Unlike a graduate student who wrote to the Bangor Daily News [Jan. 25] expressing dismay over the possibility of a retirement complex at the University of Maine, I was very much excited when I heard of the proposal.

Having taught sociology of aging for several years at UMaine, I am aware that our culture devalues older people, perhaps in large measure because we fear death and do not apprehend it as a part of life. Thus implicit in many people’s attitude is ageism — a negative bias against those in their later years.

A retirement complex at the university, in addition to providing a valuable service to the older population which is estimated to be at 20 percent of the total population in 2030, would provide younger people an opportunity to have more contact with people whose wisdom represents a lifetime of experience. Such contact would probably destroy a number of myths held about the elderly.

The letter writer might realize that older people generally carry the personality traits of their youth into later life. A grumpy, complaining older person was probably a grumpy, complaining youth, and a joyous, appreciative younger person will probably exhibit those qualities throughout life. On the national level we have or have had such “amazing grays” as Katharine Hepburn, John Glenn, Margaret Chase Smith and George Burns. In Orono we have or have had the stellar examples of Dorothy Clarke Wilson and Luther Andrews. These older people and many, many more have immeasurably enriched our lives.

Our older population, like our younger population, is indeed a national treasure. Susan F. Greenwood Orono