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Talking Heads #10
A forum for opinions on anything in print: magazines, newspaper articles, online: bring your ideas and let's discuss.
"Choices – For the Rest of Your Life?"
| (http://www.seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/whatshouldIdo/what.jpg) | We are fortunate to have Bruce Frankel as our guest in this month's Talking Heads discussion. Bruce is the author of "What Should I Do With the Rest of My Life?" in which he presents us with more than a dozen profiles of individuals he calls "ordinary people who embraced new possibilities late in life - extraordinary late bloomers who have overthrown the usual expectations of age."
| (http://www.seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/whatshouldIdo/robby.jpg) | Profiled in the book is one of SeniorLearn's own Discussion Leaders, Robby Iadeluca, a practicing clinical psychologist, who still conducts a full schedule of therapy sessions, five days a week at the age of 90! A Review of Bruce's book (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/NYCtrip/frankelbookreview.html); Amazon link (http://www.amazon.com/What-Should-Do-Rest-Life/dp/1583333657/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279830869&sr=1-1) |
Our questions for Bruce as we consider these profiles:
- Are these ordinary people like you and me...or do they possess extraordinary talent, wealth or physical fitness?
- What inspiration can we take from his research today? |
Thanks for joining us, Bruce! We're looking forward to hearing your words of acquired wisdom!
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| (http://www.seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/whatshouldIdo/maxine3.jpg) | On the other side of the issue, ..."Gerontologists tend to think of successful aging as taking advantage of what potential there is, staying as socially and intellectually engaged as possible. Our culture tends to measure it more in terms of how active people are." |
"Part of the pressure on older people to be successful and give back and volunteer and be active and play tennis is that we are a culture of doing. We don't really know how to be. That's something that late life gives us, is time to be. But that's stigmatized." "Turn 70.Act Your Grandchild’s Age" Kate Zernike, NY Times (http://www.sikhchic.com/people/turn_70_act_your_grandchilds_age)
1. Are goals and expectations necessary for our “second life?”
2. What is ageism? Outside of public policy decisions (i.e. Social Security, medicare, etc.) should age be a consideration?
3. Whose Second Lives do you celebrate?
4. Do you or did you look forward to life after 65?
5. Did you have any specials plans.
Your opinion? Let's discuss!
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Welcome to what should be a spirited discussion on retirement years. Yours and mine. We are so fortunate to have Bruce Frankel join us to talk about the inspiring retirees he has interviewed for his new book, "What Should I Do With the Rest of My Life." One of those profiled in the book is our own longtime Discussion Leader, Robby Iadeluca. More about him later - maybe we'll be lucky enough to have him join us too. One of my favorite stories in the book is found in the Introduction - about Bruce's 85 year old mother's new career. We'll talk about that too and how it came about.
Are these people of the book ordinary folks like you and me...or do they possess extraordinary talent, wealth or physical fitness? You decide!
- What inspiration can we take from the research Bruce has done?
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There are lots of good stories in Bruce Frankel’s book. One of my favorites is about someone who used her pie-baking and cooking skills to create a place where people could gather and regain a sense of community.
But you all have good stories too, and we hope you’ll share them. Did you plan for retirement or your second life, or did you simply say, “today’s the day. I’m now free to be me.”
And on the other side of the coin, some gerontologists say, that in celebrating the remarkable stories, we make those not playing Radio City, feel inadequate. What would Maxine say about that? What are your thoughts here?
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A slight exaggeration in the introduction about my age. I am still 89 and will be 90 in a month or so, specifically September 25th.
After I had read the entire book, I emailed Bruce saying that I couldn't understand why I was even in the book. The rest of them had done all sorts of amazing things. All I had done was managed to stay alive. Yes, as it says, I still have a full time practice but in my mind that doesn't compare with their accomplishments. Be that as it may, the book itself is a work of art. Bruce is so thorough. He came down from NYC in early 2008 on a Sunday no less, sat in my office, and interviewed me for NINE hours. From noon to 9 p.m. We did break away to have dinner in the hospital cafeteria but even through that he continued to quiz me. The following day he traveled around interviewing people who knew me personally. He even interviewed later over the phone people I had mentioned, for example, my dear friend, Nancy Walbridge. I had no idea he had done this until she told me. For obvious confidential reasons, I couldn't give him the name of any of my patients but one of my patients, Liliana, heard about the book and insisted that I give her name to Bruce. So I did. She now lives in Columbia, South America, and he contacted her there. And then for the following year or so, he constantly quizzed me further, asking about all sorts of details to complete the profile. I assume that he did the same with the other twelve people so you can see how thorough and honest a writer he is.
Robby
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Hi Robby,
I truly enjoyed this book and admire all of these fascinating people but, of course, your chapter meant so much to all of us here at SeniorLearn. Where do you get so much energy??
Some of these folks had dreams that weren't fulfilled until they made some changes and commitments in their lives. Others had life just happen to them and now they are serving in another capacity. The couple who runs the household mission to help the needy are fantastic. Their energy and focus, now when they are approaching their 80s, is, as the kids say, awesome!
Another chapter that jumped out was about the teacher who didn't become one until her 60s. After she raised 6 children, married the same man twice!! Whoa! She has become such a beloved 2nd grade teacher. She always knew she would be a good teacher but didn't ever expect to be able to fulfill her dreams. That we could be so blessed with such teachers like her, who are so dedicated to their work! They hold the future in their classrooms.
My newly widowed sister, age 61, a dedicated neonatal nurse, has toyed with returning to college and changing her path. I told her about the book and am getting her a copy for her trip to NYC in Sept She will meet Mr. Frankel, at Sarabeth's. Her question was, "You mean I wouldn't be the oldest person in the classes??" No, you wouldn't, Mary, so just rock on!! :D :D
In the introduction, Bruce talks of Marc Freedman, cofounder of Civic Ventures, a group "making a case for sociailly connected work in the second half of life as a source of individual and societal renewal. As a result, the discussion has been shifting away from how to protect the rights of older Americans to work to how to cultivate work that enriches their lives, allows them to play vital roles in improving and strengthening their communities, and emplys skills, talents, and creativity generated over a lifetime."
