Editorial: The 'good, old days' just around the corner

Mark Dawson, Editor of Wanganui Chronicle

I remember when "the good old days" used to be a thing of the past ... but now it seems they are part of our future.

Though that should, perhaps, be "the good, old days" - note the comma.

Like death and taxes, ageing is one of those things you just cannot escape and we had Retirement Villages Association executive director John Collyns in Whanganui on Thursday to emphasise the fact that "old days" lie ahead for us all.

As someone creeping inexorably up to the gold card standard, I was interested in the options around getting into a retirement village, and all the other dread challenges that await a person entering the twilight zone.

I started with a sense of foreboding about the downhill slide into the abyss of the aged, but after checking out the many enticements luring the "grey dollar" from our pockets, maybe I started to have a re-think.

If the adverts are to be believed, the "golden years" really are the golden years.

Check out one of the many magazines or websites catering for the older generation.
That couple in the advert for health insurance may have grey hairs but, heck, they are bouncing around like teenagers ... those smiles, that carefree air of joie de vivre.

And the beaming pair who have gone to that financial adviser to get their pension and investments sorted out. Have they just won Lotto?

As for retirement villages - wow, it's the luxury resort and spa holiday of a lifetime for the rest of your lifetime.

Don't get me started on what those little pills can do for your sex life once you turn 65 - frisky limbs as flexible as rubber, it's Casanova meets Cleopatra.

Can it be true? Are the best years of our lives - the good, old days - really ahead of us?
What happened to aching bones, bad backs, arthritis, shuffling walks, failing eyesight, impaired hearing, that dodgy memory, trying to keep warm ...

Well, in a few short years, I will have the chance to sift fact from fiction.