What my grandmother taught me about ageism

This is my grandmother, Pauline Zoerb Blust Montgomery, AKA Nana.

In the late 70s, she was a travel agent in Flagstaff, Arizona. At that time, the industry was transitioning to computers and away from the giant phonebook-sized flight guides printed once a month.

In the early days, those flight reservation computer systems were owned by the individual airlines themselves. American Airlines’ system was called SABRE. That was the one my grandmother, who grew up in the 20s and 30s, had to learn in order to keep doing her job.

So she went to a week-long “training camp” American set up to teach the travel agents the new system. Her fellow students were mostly half her age (or younger).

Everything points to this being a potential disaster. Up until then, the most complex technology she had used was a pushbutton corded phone. She was in her early 60s, an age when other people might be starting to consider retiring. And what did she have in common with all these young women she was studying with?

She crushed it.

She threw herself wholeheartedly into learning the new system. She was diligent with the homework every night. And she bonded with the other women over their shared status as newbies to the system and their frustrations when something…