Respect your elders...!?!

We've been told since we were young to always respect our elders.  Fine.  Great.  I get it.  I practice this rule of thumb or piece of advice, if you will, and I truly do agree with the overall premise.  However, the older I'm getting, the more I'm coming to the realization that I was somewhat misled as to why it was important to respect your elders.  I was under the assumption we were taught to respect and listen to our elders, because they knew right from wrong and more so, they knew more than you.  Well, unfortunately that's not the case.  It appears as if my intuitions on some "adults" were accurate, they're rather unintelligent and really quite ignorant and settled in childish like behavior.  I've bared witness to numerous adults in my line of work that leaves me constantly blown away with their adolescent type behavior and crude antics.  I often find myself shaking my head and wondering why my maturity level is well beyond their 50 something years of life, when I'm half their age.  Take this weekend for example.  I was working in Minneapolis at a tradeshow promoting my company's products.  While exhibiting, I meet a slew of different people, including fellow exhibitors showcasing their products.  This man, who must have been approaching 60, was there with his wife, they sold cookie mixes.  In an effort to sell their cookie mixes, they brought prepared samples of the mixes for the potential buyers to try.  The one day, the man came over and offered me a sample, to which I graciously accepted and ate. "Thank you," I said.  He then proceeds to tell me, "You're welcome, I have to get rid of these before my wife eats them, lord knows she doesn't need them."  With his back already turned away from me, my jaw dropped.  If this wasn't the pot calling the kettle black, I don't know what is, for he easily had a good 10-15 pounds on his wife.  Sure both weren't in excellent shape, but that's neither here nor there.  Throughout the weekend, a couple more snide comments came and went and I really had to bite my lip. Observing this man, I was appalled by his arrogance and overall facade. I was speaking with his wife when he was away from the booth, to which he came around the corner and handed her a check "Some big fat lady just ran up and gave this to me," to which she asked whom he was referring to, he chuckled and said "Mary Jane," who was the show's coordinator, a very nice woman whom I sure went out of her way in kindness and gratitude for their business, to which he mocked so carelessly and without regard.   I found myself despising this man. The last crude comment came towards the end of the show when a lady with purple hair and a rainbow t-shirt came up to me to place an order for my products.  After she departed, he walked up to me and said "you know, back in Michigan (acting like I hadn't told him 5 times already that I too lived in Michigan) rainbows mean something...." Just the way he said it, I knew he was insinuating that she may be gay, and that was a bad thing.  As if she was promoting criminal behavior.   It took almost everything I had not to say, - you're a fucking idiot, rainbows represent many things and yes, being homosexual is one of them and for that I love rainbows. And oh yeah, it's not just a Michigan thing you moron.  This man really grind my gears and he wasn't he first, nor the last elder that will let me and society down.  Back at the workplace we have older employees who take part in high school like behavior, that I really detest.  I guess the moral of the story is, respect is something you give to people of all ages, but only if they deserve it.  Being an elder, no longer in my eyes, gives you a right of passage to demand respect, for if you act like an ignorant, judgmental, awful human being, I owe you nothing except maybe a cold shoulder.