DID YOU EVER WONDER?
By Veronica Breen Hogle
I couldn’t believe all the attention I got when my birthday came. It was as if I’d taken out billboards advertising: “Veronica is 50!” Almost to the day in that merry month of May, a magazine arrived in my mailbox with a birthday card announcing I would receive the glossy free if I became a member of this organization interested in retired people. A beautiful screen actress, wearing a purple satin swimsuit with her long auburn hair flying in the wind was on the cover. I noted that she was the same age as me. The membership also offered discounts on travel, hotels and car rentals. While I placed the gold circle over the “Yes” box, I wondered, “How does this organization know it’s my birthday?”
Days after I joined, another magazine came in the mail. The cover had a magnificent photo of a huge, blood red moon shining over the Delta Queen Steam Boat as it cut through the glistening night waters of the Mississippi River. An enclosed card invited me to join the floating classroom of Mark Twain scholars. “How did this magazine know I was a Mark Twain fan,” I wondered.
From the day of my 55th birthday, the mail offers just got better and better. The Automobile Club offered me 10% off my car insurance if I took its defensive driving course. By the time I was 60, I became eligible for senior discounts at the theatre, cinema and cultural events. The young man at the bank said I could have a free alarm clock if he could go over my bank accounts with me. The insurance man sent a birthday card congratulating me on my good health and urged me to take out more life insurance. Local restaurants mailed me brochures with succulent chickens on the front cover offering: “All-you-can-eat-chicken-dinners for only $4 per person.” I just had to bring four friends before four o’clock.
Retirement communities send me invitations to their Valentine's Day dances, and offer to send a car if I'd be their guest at their Sunday Night Candle Light Suppers. An historic cemetery sent a parchment birthday card with photos of swans on lakes and birds in lacy weeping willow trees. “Veronica, may we reserve a spot for you?” was the caption.
I receive so many cards, letters and magazines that I participated in a workshop called, It’s a Mail, Mail World. Using see-through tote boxes with different colored lids, I learned to sort my mail by days of the week, seasons, years, personal, business, topics, hobbies, and miscellaneous. I was managing just fine until the US Government started to send me mail about my social security options. I colored coded all of that in red, white and blue. Now I get so much mail about Medicare A and Medicare B, it’s confusing. And Medicare D is so overwhelming that I’ve run out of colors for the stackable totes and I’ve just signed up for the advanced course in It’s A Mail, Mail World.
When I was young, birthdays were like any other day and a woman’s age remained a mystery. The only place it would be noted was a year after her death when the stonecutter hand-chiseled her name and age on her granite tombstone. But in America, there are bars where everyone not only knows your name; the whole country knows your age. While I wonder how all these businesses and organizations know when it’s my birthday, I also wonder why the gas, electric and phone companies don’t offer me a membership in a senior discount program? After years of being their loyal customer, the utility companies are the only ones that don’t bother to send me a little birthday card.
P.S. This piece was published in the Carlow Nationalist on August 22, 2007 with the heading "Age is a national sport in US where everyone knows your birthday."