Most of us are aware of the senior lady, Maggie May??, who kept after Congress to improve, not cut, the rights of older Americans. And now we have Granny D the lady who walked across the US to demand that Congress pass campaign finance reform bill. And they did!
I am sure that we have people right here on SeniorLearn who the author would like to interview. I can think of several stellar stars right here in our midst.
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Good morning and thank you for inviting me to talk about my book, What Should I Do With The Rest Of My Life?
And my mother, Anita, says she's game for coming online to chat, too. So, we'll see if we can get her ramped up and into action.
I see that Robby has been up and at it before me, as usual.
Of course, he is being entirely too modest. Or perhaps it isn't modesty. Robby's enthusiasm for learning, his devotion to helping others, and the optimism that his mother salted into his bones make it difficult for him to have perspective on what he accomplished and against what odds.
Today, many people in midlife and beyond can be found working toward degrees or involved in continuing education programs. But when Robby began his journey, at 51, he was almost unique. And many people have told me how inspired they have been by his courage to begin his advanced degree late, but even more, to undertake his internship in the treatment of substance abuse at the University of Virginia at 70. As I hope is clear in the book, Robby is revered in and around his community for hid dedicated service and skill as a therapist over the last two decades. I should say, too, that Robby served as an important model to me in the march to complete the book. When other pressures would mount and threaten to derail me, I was able to conjure Robby and others I profiled in the book. Indeed, early on, I conceived of the book as something like a Profiles in Courage after midlife.
So, let me take up the question posed: Are these ordinary people like you and me...or do they possess extraordinary talent, wealth or physical fitness?
First, I'm not sure what is meant by "ordinary" people. My experience over a career as a reporter and during the course of writing my book has been that, if you sit and really listen to the stories people tell about their lives, if you ask respectful question, you come into contact with what is singular. We tend to see people and things as "ordinary" when we don't take the time to look carefully and mindfully, and don't notice what's novel or different. Let those same people receive public attention and we think of them as extraordinary.
As I wrote in the introduction to the book, one of my goals was to find people who had achieved significant goals in later life, but not people who achieved those goals as a result of being able to transfer power or wealth from positions of achievement. There were a number of people whose accomplishments and projects were very worthy of attention. But they had been able to use their already enhanced skills, stature, bank accounts and organizations to help. When I wrote that I had looked for people considerably more "average," more like my friend Jim or me, I wasn't suggesting that people needed to be devoid of talent, only that they hadn't accomplished extraordinary things before 60.
Only in one subject, Naomi Wilzig, was wealthy. Yes, she had the money to collect erotic art. But she overcame formidable social barriers and she evolved into more than just a rich collector of art. I loved the fact that her development put her at odds with so much of her prior life, and that she developed an almost heroic passion for a liberated and historical view of human sexuality. She did this, not by virtue of special talent or wealth, but because she had found an identity and wouldn't buckle, wouldn't shrink back. And out of that identity, something else developed: a sense of purpose, a mission to educate and free others. Because her progress began with a simple act of rebellion against the culture in which she lived and overthrew her husband's bias about what a woman's body should look like, I was confident that women would identify with Naomi, despite her wealth. And that has proved to be the case.
And yes, Margie Stoll possessed innate athletic talent - to a degree. But it had never had a chance to develop. And at 60, developing athletic talent is not quite the same as when a naturally talented 16-year-old takes to the track. Margie could never have achieved what she has without amazing dedication and an an iron will. Had she not applied herself and done the hard work day after day, she would never have set the records she has or be ranked #3 among U.S. women runners over 65 -- a ranking she achieved again in March 2010. But again, it was not until she tuned 60 that she was able to access all of that on her own behalf, to claim her right as an athlete.
One could look at each of the chapters and say, Ah, s/he was able to do what s/he did because s/he was not ordinary. But I think it's a somewhat specious way to look at the stories in the book and would deprive the reader of the benefit of their examples. I didn't intend for the stories to prescriptions. Nor was I trying to suggest that everyone needs to achieve at the level of these examples. My aim was to illustrate how much is possible, even when people must overcome extraordinary adversity, as was often the case in the stories in the book.
I had been struck, in my own life, by how debilitating, frustrating, and depressing it is when, because you turn 50, the world begins to turn away, as if little more might be expected -- and that the idea of continuing to develop gets withdrawn. Amazingly, that is already less true now than a decade ago.
But it was my hope that the people profiled in the book would inspire others to push the envelope further. I also hoped that readers might see that our expectations of ourselves don't need to be static, or pre-determined by the past or convention, or in decline simply because we are growing older. In other words, we have choices. What we have not done does not need to control what we will or can do. I hoped, too, that by trotting out some of the recent evidence of neuroplasticity and neurogenesis, that readers would see there is, in fact, a biological model of possible growth and change rather than the model of decline that most of us past midlife grew up with. Thomas Dwyer, the dancer, had absolutely no special talent or extraordinary ability when he began. Quite the opposite. He had to overcome lifelong physical and psychological handicaps. But he did, and he changed, and today he continues to enjoy a rich and rewarding artistic life that neither he nor anyone who knew him could have imagined for him 20 years ago.
Lastly, AdoAnnie, I look forward to meeting your sister and hearing what happens when she goes to school.
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Bruce is a very kind person. Bruce, tell them about the birthday party you recently hosted.
Robby
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BRUCE: WELCOME, WELCOME! I look forward to discussing your book with you.
We in Seniornet know very well how extrordinary Robby is. Although I do disagree with your statement that " when Robby began his journey, at 51, he was almost unique." When I got my PHD (at 54) the woman standing next to me was 80!
