see what I mean here.

That's a lot of extra moolah to get an already expensive gadget's functionality up to speed with what is included in the price of even the cheapest laptop.

E-book readers, however, are a different matter. At least, I think so. Let me tell you why I believe they should be uniquely valuable to elders.

FONT SIZE
As we get older, small text is difficult to read. Although some dead tree books are published in large-print editions, not all are, they seem to be fewer every year and they usually cost more. With an e-reader, the font can be increased to any size you need with the touch a button.

WEIGHT
For the past few years, I've noticed that large books, those that are more than 150 pages or so, are too weighty for me to hold for as long as might want to read.

I've taken to resting them on a pillow I place on my lap. Kindle and Nook e-readers, however, weigh in at about 10 to 13 ounces. Easy to hold.

PRICE OF BOOKS
Although publishing companies sometimes set higher prices by two or three dollars, the largest number of e-books at Amazon sell for $9.99. In addition, there are thousands of out-of-copyright classics that cost nothing. I had a fine ol' time re-reading Sherlock Holmes – all the short stories and the four novels - for the first time since my 20s for free on my Kindle.

I have no experience with Barnes & Noble, but Amazon holds regular sales of best-selling e-books at lower prices for short periods of time. And increasing numbers of local libraries are lending electronic books for free.

MOBILITY 1
On the theory that you never know when you'll be stuck somewhere waiting for someone or something, I do not leave home without a book. In the past, that was difficult when I was reading one of those five- or ten-pounders. Now I just drop the Kindle in my handbag and I'm good to go.

MOBLITY 2
Some elders have had to give up driving. Others cannot walk or stand for as long as they once could. So as much fun as hanging out browsing a good bookstore can be, it's not necessarily easy for elders to do. E-books are now here to help.

They download over the web in under a minute. No shipping costs. No leaving home. Easy peasy for those with limited mobility.

E-READER PRICE
There are fancy models of e-readers that also function as tablets and are nearly as expensive as Apple iPads. But if, like me, you only want the book reading function, Barnes & Noble is selling their Nook Simple Touch for $99; Amazon sells the Kindle Wi-Fi for $79.

Given all these reasons, I believe e-readers ought to be big sellers for old people and next holiday season, I am going to recommend them as good gifts for elders.

For those on severely limited incomes, a year's internet subscription could be included and/or a gift certificate for book purchases. And don't forget that, at Amazon, at least, it is now possible to purchase e-books to be sent electronically as gifts.

I also subscribe to newspapers and magazines on my Kindle which has sharply reduced the amount of paper needing to be hauled out to the recycle bin. Because I have the least expensive, black-and-white version, images don't show well or are often omitted. So if it is an art book you want or anything in which the images are crucial, you probably need the print edition. And, in fact, I make other distinctions about which books I purchase in print and which as e-books. The goal for me is not to eliminate print book editions, but to use the ease of the Kindle when that it what matters.

Of course, there are always the Luddites - elders among them - who will insist they only want to read "real" books. Fine. But in keeping with Laurie's good point that old people are too smart, too experienced to fall for every new useless doodad that comes along, we are also smart enough, I think, to be discerning of ones to embrace when the advantages improve our lives.

It seems obvious but nevertheless, one of the small thrills about my Kindle is that the device automatically opens a book to the last page read. And now I have downloaded Kindle for PC onto my laptop and the Kindle for Android app onto my smartphone. With one click of the mouse, I can sync all three so that no matter which device I'm using, I can pick up reading where I last left off.

Not that I do much reading on a the small phone screen – but it's there if I want.

So I am wondering: do you own an e-reader? Do you use it regularly? Do you like it? Why do you think e-readers have not sold well (so far) among elders? Any other thoughts about e-readers?

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At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Mickey Rogers: The Way the Cookie Crumbles

ELDER MUSIC: Lady Soul

This Sunday Elder Music column was launched in December of 2008. By May of the following year, one commenter, Peter Tibbles, had added so much knowledge and value to my poor attempts at musical presentations that I asked him to take over the column. He's been here each week ever since delighting us with his astonishing grasp of just about everything musical, his humor and sense of fun. You can read Peter's bio here and find links to all his columns here.

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I’ve previously done a column on Divas. Those were classical music divas and it was suggested that I should do soul divas. It’s taken a while, but here it is.

I’ll start with a particular favorite of mine, ETTA JAMES, who died just over a week ago and was buried in a private funeral yesterday, Saturday, where Al Sharpton delivered the eulogy.

Etta could sing anything: soul, blues, rock & roll, country, jazz and did a great job at any and all of them. She was born Jamesetta Hawkins to a 14-year-old mother and an unknown father who could possibly have been Rudolf Wanderone, better known to most of us as Minnesota Fats, the famous pool player.

