Ringling PCP

It's funny how people's attitude changes depending on the type of people they are surrounded by. This is just something I was thinking about earlier this weekend while I was visiting my grandparents that live in St. Pete.

I usually visit my grandparents every few weeks and spend a weekend with them at their apartment downtown. I actually really enjoy spending time with them. They're my home away from home (since my home is back in CT)... plus I get to do free laundry and get home-cooked meals =] My grandparents are pretty young too... only just crossing the threshold into their 70's... and if you met them you'd know, they're really kids at heart.

This particular weekend, the apartment building held a party. Sort of a "meet and greet" type of thing with lots of food and drinks... and people well over 60! I attended this get-together with my grandparents and met many of their neighbors who, for the most part, are all well into their sixties, seventies, and eighties, and long retired.

While we were sitting at the table during the party eating some dinner, my grandma turned to me and said "this must be a big change for you, being surrounded by people that are all over sixty, when you're so used to only being around kids." I replied with something like "hey, we're all people," but afterward I thought about it a little more... and it's true. Being surrounded by people over 60 is much different than being surrounded by college kids.

Something I noticed while I was at the party was that everyone I talked to seemed to conform to the "rules of conversation" I guess you could say. In other words, something like:

"Hi, I'm Kayla."
"Oh hi Kayla, nice to meet you, I'm Fred and this is my wife Susan."
"Hi, nice to meet you guys."
"Nice to meet you too. Are you visiting for vacation?"
"No, I actually go to school down here in Sarasota."
"Oh really, whereabouts?"

etc etc etc....

And then we conversed about what I was majoring in, they would link it to something their son or daughter did in college, we'd share a few stories, and it would end something like this:

"Well Kayla it was great talking to you. Good luck in school and we hope to see you around!"
"Yeah definitely, great talking to you too. Enjoy the brownies!"

Or something of that sort. Everyone was very friendly and polite and had a proper entrance and exit to the conversation. I found that to be a lot different than talking to a bunch of college kids. Around here I find conversations tend to contain a lot more joking, teasing, swearing, sarcasm, etc. Maybe this difference is due to the different ways our generations were raised. Or maybe it's due to where we stand in our particular lives at this moment. Maybe it's popular culture influencing the youth. Or maybe it's just that darned rock and roll... who knows!

-kp