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In one of the last classes i taught at a community college i had a most interesting class, especially since the class was U.S. History II - that's Reconstruction to the present day. It was interesting because of its entirety, not in the individual persons, because each was typical for a community college evening class. I had 35students in this FRIDAY night class from trad'l college age - for a trad'l college, but not a community college - from 19, 20's to age 76. It was the most diverse class i had ever had: more Black males than i had had in any class; sev'l Hispanic women between 20 and 60. Two white women who were in their 70's and white men of ages up thru 50's. It was especially fun for a U.S. History II class, since we had people who had lived thru the Depression - the big one - and WWII and understood the 50's, 60's and 70's and the various sides of Vietnam.
The most interesting student re: this discussion was the 76 yr old woman who now knew she had dyslexia. She didn't know that when she was in public school and dropped out of school. After her granddgt was diagnosed, she recognized her situation, in her 60's. She returned to school, had gotten her GED, and was pursuing an Associates Degree and said to the class that she would continue thru her Doctorate if she lived that long. A good thing for the younger students to hear. ..... jean
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Robby, it’s good to see you here, and thanks for the insight into Bruce’s research techniques. So thorough, and what painstaking work. And you, regardless of what you say, are unique, in more ways than one.
Bruce, what a delight to have you join us. I have been enjoying your book, and the people I’ve met there are indeed an inspiration. There are probably not many who could accomplish what Margie Stoll has achieved in her athletic endeavors, but reading her story pushed me to add a few more laps to my pool routine. Just like Loretta Thayer’s café inspired me to again try baking popovers, which I had not done in 30 years.
I had been struck, in my own life, by how debilitating, frustrating, and depressing it is when, because you turn 50, the world begins to turn away, as if little more might be expected -- and that the idea of continuing to develop gets withdrawn. Amazingly, that is already less true now than a decade ago.
Bruce
This reminded me of my children’s piano teacher years ago, a talented musician and teacher. She wanted to pursue further training, but found there were age deadlines for beginning a doctoral program. I would gather that this is no longer the case.
Annie, that’s exciting about Mary wanting to go back to school. What path does she wish to pursue?
And JoanK, what led you to pursue a PHD after the age of 50, and I hope you can tell us more about your 80 year-old colleague.
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Marking my spot. I have read the book.
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Is there any chance we might be able to attend a dance program with the unfatigueable modern dancer--Thomas Dwyer?? Wouldn't that be a treat!
I looked up his bona fides and besides appearing with his troupe, he has also been teaching older adults at community centers?? Have I got that right?
My mother was a dancer from age 5 and stayed with her dance troupe 'til she married at age 21.. Because of that intense training, no matter her medical problems, she always stood straight though not tall. At age 82, she had no arthritis, was very limber and loved laying in the sun, on a towel in the grass, while my sister worked in the flower garden. I saw her do the splits at age 72 and she could still "Shimmy like her sister, Kate" 'til the day she died.
I never accomplished any of those movements but my previously mentioned sister has always wanted to learn how to dance. Hmmmmm, maybe I will suggest she try a class.
When we don't do much physically or mentally are we disappointing our minds and bodies? Maybe our minds and bodies had great expectations when we were born.
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Thank you again for the welcome and the comments. This is really quite wonderful.
I'm reminded of when I drove up to the Silver Leaf Diner in May to keep the promise that I made to her when she agreed to let me tell her story. She only asked that I come back and do a book signing. The day I returned, I was caught in traffic in upstate New York and arrived 30 minutes late. I didn't have high expectations. These days, book stores don't even want to do signings because the turn out and sales are usually so disappointing to authors unless they have a bestseller.
When I walked into the Silver Leaf, Loretta, her blue eyes twinkling, said, "Now, because you're late I'm going to make you go sit in the corner!" The she said, "If you had been any later we would have had a lynching."
I looked around the diner. Every table was filled. And one after another, as in a dream, people lined up to have the book signed. I sold 40 of them that morning. But the dollars meant nothing compared to the satisfaction of knowing that the stories in the book were being read and valued, not for the writing, but for the example of the people.
It's enormously gratifying to hear, as I often do, how taken people are with Loretta's story. I had feared that despite my personal pleasure in learning and experiencing it (love those pies!), it might not translate in this day and age. But honestly, I suppose more than any other single individual in the book, I hear about Loretta. And I think it's because we identify with something so inherently good and familiar from our pasts, the community values that many of us can still recall. By the way, I spoke to Loretta last week, and she said the pie business has never been so good. What is it that made Loretta so appealing to you?
JoanK: I'm interested in hearing more about your decision to go back to school at 54. What sparked you? What sustained you? What did you study? What was your goal in getting your PH. D. then? ... As for Robby's uniqueness, I'll stand by that. I'm not saying he was the only person in the U.S. in a PhD. D. program, but I think, as he would tell you, he was the only older person in the PhD. D. person in at the Gerontology Center at Syracuse. And when he first applied to programs, his applications were dismissed BECAUSE of his age.
We've come a long way since then.
As for seeing Thomas perform: September 10 & 12, 2010; The Matter of Origins, World Premiere; Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center
University of Maryland; Individual ticket sales begin August 16th. ...
And AdoAnnie - Our bodies were meant to move, not sit for all but an hour a day. This is something I have become passionate about since doing my research. Note: Robby walks two miles every day!
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Bruce: thank you for your interest. My decision to go back to school was an easy one. I always loved (and love) learning. But I met my husband in college. After I graduated, although accepted in graduate school, as many women did in the fifties I got married, worked while my husband went to graduate school, traveled, then had children.
A wonderful life, but I never forgot my interrupted education, and, when my children were older, my husband earning plenty to support the family, off I went to school again. I supported him through school, years later he did the same for me.
The story has a further twist. My husband was so impressed by my rejuvenation of a new career, that as I was finishing, he quit his job and went back to train for a new career.
What sustained me was both the love of my family and the love of the new earning : new horizons opening up. It wasn't always easy: my elderly parents became ill and needed care just as I was taking my qualifying exams. But I mase it through.