Etta started singing in various choirs in Los Angeles and formed a DooWop group when she was 14. They caught the ear of Johnny Otis (who, alas, also died recently) and they toured and recorded with him for a while. Later she backed Little Richard.

Etta signed with Chess records and had a number of hits in the sixties. She battled a major drug habit in the late sixties and seventies but got her life back on track and then has performed extensively, mostly singing blues and jazz.

Then, a year or so ago she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

There are a dozen or two tracks of Etta’s I could have chosen, but I’ve gone for one of her more famous ones, I'd Rather Go Blind.

♫ Etta James - I'd Rather Go Blind

LAVERN BAKER had a number of hits in the fifties that could be seen as proto-soul recordings. Unfortunately, many of her songs were covered by white artists without the talent that LaVern possessed. These sold more than the originals.

In the late sixties, she became seriously ill after entertaining the troops in Vietnam and gave up singing for more than 20 years. She made a successful comeback in the late eighties and also performed on Broadway and worked on the soundtracks of several films.

She had both legs amputated due to complications from diabetes but that didn’t stop her performing. LaVern died in 1997 from a heart attack. Here she is with an early song, I Cried a Tear.

♫ LaVern Baker - I Cried a Tear

Joshie Jo Armstead is a real renaissance woman.

Not only a fine singer, she is also a songwriter of considerable facility, an actor, an author, a clothes designer and even boxing promoter if you like that sort of thing (I don’t).

Born in Mississippi, Josephine Armstead started her musical career singing gospel songs in her mother’s church. However, she got hooked on the blues thanks to her grandfather who was a bootlegger and a gambler and he’d sneak the young Jo into juke joints and dances.

Jo’s sister was once married to Ike Turner and after she arranged an audition with him Jo became one of his touring musicians. Besides Ike, she sang backing for James Brown, Walter Jackson, B.B. King and many others.

By this time Jo was writing songs as well, including some for Ray Charles. There’s a lot more to her story, but not enough space. Here she is singing the rather awkwardly titled Stumblin' Blocks, Steppin' Stones (What Took Me So Long).

♫ Joshie Jo Armstead - Stumblin' Blocks, Steppin' Stones (What Took Me So Long)

I’m sorry, I can’t tell you anything about DORIS ALLEN.

I know nothing much about her except that she’s a fine singer. The CD has no information at all. I thought I’d employ good old Dr. Google but all he could tell me that she was a great but little-known soul singer who often sang duets with John Hamilton and she died in 2008.

Just listen to her singing, I guess. A Shell of a Woman.

♫ Doris Allen - A Shell of a Woman

If I thought I had problems with Doris, little did I realize how difficult it was going to be with BARBARA WEST.

I thought, oh I have her on a couple of compilation CDs, that’ll be easy. Silly me. On one there was no information at all and the other told us all about the tracks as if we couldn’t hear them for ourselves and make our own judgment.

Again I went with Dr. Google and the only information I found was that she only released four singles in her career, far fewer than Doris. I’ve included her because I really like the track, Anyone But You.

♫ Barbara West - Anyone But You

IRMA THOMAS was born Irma Lee in Louisiana and got the Thomas from the second of her ex-husbands.

Irma is a regular in all the music festivals held in New Orleans (and further afield). Indeed, I think there might be a riot if she weren’t included. She started her recording career in 1960 and kept at it for more than 20 years when she took a bit of a break.

Irma has been back at it recently and as mentioned above, is a regular at music festivals.

Irma’s song is quite a contrast to the other tracks today. It sounds closer to gospel than soul, but that’s okay. It’s a song the Rolling Stones recorded after hearing Irma’s version, Time Is On My Side.

♫ Irma Thomas - Time Is On My Side

TOMMIE YOUNG was born and bred in Dallas. She was yet another of those who made their musical debut singing in the choir. I don’t know why I bothered mentioning that as all today seemed to have made their start that way, at least those I know anything about.

Her first recordings were covers of songs by a couple of my favorites, O.V. Wright and Percy Sledge. She had a number of regional hits in the seventies and eighties but, although influential, she didn’t really hit the big time. I guess for someone of her talent there’s still time to do that.

More recently she’s recorded several gospel albums under the name Tommye Young-West (she had by then married Calvin West and seemed to have changed her given name slightly). I hear echoes of Aretha in Tommie, especially in this song, Do You Still Feel the Same Way?

♫ Tommie Young - Do You Still Feel The Same Way

PEGGY SCOTT was born Peggy Stoutmeyer in Queens, New York, and is often called these days Peggy Scott-Adams.

Early in her career she toured with Ben E. King and several of her songs made the charts in the sixties. She decided that she’d had enough of the music biz and retired soon after, moving to California where she married a Los Angeles politician (don’t hold that against her).

In 1996, she was persuaded to record an album that did okay for her. This is one of her earlier songs, Every Little Bit Hurts.

