Reading Journal #1 ("No Renewal")

The first story we read was a short story called: "No Renewal". It told of an old man who lived in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley in the year 2049. This was interesting to me because I lived in the Annapolis Valley in a town called Greenwood (which is a large military base) for 11 years from 1990 to 2001.
It was the man's birthday on the day which was being described and while making himself some wintergreen tea (a luxury to him), he is recounting his background. He tells of how his family used to be very well-off, envied by many, and the owners of a substantial chunk of land, but now he is the only remaining member who has not moved to the city or passed away. He tells of how beautiful and serene his land used to be, but now he has sold it all off, and is backed up to a tiny chunk of land, surrounded on three sides by clay quarries. It made me remember my past as he listed off the names of places that I've been to, and I could picture what he was describing.
The man (named Douglas) was upset that he goes out to pick and harvest the ingredients for his wintergreen tea (the wintergreen, the maple sap, etc.) but now all his maple trees were dead, so he bought 'maple flavored sugar', an complete fake in his opinion, but this fake tasted just like the real thing. He spoke of how his parents had lived with him, and how they had lived off the land, making everything for themselves, until his father had accepted euthanasia at the age of 61. He spoke of an 'old age tax' that obviously was a penalty for those who had lived past a 'reasonable' age.
Douglas became curious about what his new age was since it was his birthday, but he couldn't remember when he was born. So he goes to the attic and discovers his birth certificate. It says he was born in 1989, which would make him 60 years old, but in the story he thinks to himself that he is 50 years old. He also notices at the bottom of the certificate that his 'expiry date' is today (for him) and suddenly there is a knock on the door for the first time in a long time.
If I had been Douglas in this situation (when the knock comes on the door), I would have been fearful, because, as the author intends, the knock is meant to come from death or the grim reaper or even a doctor come to administer the injection. This would make most people fearful because naturally we fear death.
I enjoyed the way the author used foreshadowing in the end of the story and made it suspenseful, I thought it was a great way to convey the powerful and moving idea without lengthening the story and 'spelling it out'. This ending section was not only enjoyable for its suspense and foreshadowing, but for its message, posing an answer to an unasked questing: In a society where there were not enough resources to support the population, what can be done?
The story basically a suggestion of one solution, and that is: provide an 'old age tax' to make it less attractive to live longer lives - although it seems barbaric in our society, the author has obviously given thought to the idea that, the oldest people have already lived most of their lives, they have experienced the most, and therefore they are the ones who should give their lives up for younger people - and when they no longer have any wish to live, they can agree to euthanasia, which , from the way the story suggests, is a common thing in 2049. Although it does mention the tax only once, and says of it that: "though he may have vitality for twenty years more, he has money for no more than five. Less, if the new tax laws penalizing old age are pushed through in Halifax". This can be interpreted to mean that, the old age tax is not yet in effect, and that you can be force-ably euthanized when you reach a certain age, as seemed to be the case in the story.
Another possible solution, one that I think would be better and more humane would be to adapt a rule, similar to the one in place in China right now, the law where you may only have 1 child per couple. This could be used to substantially reduce the population down to a more manageable level without killing anyone.
All in all, I found this story to be very well thought out and written, and I found it amazing that such a short story could pose such a grim outlook on the future.