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Most of you here know and Bruce, you should know, that Joan is one of the mainstays of Senior Learn (formerly in Senior Net.) She is in absolutely everything. When I first became involved here -- what was it, Joan, 10-12 years ago? -- she was the person who encouraged me to be a Discussion Leader. I started by becoming a co-leader with her in discussing, I believe, Studs Terkel's "Good War." Then I went to Chicago where I met Joan and all you wonderful people and where we all met Studs. I've been promising Joan I would send her a picture of me interviewing Studs but somehow I never get to it. From Chicago on I immersed myself into our program here leading various discussions -- "About Men," Darwin's "Origin of Species," Seniors in the Future," and finally "Story of Civilization." Throughout this, Joan and Ginny -- is she going to join us here, Joan? -- were by my side, supporting me when I needed it.
Ask Joan to tell you about her work as a docent.
Robby
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Well, it put me back on my treadmill on rainy days and I do things like walking uphill and downhill plus speeding up and slowing down while walking. Yes, I have fallen off the treatmill! Whoa!
I also noticed that Bruce mentions that most of these people are thin. I believe that. Who wouldn't be thin leading the active lives that they do. Dancing, running, walking across the America, following Granny D around and making a movie about her(even though you have never made a movie before), stepping into a classroom full of 2nd graders everyday after 60. The enthusiasm that these people have is catching!
There must be a million stories like these in the world. For instance, I just spent an hour talking to a friend about her interest in Paleontology which she found she had after reading a book about it. She returned to school and got a degree in it and intends to go back again for a higher degree. She is 73yrs old and works full time in a grocery store plus is writing a book. Yes, she is thin! She walks to work and home, about 2 miles, through the rain, snow, and high summer temps that we have here. I have never heard her complain about her life.
Born in the Boston area where her father and mother were on staff at Dartmouth, she applied to a college in New Brunswick and met a student whom she later married. As an American citizen who spent all of her married life in Canada, without becoming a citizen, she, raised 6 children, divorced and returned to school, at age 50, after which she came back to the states to be with her daughter who lives in Ohio.
At this time, she is working to return to Canada where she will be sponsored by one of her sons and then will become a Canadian citizen. She considers the benefits better there. It will take 37 months for this to occur but as she says, the first 30 months have already been accomplished. So she waits for her sons to finish the paper work and get her back in her adopted country.
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TIME TO BE! I like that, I've had time to be.............
I'm a bit younger than Robby, just 82, but I've lived through the same era, wars and all!
WELCOME BRUCE to our site. WE've been around on the Internet since 1996 and have met some outstanding seniors through the years. That alone has been an education.
Just to brag a bit, JOANP, would you tell Bruce a bit about our history; our connection to the National Bookfest?
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Are we failing to point out another one of our indomitable leaders here? Ms Ginny! Who has put together a wonderful study group of Latineers who have won some impressable medals in a world wide or countrywide Latin contest. Who also runs, in between teaching a Latin class at a university or college in SC plus teaching 6 classes of Latin her on SeniorLearn (she started this on SeniorNet) but also has a family business to run--a pick ur own grape business. She told us that the grapes mostly go to vintners. She has attended many seminars about the learning capabilities of seniors also. Get her to tell this better, Bruce (we can call you by your first name?? right?)
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The story has a further twist. My husband was so impressed by my rejuvenation of a new career, that as I was finishing, he quit his job and went back to train for a new career.
Wow, JoanK, now we want to hear more – about both you and your husband.
Callie, and Ella and Jean, it’s great to see you here. I loved hearing about your history class and the dyslectic student, Jean.
Robby, I’m so glad you are talking about JoanP and Ginny. For if not for these two terrific women we would not be having this conversation today. SeniorNet Books came into being through their efforts, and then several years later they again saved the day by starting SeniorLearn. And then after age 60, Ginny started the Latin classes, and for a while, Greek. How many classes, how many students? Lots. More about them later.
And while there are lots “doers” here, some of us are happy “being,” but just by virtue of all of us being here, on SeniorLearn, no one is letting life pass them by. And everyone has a story or two, like Annie's story about her friend. Let’s hear them.
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Ann, you're no slouch yourself. hahaa And neither are you, Pedln, winning a Gold Medal on the 2010 National Latin Exam, Latin III, which 14,842 high school and university students took in March of this year but only 1,205 made Gold Medals in, and you were one of them!
Congratulations over and over, it's nice to be surrounded by active, intelligent doers past the age of 60, it does make a difference and is very inspiring.
Welcome, Bruce. I love the way you write and I love this book. You said yesterday: I had been struck, in my own life, by how debilitating, frustrating, and depressing it is when, because you turn 50, the world begins to turn away, as if little more might be expected -- and that the idea of continuing to develop gets withdrawn. Amazingly, that is already less true now than a decade ago.
That is beautifully written and so true. There does seem to be a disenfranchisement, in all areas as you age. The "world turns away." How well you put that.
In some ways for every person it's a decision and choice on what to do about this situation and what to do with the rest of your life. I'm so thrilled to see Robby in the book, and look at Joan K!!
I loved Harry's story ("Ruby of a Writer"). What a life story, almost hard to believe. At his age I'm afraid to ask if he's still with us, but what perseverance, what must it have taken to keep trying all those years! I found his story profoundly moving, and I'm so glad there was a happy and triumphant ending. I wish every person who keeps trying had the same, on some level.
What happens to the person without that talent? What can or should he do?
Harry said, "When you're old, it can seem as if you have no place to go. It seems as if you have no future. "
He found writing about the past "made the present more tolerable because I could immerse myself completely in it and just forget everything."
And that was his solution, his way of coping. What can we take from that?
I loved this from him: "You live in a sort of dream most of your life. Your dreams are wishful thinking of what you want to be and want to have. It's not until you face the harsh reality of yourself that you can do or say anything intelligent."
