Glacier National Park. The park is absolutely geriatric.
I recently saw the movie Bridget Jones's Baby. Given the movie's tile, it is no surprise that Bridget has a baby. What is surprising is that Bridget's obstetrician refers to Ms. Jones as a "geriatric mother." Geriatric? Bridget is 43. Ok, I get that she is over 40, pregnancy is riskier, her eggs are aged, the baby is at potential risk for something. But geriatric?
Currently, my awareness of the term "geriatric" is heightened because of a recent trip to Glacier National Park. Glacier is stunningly beautiful. It is also cold, windy, foggy, steep, and home to bears - big grizzly and smaller black. Because of the bears, we decided to hike in Glacier with a guide, figuring we'd appear less appetizing to bears if a person with bear spray was leading us through the woods. Or maybe we figured the bears would go after the guide first. Who knows? We signed up for a group hike and were joined by a chatty, fun couple from Baton Rouge and an experienced hiking couple from Colorado and our guide, a young guy in his 20s who'd grown up in Montana and appeared unfazed by bears.
Off we went in the guide's shuttle bus to the trailhead of one of Glacier's most beautiful hikes. As a group we seemed pretty happy, easily keeping pace with our youngster guide, talking as we hiked, taking in the scenery, swapping stories about potential knee and hip replacements as well as travel and hiking tales. Then we stopped for a water break and the guide spoke the unthinkable.
"The person who schedules hikes was teasing me this morning. She said I had a geriatric group of hikers. I told her that was funny. Geriatric."
He meant us. They'd been talking about us. We were six geriatric hikers.
Everyone politely laughed. But the word stuck with me -- geriatric.
Even though the guide sort of insulted us, we still liked him and gave him a cash tip, though I thought about giving him a "word" tip, something along the lines of "If we are able enough to hike in Glacier and have cash for your tip....maybe you don't want to label us geriatric" or something like that but you get my drift.
But I didn't. I just stewed instead. My 62 year-old self was wounded.
Later when I was reunited with my IPad, I typed a simple phrase into my safari search engine --
"At what age is someone considered geriatric?"
Safari supplied the answer -- 65 years of age or older.
I had my answer or at least an answer. My husband is geriatric and I'm not.
That still feels wrong.
But phew anyway.
Happy upcoming birthday to my geriatric husband.
This guy lives in Yellowstone and is probably geriatric.
