We were talking the other day, at what age do you get to say, “Screw it, I’m old, I’m entitled.”

Please keep this in mind.  Neither of us is wild about people who are selfish, self-centered, self-absorbed, or anything else that screams, “Me first!”  But we’re ok with our older neighbors taking what is really their due for a lifetime of putting up with the younger crowd.  Even us.

If we were pinned down we think we’d say the magic number is 80.  By the time someone gets to be 80 there isn’t much more you’re going to be able to teach them, show them, expect of them or that they’ll want to be taught, shown, or expect of you other than respect from you. 

Today’s eighty-somethings have seen all the wars anybody can invent.  An 80 year old today saw nuclear tests, nuclear threats, nuclear bombs, nuclear disarmament, and now nuclear rearmament.  They’ve seen Europeans invade other Europeans, Asians invade other Asians, Africans fighting among themselves, and Middle Easterners drop a pair of skyscrapers on 2,700 innocent bystanders.

Today’s eighty-somethings have seen all the inventions we really need.  They went from transportation by foot, by train, by car, by plane.  They’ve seen air travel go from something special for the very few to something else for the very rude.  They’ve seen entertainment go from the stage to the theater to the radio to the television back to the theater and back to the stage.  They’ve seen communication go from telegraphs sent letter by letter, to telephones, to party lines, to private lines, to wireless phones, to cell phones, to texts sent letter by letter. 

Today’s eighty-somethings are politically correct.  Anything they have to say comes from experience, not from experts on television.  If they want to call the President a bleeding heart or a fascist, a do-gooder or a no-gooder, a boom or a bust, they’ve seen them all and know exactly what he is.  They don’t need to, nor should have to mince words.  They don’t have time to be sugar coating anything but their breakfast cereal.

Today’s eighty-somethings have done it all with more class than their elders did because they had to and with more class than their youngers will because they can.  And that’s real class.

No doubt about it.  You find us a couple of eighty year olds and we’ll join them in telling the world, “Screw it, he’s entitled. And so is she.”  It’s an entitlement program we can get behind.  Even us.

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?