I think that's about as inspiring as it gets. And life over 60 seems to provide a lot of harsh reality. I think everybody wants to make a contribution, in some way. But what IF you have no talent, particularly? What's the message, Bruce, you want these inspiring tales to carry over to those reading it in their own lives?
I would also like to know what gave you the idea to write this book? It seems a perfect time to write it, as the country now seems more interested in the thoughts of those over 60.. (*** My Dad Says as an example).
But we won't all get $40,000 grants from the Guggenheim Foundation. Or can we? Or can "success" be measured in other ways?
A super discussion here!
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I would like to join this discussion. Don't know if I have much to contribute, but I have a lot to learn. I am one of those who migrated from Senionet.
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I remember your online name from way back in the way back machine, UrsaMajor. Are you from England??? Aha, no, you are from Tennesee. Do you live in Chattanooga or near Oak Ridge??
Please know that we welcome you to SeniorLearn and hope you do learn something from this most awesome book by Bruce Frankel. Glad you are joining us.
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Thanks for the welcome Adoannie. I live near Oak Ridge and Knoxville. We lived in Oak Ridge for many years before we moved to live on the lake.
Recently I dreamed I was getting dressed for a grandchild's wedding - when I finally found my dress somewhere impossible after looking a long time the hem was pinned up with straight pins! Maybe something is telling me I haven't adequately prepared for the next stage of life....? Maybe this discussion will help......
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Just to get the record straight, when Robby wrote that wonderful and well-deserved description of Joan, he was talking about JoanP, not me (JoanK). Joan was a popular name when we were born, and we have a lot of Joans on Seniornet. It can get confusing.
Mary, the 80 year old who got her Phd with me also had a story of balancing family and learning. She had returned to school, as I had after fifty, and was well on her way to her doctorate, when her husband died, leaving no one to run the family hardware store. She left school, and ran the business for many years. Now retired, she came back and finished the degree she started.
I lost track of her, so don't know where she went from there. I used my degree to teach and do research in my new field (social science). My earlier work had been in mathematics and computer science, and I found a knowledge of both often enabled me to bridge a gap in research which often exists between social scientists and statisticians.
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Bruce, wasn't I right about this wonderful group? When Bruce came to interview me, I told him that my life was divided into three parts -- my profession as a clinical psychologist, my activity in the local community -- chamber of commerce, local hospice, etc. --- and my life with Senior Learn (Senior Net). Ginny, Joan P: Is there some way we can get all the old timers back here who may not know about this discussion? I think especially of all of us who were together in Chicago. And how about that week when we were all together in that beach house in Carolina? (I was the only man!) Maybe someone can tell Bruce about that.
And how about Marcie? Where is she?
Robby
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ROBBY, are you talking about that memorable Chicago trip when we closed the historic Blackstone Hotel for good? I don't think any of us will forget that one!
And Studs Terkel came to lunch with us from his office in the Historical Society? And you interviewed him? What a time we have had over the years.
CONGRATULATIONS, BRUCE, ON YOUR BOOK!
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That's the one, Ella. And we all rode in limousines. That photo of me above was taken in some bistro where we were and you were sitting a couple of tables away. That's when my hair was black. Studs came in with his famous red socks that he always wore. His wife accompanied him. Seems like yesterday, doesn't it?
And Joan P, there was something or other regarding you and Ginny where something was broken and you were both upset. I forget the details. After all, it was over a decade ago.
Robby
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I had photos of Robby and Eloise dancing in the house on the Isle of Palms in S.C. but they are really fuzzy so I won't be putting them up here.
A picture of Robby at that nearby restauran,t famous for their breakfasts. Ginny celebrating her birthday in that family restaurant also nearby. Lots of stuff from the aquarium and the turtle that ate Judy's compact disk from her camera. All fuzzy. What a shame that I didn't know what I was doing with that new digital camera when it came to settings. Oh,well, we still have the memories.
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Oh boy, will you ever forget the look on Studs' face when he walked in and saw that we were all wearing red socks too?! Robby, you have quite a memory - I'd rather forget running through the hotel with a bedspread full of broken glass -
These stories are all so inspiring, aren't they? I'm so impressed with your midlife changes and those Bruce has profiled in his book!
Bruce F tells us that he didn't intend the profiles in his book as prescriptions, but to illustrate the possibilities of what people can do to overcome the challenges of ageing. "In some ways for every person it's a decision and choice on what to do about this situation - and what to do about the rest of your life."
Ginny, your comment on Harry Bernstein story struck home with me -"You live in a sort of dream most of your life. Your dreams are wishful thinking of what you want to be and want to have." An aside...Harry Bernstein just finished writing his third book - Harry's birthday was May 30, 1910! He just turned 100 years old!
Ann writes "some of the folks in the book had dreams that weren't fulfilled until they made some changes and commitments in their lives."
When Ursamajor commented earlier today "maybe something is telling me that I haven't adequately prepared for the next stage of life," I began to wonder how many of us feel this way? What if we are still in the "wishful thinking" stage...or worse, what if we are not ready to commit to change, because we don't have an idea of what we want to do with this precious gift of time we have left?
In the Introduction to his book, Bruce tells the marvelous story of his mother's success as a portrait painter- at 85 - after he persuaded her to her to take an art class. I can't wait for Anita to get hear. I want to ask her would she have done that without her son's encouragement. I think that's what I need, encouragement. My excuse is always, I'm a Gemini, with fingers in so many pies... I feel I'm missing opportunities by not focussing on one area - as those in these stories have done.
Hopefully we will be hearing from more of those who still feel they have not yet chosen a path... Of course we want to hear more success stories too.... for inspiration!
As I read Bruce's book, I took notes to see whether those profiled had anything in common. At first I noticed they were all "tall" - but then I met some who were not so tall - but they were all fit and "thin." I see that Ann has picked up on that too. I concluded it was due to their enthusiasm and energy - that burns calories, doesn't it? Made a note to kick up the workout sessions and walking time...while waiting for inspiration on what to do next.
