Because Crabby Old Lady has, in life and at this Weblog, a vested interest in anything about getting older, she takes the World Wide Web temperature on that topic now and again by Googling “aging” and other synonyms for not young.

Going by the first page results today, Google believes the most important Websites about aging are those of government and quasi-government agencies with interchangeable names such as National Institute of Aging, National Council on Aging, American Society on Aging, Special Committee on Aging. These sites deliver "official" information about older people on financial matters, health, legislation, benefits, and “empowering the community,” whatever that means.

Crabby does not intend to deliberately bore you; only to give you a sample of what Google believes about older people: that we are sick, decrepit, money-grubbing, none-too-bright and – boring.

Which, unfortunately, matches fairly accurately the attitude of our culture at large toward older folks.

Crabby Old Lady knows this is a lie. Undoubtedly those agency Websites have reasonably good information and are a starting point when you need it. (Watch out, though, for those senators at the Special Committee on Aging which is essentially marketing information – spin, for their future re-election campaigns.) But what Crabby wants to know is, where is information about what getting older is really like.

If you go by what the advertisers on the right rail of the Google results page believe about us, older folks can be suckered into buying any kind of snake oil that promises to turn us into teenagers again:

Can Aging be Reversed? The startling truth about aging and longevity.

Clear a Congestive Heart: fastest most effective method to clean blocked arteries

Botox Like Results: Clinically Proven! Order your Free Sample Now.

Healthy Aging: Slow Aging Now! Easy Exercises.

Free Anti-Aging Cream. free sample…

All these sites sell bogus products or information. Crabby Old Lady is insulted by them and by the so-called professionals - experts on aging at those agencies - who, together, paint a picture of older people who will spend all the money they have on dreams of lost youth while drooling onto their bibs. This makes Crabby angry.

There is a lot more information about what getting older is really like at any of the “Older Bloggers” Websites, linked over here on the left, than at any of the Websites or advertisers on Google.

By sharing their passions, their hobbies, interests, stories, concerns about the world near to their homes and afar, and knowledge collected over a lifetime, these bloggers – all older than 45 - tell us more about what aging is like than any of the "experts" at those anonymous-sounding agencies. Every day, they refute the phony anti-aging products in their thoughtfulness and intelligence. And they prove that being older is not worse than being young. It is only different.