There is a man who the Wild Coot has always admired. Indeed, many times he tried to emulate the Birdie. At school, on his bent guitar he would try to ring the halls with his rendition of “John float and the goat”.
“Sargeant Willie the policeman lying on me, I am not guilty, Sarge is the goat whe’ back back on me.” The Birdie also sang a tune, “Move, step aside and give the youngsters a chance, uh looking for youth not experience.”
A youth called me in sorrowful tears the other day. “Wild Coot, you think it is fair for all those fellows who have worked already for nearly 40 years in a job to stay in that job and not make room for us young people? We need to get a chance man.
“They had their time and should have made good use of it. We even think that they should go before 60 – like in France. Look, if they have a house mortgage at age 35 and the bank gives them 25 long ’ears to pay for it, at 60 they should have repaid the mortgage, look for holes and free up the space.”
I remained silent, since the Wild Coot, like many BARP people, is over the redundancy age. He continued: “In earlier days the Romans and the Greeks set the precedent. When a soldier had reached a certain age and could no longer go to war or defend his country, one of his limited options was to die on his own sword or if he had lent his sword to his son, throw himself off the nearest mountain. We have no mountains here in Barbados except Mount Stinkaroo and I am not advocating that.”
The call left me combobulated. I decided to check on my second source of wisdom, William Shakespeare. In As You Like It (a comedy), he said that on this world stage there are seven ages. The nobleman Jaques describes the sixth age (seems to correspond with age 60), “his youthful hose well served, a world too wide for his shrunk shank”.
We all know that age. Many of us men are writing to Dear Christine asking what to do, as Viagra and other painkillers are not working. Many are fighting a losing battle against the vagaries of nature.
Most of our women whose big manly or womanly voices are now turning to a whisper, enter the church for heavenly bliss no longer interested in the earthly sweetness (or having forgotten). This is just as well as without them, our churches and kingdom halls would not survive the vicious attacks of present day interpretation of the biblical mandates now overruled by United States’ justices.
This working after age 60 has us in a dilemma. Perhaps if people are not supposed to work after reaching that age, they should not be called upon to pay taxes. They have made their contribution. Alternately, having sacrificed for younger people to work in higher jobs, people over 60 should be given massive tax concessions and only if the income reached an exceptional figure, be subject to tax. This would be their way of being repaid for the making way for the youth.
My friend continued. “The argument that we need the experience of older folk is self-defeating since for the most part, after 35 years or so people are mostly coasting, waiting for the bell to ring. In any case, if an upcoming youth has not acquired the requisite skill after working 20 or more years, he is not worth his salt.”
This gave me food for thought and made the Wild Coot conscious of what he had acquired having reached the threescore age. He asked himself if, like Milton, people over 60 should only “stand and wait”. Young people are saying, “Doth God exact day labour job denied?”
Just one blaring example. How can we free up bank credit cards, knowing the intrinsic credit control danger, and then instruct that people must get BRA clearance for the legal purchase of foreign exchange?
The two things are incongruous and will cause chaos in the long run. But again the Wild Coot is over 60 and can only play with his marbles.
Harry Russell is a banker. Email quijote70@gmail.com