So much more to talk about - tomorrow!
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WOW! A lot of wonderful things to respond to. And yes, Robby, you did, from the start tell me what a wonderful group this is. And you are truly vindicated.
I don't know if this is the best way to do this, but I'll try to respond to everyone. Forgive me for not getting to this earlier today. It was a demanding day. It began with work early. I'm committed to writing 2 pages a day to make the deadline on the book I am currently ghostwriting. But I'm trying to push myself to 4 pages a day, to be done by the end of August, so I can spend September hustling for new work and re-writing. By 10 a.m, I took my 16-year-old son, Isaiah, to the Department of Motor Vehicles on 34th Street, around the corner from the Empire State Building, to get his learner's permit. He passed and walked out the proud possessor of the learner permit. Forget the fact that we don't own a car, it was a rite of passage. Then I scurried home, walked Uma and Nelly, my two dachshunds, and cranked out some more and some email questions to the subjects of the book. I took a 15-min. nap, because my head was still reeling from a cold. And then, then I had to run back downtown to Book Mitzvah! What, you ask, is a Book Mitzvah?
Good question. Susan Shapiro, the writer whose blurb is published on the back of my book, has a new novel coming out tomorrow, titled OVEREXPOSED. It has taken her 13 years to re-write it enough that she was happy with it. In the interim, she published a number of other books, mostly non-fiction. But she felt 13 years was deserving of a Book Mitzvah. And so, there was a rabbi to give a blessing; there was a reading; and there was a candle-light ceremony, to thank everyone who had helped her over the years. And just in the nick of time, her mother showed up from Detroit, MI. It was all done with humor, but a fair amount for real sentiment.
So, that's by way of apology. Now:
JoanK, what a fabulous story about the effect of your getting a degree on your husband. What was your degree in? When you look back on that time, do you both see yourselves as having had courage? Also, in your saying that it was love that saw you through I was reminded of Harry Bernstein -- and the neuroscientist Marian Diamond, at UCBerkeley. Harry because Ruby's love made it possible for him to continue all those years, and really inspired him to do the work after she died. There was no more touching moment for me in the two years of researching What Should I Do With The Rest Of My Life? than the moment he handed me the photograph of Ruby in leotards, in her late 80s, still teaching yoga. I have never felt someone else sense of love so intensely as I did his for her at that moment. By the way, Harry mentioned the birthday party: On May 31, we celebrated Harry's 100th birthday at a diner in Brooklyn, close to the Booklyn Bridge. It was quite amazing. There were cousins there from Chicago who had known nothing about their family until Harry's second book, The Dream, was published. Harry gave a little speech. It was a lovely day. A couple of weeks later, I called Harry. He had finished his fourth book in five years and sent it off to his agent. Last week when we spoke, he had begun a new novel.
AdoAnnie: I meant to say that while I don't want to speak of it too much at the moment, my next book will be about dance (and movement) and the brain. The more reasearch I do, the clearer it becomes how powerful and important movement is to triggering cellular life. It's not just the big muscles that count, it's those little micro ones that do, too. There is a reason why we see so many people walking around with thin white wires drooping from their ears and plugged into devices playing Mozart, Miles, or Madonna (well, maybe not so much Madonna these days).
PedIn: I'm so impressed with the Latin and Greek with the Latin and Greek teaching that Joan and Ginny do. And you and Anne, getting Gold medals. Just amazing. I'm a little jealous. I so wish I could make the time to take one of the Greek classes. I would love to be able to read the classic Greek texts in the original. One day, one day, one day!
Wish I knew how you guys were making those quote boxes. Anyway, PedIn writes:
And while there are lots “doers” here, some of us are happy “being,” but just by virtue of all of us being here, on SeniorLearn, no one is letting life pass them by. And everyone has a story or two, like Annie's story about her friend
There's nothing wrong, of course, with "Being." But I do favor "Being" there mindfully. As a writer -- and particularly when I'm in a poetry writing phase -- I spend a lot of time just "being." I keep a box on my desk with a quote from Andre Gide which reads, "Existence is occupation enough." I fell in love with that quote when I was in my early 20s. It has come to mean different things to me over time. It's like Joseph Campbell's famous, "Follow your bliss." It means one thing as a bumper sticker, it means quite another when you really dwell on it. Campbell, the American mythologist and author of The Hero with a Thousand Faces, never meant quite what my Woodstock generation took it to mean. He really meant something much more like "follow your passion." But he never saw it as a prescription for a sybaritic way of life. He actually believed that people need to work with discipline at their passions, to fulfill themselves and to make an offering to culture. And really, what I've come to appreciate over these last years is just how much people can accomplish by following what they are curious about with passion and discipline. Not everyone has to achieve for public recognition or by making their passions professions. But I think there is something intrinsically life-affirming about devoting oneself to something that gives meaning to one's life, whatever that is. Viktor Frankl (no relation), the author of Man's Search for Meaning, in which he chronicled his life and observations as a Nazi concentration camp inmate, came to the same conclusion, with a bit more authority than I have.
Ginny: Good questions related to Harry. You write:
And that was his solution, his way of coping. What can we take from that?
Honestly, I think his solution was to find what gave meaning to his life. And I think the reason why The Invisible Wall was such a wonderful book, one that people are moved by and for which he won a Christopher Medal for "bringing light out of darkness," is because is a search for meaning; an amazing effort to bring back to life the stories and pain, the human drama and prejudice, on one little universal street in an English mill town. It was the story that Harry was born to tell. His earlier novels failed, in part, because, as he says, he didn't tell what he knew. Robert Frost wrote, "No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader." I think that Harry risked both tears and surprise in writing those books.
Ginny, you also wrote this:
I loved this from him: "You live in a sort of dream most of your life. Your dreams are wishful thinking of what you want to be and want to have. It's not until you face the harsh reality of yourself that you can do or say anything intelligent."
