May 19, 2007
May is Older Americans Month, and I am supposed to celebrate it, according to numerous health and social service agencies, the Administration on Aging, greeting card companies, and a presidential proclamation.
I am not drinking the Kool-Aid.
For everyone over the age of 50, follow along with me as I purposely digress and explain my Kool-Aid remark. For those younger than 50, you are on your own here.
When I first heard the expression ‘drink the Kool-Aid’ or ‘don’t drink the Kool-Aid’ as the case may be, I had to ask what it meant. As I age such an expression is probably one I heard before or is a term I simply cannot recall but surely know. This quite observable situation leaves me perplexed.
My memory worries started recently when I heard someone remark, “No matter what, do not drink the Kool-Aid. Tom really drank it on that one.”
What in the world did she mean?
Memory lapse.
Well aware that I could not recall this phraseology, I thought I had better look it up. I knew I had heard it before, but nowhere in my mental computer could I find it. My brain’s search engine was frozen; no Kool-Aid file found.
If you are over 50, mental blankness likely happens to you, too, and if you are not that old, all I can say is, “Mark my words. The day will come when you will not be able to find your memory files either.”
I call this phenom my ‘brain zero phraseogram’. For the record, I just invented that term, if I can only remember it.
If you are like me you probably need to look up phraseogram about now. I had to when I first heard it or was it the first time I realized I had forgotten it?
Anyway, back to my point if I can find it. Phraseogram is a noun that is defined as a symbol used to represent a particular phrase in shorthand, according to Encarta World English Dictionary.
I remember that now. High school business classes. Shorthand. Phraseogram. Got it!
Forgive me once again for the digression, as I should get back to researching the aforementioned Kool-Aid phrase as promised.
My web search found this definition at the urbandictionary.com site. Most likely ‘to drink the Kool-Aid’ is a reference to the 1978 cult mass-suicide in Jonestown, Guyana. Jim Jones, the guru of the group, convinced his followers to drink grape Kool-Aid laced with potassium cyanide. The residents drank the Kool-Aid and died.
The term can also mean embracing a particular philosophy or completely buying into an idea or system, good or bad.
Now that I have looked it up, it makes me a bit leery of attending a Kool-Aid or tea party with the grandkids in the backyard. Just kidding, of course.
I do know this for certain. The next time I experience mental blankness, I will think of the problem as merely a ‘brain zero phraseogram’. It is not a disorder, just a label. Still working on a symbol for it.
And finally back to my original point, I will not celebrate Older Americans Month since then I would have to admit that I am indeed an older American.
Everyone is an older American if you stop and think about it. Like I said, I am not drinking the Kool-Aid.