♫ Peggy Scott - Every Little Bit Hurts

I’ll bet you were starting to wonder “where’s Aretha?” Wonder no more, here she is. We couldn’t have a column on this topic without her.

I’m going to put most readers offside by saying that ARETHA FRANKLIN isn’t my favorite female soul singer. I don’t mind her but give me Etta any day.

There’s little I can add that’s not already been written about Aretha, so I won’t try - at least, not in a short piece like this. Another time at greater length perhaps.

Like Etta, there are any number of songs from which to choose. Rather arbitrarily, I’ve gone for Chain of Fools.

♫ Aretha Franklin - Chain of Fools

INTERESTING STUFF – 28 January 2012

[ATTENTION: Those of you who read this blog via email or rss need to click on the title of the story so it will open in your browser where you can view the videos.]

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“OLD AGE” COMEDY
This young standup comedian is barely 30 years old, but he's nailed the weight gain problem that comes along with age. His name is Andy Woodhull and you can read about him here.

COWS AND A DOG
Nothing really funny here. It's just sweet and it's always interesting to watch different species trying to figure out each other. This is a herd of cows indulging their curiosity about a six-month-old boxer puppy.

HORRIBLE. HORRIBLE. HORRIBLE.
It's apparent that this year's election campaign is going to be one of the nastiest on record but this race for the U.S. Congress is already so out of hand that someone needs to go to jail.

Here is the description from Blue Arkansas earlier this week with an image. Warning: both are hard to look at at. (Jake Burris is the campaign manager for Ken Aden who is running to represent Arkansas' 3rd District.)

”Last night, Jake and his four kids had come back to their Russelville home. As they were getting out of the car, one of his children discovered their family cat dead on the front porch.

“One side of the animal's head had been bashed in and an eyeball was hanging out of its socket. But there was something even more horrifying to be found on the corpse.

“Written across the animal's fur in black marker was the word, 'LIBERAL.'”

People will say this is an isolated incident. You can believe so if you want but people always say that when something awful happens. You can read more about the cat murder here and here and here or just search it: "jake burris cat"

THE WINDY CITY JITTERBUG CLUB
Does anyone under age 50 dance the jitterbug anymore? This is terrific. (Hat tip to Darlene Costner)

PROPOSED NEW KIND OF WIND POWER
Wind power doesn't degrade the environment the way mineral power sources do, but they still cause a lot of damage – birds and bat kills come to mind – and the constant whir, if you live nearby, can be hard to deal with. The esthetics are less than ideal too.

Now comes a New York design firm with an idea for “windstalks” that, like the blades we use now, generate electricity when the wind sets them waving but are completely silent and less likely to be lethal to flying animals.

”Each base is slightly different, and is sloped so that rain will funnel into the areas between the concrete to help plants grow wild.

“These bases form a sort of public park space and serve a technological purpose. Each one contains a torque generator that converts the kinetic energy from the stalk into energy...”

Who knows if windstalks will prove to be a viable energy source, but it's an interesting idea. Read more here.

I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE THIS MOVIE
Robot and Frank stars Frank Langella as an aging, retired jewel thief with his new caregiver, a robot. Plus, the always excellent Susan Sarandon as the love interest. Since I haven't seen it yet, I'll quote Tim Wu who viewed it at the Sundance Festival this month:

“The movie asks whether being truly alive depends in some sense on having a working memory. And the film hits a nerve when it makes clear just how much easier it can be to love our machines than our family members, especially when the former are programmed to help us, and the latter, seemingly, programmed to irritate.”

There are three more clips from the film here.

OH JOY, OH HAPPY DAY
Oh, that the whole world could be this happy. And the music is perfect - Jump, Jive and Wail by Louis Prima. (Hat tip to Heidi McBride)

CHEAP FLIGHTS SONG
This grows on you as it moves along and thank god for the subtitles because the Irish accent gets a bit thick at times. The singing group is called Fascinating Aida (terrific name), they've been around for a long time. You can read about them here and here. (Hat tip to Darlene Costner)

WOW OH WOW OH WOW: ONCE IN A LIFETIME
There can be no end of delight in cute kitties, but this gorilla footage raises animal enjoyment to nirvana. The video was shot near Bwindi National Park in Uganda. Note the man's expression at the end. Yes! Exactly! (Hat tip to doctafil)

You definitely should click in the lower right to watch this full screen.

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Interesting Stuff is a weekly listing of short takes and links to web items that have caught my attention; some related to aging and some not, some useful and others just for fun.

You are all encouraged to submit items for inclusion. Just click “Contact” in the upper left corner of any Time Goes By page to send them. I'm sorry that I probably won't have time to acknowledge receipt and there is no guarantee of publication. But when I do include them, you will be credited and I will link to your blog if you have one.