I think that's about as inspiring as it gets. And life over 60 seems to provide a lot of harsh reality. I think everybody wants to make a contribution, in some way. But what IF you have no talent, particularly? What's the message, Bruce, you want these inspiring tales to carry over to those reading it in their own lives?
I suppose you have Anita Frankel to thank for the answer that I will give, Anita being my mother. She was not at all unlike Robby's mother. We were both brainwashed from an early age with the belief that talent was a matter of effort, not a gift. And I believe that even more now after writing this book and reading all the studies that I have read on neuroplasticity. Yes, there's no doubt that some people have an advantage over others. Certainly, as Malcolm Gladwell points out in his book, children whose lives are enriched and get to experience more, acquire a healthy advantage. But it is my counter to that view, that advantage is not an endgame. We have all known people who were sublimely talented and wasted it. As a writer, I have repeatedly seen people develop from crude work in the classroom to work that is widely admired. Talent is a factor. But it is not the only factor. That's the lesson. I know there is much we can't control in this life. And there are things that we might hope to achieve and might never succeed at. But it seems to me that another lesson in the book is that sometimes when we devote ourselves to achieving something -- if we set a goal -- where we end up might be different, our contribution may not be what we expected, but that does not make it less than.
One of the saddest things I ever heard anyone say was in an interview I did 30 years ago with the American philosopher William Barrett, the author of One Dimensional Man. The book was an enormous success. It was taught in every class on existentialism in every university in the United States. It was filled with important and wonderful insight into modern culture. But on the day I interviewed Barrett, at an oak table in the dining room of his home in Tarrytown, New York, he was feeling mournful about what he had done with his life. I remember it was fall and the trees were a stunning amber color, lit by the late afternoon light reflected off the Hudson River, just down the street. "I never became what I hoped," he said, telling me that he had wished to become a novelist like his friend Saul Bellow. I was greatly saddened by the interview. Barrett was, of course, brilliant. And he had a generous soul. But he saw himself as a prisoner of a life he hadn't intended. He even looked at where he lived through a disappointed lens. While he worried about teach Kant and Hegel to students at NYU, they went off to work each day on Wall Street and Madison Avenue, to make money.
My reason for bringing this up is that it depicts the opposite side. Barrett had all the talent in the world. And he had even made something of it. But he could take pleasure in it; he didn't feel as if he had used his "true" talent. And as a result, everything else acquired a dark coloration. Who knows, maybe that was the result of depression or too much alcohol (I'll tell you another Barrett story later). But I have always wondered, what if Barrett had gone ahead, even in his 60s, and tried writing, had applied himself to it, had experienced the joy of doing what he loved?
One other thing. Most of the people in the book are led further on their paths because of some positive feedback, some affirmation they receive early on. But that doesn't mean that in the beginning they are touted as the "best" or the "greatest." Someone gives them a pat on the back. Someone tells them the really like what they've done. They work more, they work harder, and way leads to way. Passion, discipline, and the ability to go forward in doubt, these are the true handmaidens of talent. And none of those are impossible for anyone.
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Hi! Robby and everyone here, yes we had a nice time on the Isle of Palms didn't we Ann?
Bruce, thank you for joining us here. I joined SeniorNet about 14 years ago, when I was a mere 70, and I can assure you that it has taught me more than I ever expected to learn at that time in life. My primary language is French, but my aim at the time was to try to retain my English language which tends to weaken if I don’t use it enough and discussions on SeniorNet helped me in doing this.
When you mentioned Marian Diamond it reminded me of the “Curious Minds” discussion we had on SeniorNet a few years back about an article she wrote ‘Successful Ageing of a Healthy Brain’. She mentioned that the healthy brain, unless damaged by illness, retains its capacity to learn until we die. I will always remember what she said about the things the human brain needs to stay healthy. The number one is Diet, Exercise, New pursuits, ideas, activities, Challenge and Human Love. Here is the whole article. Fascinating.
http://www.newhorizons.org/neuro/diamond_aging.htm
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My word.. Everyone is joining in the discussion. Yes, I remember Isle of Palms.. and Robbie bringing enough chocolates to cause sugar shock in all of us.. The lone man among women did just fine.
I have been going through a huge life change after 51 years being a wife and now a widow.. Some of the things I have been looking at involve becoming a somewhat different human.. Next week, I am taking an elderhostel course in Law and Order and am very excited about it. I love learning, but in person. The online courses simply do not excite me.. I will read Bruces book, but alas cannot come to New York to meet him. I grew up in a tiny little community and graduated way back with a class of 70.. We are having our 55th reunion and since I have not lived there since college, I love to go back for reunions and see all of those people who still feel like kin, no matter how many years it has been.
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Eloise - Thank you for the welcome, and I'm so happy you posted Marian Diamond's piece. I interviewed her for my book and originally had a lengthy section in my introduction that featured her. But I trimmed it out to keep the flow going. She is an amazing person. You can watch her lectures on the brain on YouTube. She still hits the swimming pool at Berkeley at 5:30 or 6 a.m. every day. She practices her balance, too. I had read somewhere that she liked to balance on the curb walking to work. When I asked her about the balancing routine, I assumed she did it because she believed it was good for some part of the brain, the way that practicing juggling appears to grow grey matter and stimulate the memory centers. I was surprised when she told me that she practices balancing to protect against falls. She didn't bother with the science of it. But most of all, she focused, in our conversation, on the importance of love, noting again her great discovery about why the rats in a German lab were outliving hers by such a considerable amount of time: the German rats received time out of the cage where they were held and petted. And so, when she returned to her labs she mandated 15 minutes of caressing a day for the lab rats -- and their longevity skyrocketed. --- Very nice to meet you Eloise.
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Hi Steph - I'm happy to meet you online, if not in New York.
I'm sorry to hear of your loss.
But it's great to know that you're pushing ahead with what engages you. What prompted you to take the law class?
