Old People Anachronistically Like Lawrence Welk

The Old People of today grew up in the ‘50s, so theoretically they should be forever attached to the pop culture of that time, things like poodle skirts, Pat Boone, and cheerful segregation. And yet, the easy listening stations still play Glenn Miller and your local PBS affiliate still runs The Lawrence Welk Show every Saturday night. Because Old People, who enjoy public television because it is both free (like other network TV), and incredibly slow-paced (unlike other network TV) enjoy Glenn Miller and The Lawrence Welk Show. But no matter their precise vintage – 70 years old, 80 years old, 81 years old – Old People will always do and like the same things done and liked by previous generations of Old People. The Old People of three decades ago would claim that ice cream once cost a nickel. It did. Today’s Old People do the same – but ice cream has cost well over a dime since the late 1940s. Similarly, Old People enjoy this bizarre, pastel-colored, German-laced polka-and-standards show out of nostalgia. That may be, but if so, it’s out of nostalgia for watching it with their grandparents. And so, today’s Young People will one day watch The Lawrence Welk Show, simply because they will be Old People. Perhaps it is because Death is nigh for Old People, and Heaven probably looks a lot like the set of The Lawrence Welk Show.