Mr. President: Don't Sell Out American Elders

[UPDATE: I tried Midori's suggestion of using the email return on White House messages, but it goes to the same page at the White House website that limits messages to 2500 characters.

The shortened version that I sent the president really suffers for being cut in half but I had a mini-brainstorm: I've cut the original in half and resent it to the White House in two parts. Maybe someone will notice. Or not. Still, I've done my best.

[RONNI HERE: It wears me out that every few months President Barack Obama scares the bejesus out old people by saying something about "strengthening" Social Security which everyone knows is code for cutting it. He did it again in the State of the Union address so I sent him a severely edited version of this note - edited because the White House contact form allows only 2500 characters.

It is unlikely, among the thousands of letters sent to the White House, that anyone will read it, let alone respond or act on it. Still, I feel a little better.]

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Dear President Obama:

I am a 70-year-old Social Security and Medicare beneficiary. I publish a popular blog, Time Goes By, about what it's really like to get old.

You might enjoy stopping by sometime – www.timegoesby.net - where you will find a large community of well-informed, thoughtful elders who pay a lot of attention to you, to politics in general and to the moves Washington makes on our two lifelines, Social Security and Medicare.

But to get to my point, in your State of the Union address Tuesday evening, you said this about Social Security:

"As I told the Speaker this summer, I'm prepared to make more reforms that rein in the long term costs of Medicare and Medicaid, and strengthen Social Security, so long as those programs remain a guarantee of security for seniors.

“But in return, we need to change our tax code so that people like me, and an awful lot of Members of Congress, pay our fair share of taxes...”

I worry every time I hear those words and you've been talking about “reform” of and “strengthening” Social Security since you took office. What concerns me the most is that a smart guy like you does not appear to understand the genius of the program's basic functioning as President Roosevelt set it up and how easily it can, with the wrong reforms (which we voters know is code for “cut”), be destroyed.

(I'm ignoring Medicare in this letter. It is a different kind of problem needing different solutions. But don't worry. I'll get back to you on that.)

Let's start with Social Security funding: You should know this and I'm pretty sure you do but just in case: Social Security has no relationship – none, zero, nada, zilch – with the nation's budget. Because it is self-funded through the dedicated payroll tax, by definition it cannot contribute to the nation's deficit.

It does not matter how many times Congressional Republicans (and a few ignorant Democrats) say differently: Social Security does not contribute to the deficit. It would be a very good thing if each time you make public statements about Social Security, you make sure to say that. Repetition works, you know.)

Because Social Security is not funded through the general revenue, it has been sacrosanct from budgetary battles in Congress for all its 75-plus years. That is, it was until last year when you signed the payroll tax holiday and when you extended it this year through February. That shortfall in uncollected Social Security payroll taxes is, as you well know, replaced in the trust fund from the general revenue.

And that is the first ever inroad to potentially cutting Social Security because it is not inconceivable that Congress, which holds the budget purse strings, can decide not to replace those funds. That you supported this move, Mr. President, is a big disappointment to me.

Even so, I'm pretty sure popular uproar would preclude such a theft, but the potentiality is there now. The seal on the door to the trust fund has been breached. That's scary if you're as old as I am – not just for me but all future generations who will need Social Security.

So, as politically useful as it is for you to call the payroll tax holiday a tax cut for the middle class, in reality it shortchanges Social Security and endangers the long term solvency of the program.

What you should be doing is raising the payroll tax by a percentage point or so (yes, even in these hard times) to ensure the program will be there past the next 20 years.

Because what rich people who do not need Social Security (but who are more than happy to take it for pocket change) do not understand is that without it, most Social Security beneficiaries would be living in cardboard boxes.

And by the way, it's not that we didn't try to save our own money for our old age. You perfectly well know – or should – that real wages have been flat for 30 years. For every raise people received during that time, inflation or health care or an emergency took more from their bank accounts.

Don't forget, too, that millions of old people lost trillions of dollars in life savings in the crash of 2008 and have no way to recoup. Personally, I lost a third of my modest savings and I'm among the luckiest for not having lost more.

Oh, and did I mention how many elders who planned to downsize from the large homes in which they raised their families cannot sell them now? Or are underwater? Or have been foreclosed upon – apparently illegally in many cases?

How many whammies is that against old people, Mr. President? I've lost count.

Elders cannot afford any cut to Social Security – and that includes the proposed reduction in the calculation of the cost-of-living adjustment which would affect current beneficiaries.

My appeal to you, Mr. President, is to get over this idea you apparently have to trade the program that modestly supports elders when their working lives are done for a bipartisan agreement to raise taxes on the wealthy.

I know you can't get those tax increases in this Congress and you should know it too. But go ahead, give it a try. Just don't sell out America's elders in your attempt.

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At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Nancy Leitz: The Trouble with Four-Door Cars