I was listening to the news this morning, really trying to keep up with the reporters but they were just a tiny bit too fast for my comprehension. It wasn’t that I couldn’t hear, keeping up was my problem. I don’t believe most younger people understand that often when old folks can’t communicate with them that they shouldn’t talk louder, they should slow down. Did you ever see young folks shouting a mile a minute at old folks? Mostly they just quit talking to them.
In the 80’s and 90’s when I was giving speeches all over the United States some times I might phone another professional speaker who might have spoken to the same audience I was about to face and I’d ask for some tips. We used to call the deep south “The Bible belt” and that meant that our material must be squeaky clean. But always us Yankees would be warned again and again, “Slow down.” “Slow down.” Southerners often are used to a slower pace. This has no connection with how intelligent they might be like a reference to “slow kids”. It was just that if you wanted to connect with an audience in that area you were visiting you must keep it clean and talk slower.
Another thing I discovered is in reading with these old eyes it isn’t necessarily the size of the type that will help, it is the density of the type that makes it more readable.
So if you want to get through to me, live or on the phone or with a message online, Just slow down and use bold type. Of course, a few dozen other things factor into a conversation with us old folks. At ninety I am learning about them daily.
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