Bruce
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Oh my, Bruce, definitely a rite of passage. Congratulations to Isaiah, though I can’t imagine anyone really wanting to drive in New York City.
Welcome Eloise and Steph. You bring back good memories of the Isle of Palms get together. Steph, I’m sorry you can’t join us in New York, but am glad you’re getting together with old friends. Eloise, I’m counting on you giving Kindle lessons in NY, and when we’re all back home Steph can tell us about mastering the art of the Ipad. Talk about stretching the brain!
My excuse is always, I'm a Gemini, with fingers in so many pies... I feel I'm missing opportunities by not focussing on one area - as those in these stories have done.
But, JoanK, think of all the things that you are doing that you love to do. What matters is how you feel about what you’re doing. I like Loretta Thayer’s philosophy, “I’m very content with what I’m doing every day.” In such sharp contrast to William Barrett – “I never became what I hoped.” How sad to feel that way, especially after a life full of achievement.
Now it's time to work on balance, but in the safety of the pool, not like Marian Diamond's curb balance activities.
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Ginny said "What happens to the person without that talent? What can or should he do?
I think we have to be careful of thinking about only BIG, extraordinary, perhaps difficult, things as being important for this or the next part of our lives. Ginny, you have a wonderful talent of being gleeful about what you read, visit or "hear" someone saying on this site. Your enthusiasm sparks me every time i read a posting by you. And your roles as discussion leader and teacher are cherished by many, i'm sure.
Being a grandparent is a talent. It's in our presence, hopefully, that children have a safe place to be, talk, act and always get a positive, or probing response that makes them feel good about themselves. We expand their world just by taking them away from the parent household. When they are infants and toddlers, at that fear-of-the- strange phase of their lives, they learn that they can enjoy their time w/ someone other than their parents, and that parents do come back.
Some of us here and at the Seniors and Friends site do handwork. Most of us do it to entertain ourselves or to make gifts for frineds and relatives and would never consider ourselves artists, but it is fulfilling and satisfying to the receivers of our gifts as well as to ourselves. Some of us make objects for charities that are more than artistic, or gift-giving, but fulfill an emotional or physical need for the receiver.
Meeting friends for lunch or coffee often puts us in a comforter, counselor, listener mode. Not to the extent that Robby does for his clients, but i remember reading how helpful talking w/ friends can be to people who perhaps can't afford or aren't inclined to go to a professional therapist.
I think we often dismiss the things that we do that seem so easy or sensible to us as just the ordinary thing that any human being does, but it can be just as important to others and to ourselves as getting a Phd, or directing a volunteer program, or being on a Board of Directors. We should pat ourselves on the back for those "ordinary" things also.
I didn't say before how grateful i am that Bruce is willing to come chat w/ us...........welcome Bruce and thank you so much for spending this time w/ us.........................Jean
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Hi -- Taking a little break from Africa. Technical question: How you set a quotation from an earlier message into a call-out box?
Yes, I too, love Loretta's statement of contentment at doing what she does. But hers is hardly a passive contentment. Despite so much loss in her life -- a son, a daughter, and a husband -- she practices gratitude; she does her spiritual work in front of the big window that looks out onto a beautiful north country pasture; and she affirms her life in the making of those pies every baking day. I think what we respond to is that her life is aligned with her values. That is true of Robby, too. It became true for Dana Dakin, the New Hampshire women who founded Women'sTrust, and for Betty Reid Soskin, and for the Smiths, and Myrna, and Alidra. And when I stop to consider the others in the book, I see clearly how true it is for them.
Now it's time to work on balance,
I'd love to hear how you work on balance, physically and within your lives in general.
Achievement itself wasn't the goal of the people in What Should I Do With The Rest Of My Life?, it was a byproduct of working toward personal goals. The amazing thing, really, is the way, over a long period of time the act of being engaged itself replaces the goal that is initially set in its importance. This is really something I didn't see clearly when I was working on the book, but which I have begun to understand more fully. And that ability to shift from imagined goal to a state of engagement, and from expected out outcome to allow engagement to take us toward our goals in unexpected ways that alter the outcome, takes mindful balancing.
I am very grateful to have recently received an enthusiastic blurb for the forthcoming paperback edition of the book (out in March) from author and Harvard psychologist Ellen J. Langer (Mindfulness. Though it was available in time for me to include some of its insight into my book, I didn't get a chance to read On Becoming An Artist, her book on reinventing yourself through mindful creativity until a few months after I finished my book. She makes a very important point, which she supports with her arsenal of insights and psychological studies included in this wonderful book about her own venture into painting, that our ability to begin something is far too often injured by the myth of ending. She also points out the way in which working on something we believe has an ending leads to disengagement. Worse, it is that fear of making mistakes that cuts most of us off from our creative impulse. The reason, she says, mistakes have such power over us is that the idea of them is rooted in our belief in plans and our fear that we will fail to execute them properly. A mistake means things have not gone according to plan. And I see now that while setting goals is critical, equally critical is the ability to have, or attain, a flexibility of mind that allows for doubt and change in plans. Improvisation, I suppose. That is, I think, a balance. If I had better perceived this when I was writing the book, I might have underscored it more. James Joyce (quoted by Langer) wrote, "Mistakes are the portals of discovery."
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Jean -- Just saw that you had posted while I was writing. And I thank you very much. Your point is very important.
Indeed, I had another quote from Gertrude Stein that Langer cites, that I deleted from my last post for fear of going on too much.
"Anything one does every day is important and imposing and anywhere one lives is interesting and beautiful."
The critical thing is not how big or how much regard from others our activity draws, it is how deeply we are engaged in it; maybe, too, how open in the engagement we are to discovery of the new as well as how willing we are to make choices and be changed by them.
Thanks, Jean. - Bruce
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Bruce, we were posting at the same time.................
That issue of people, especially at our ages, who fear making mistakes annoys me so. I know women particularly who apoligize about every 15 mins for something they MIGHT have done improperly. But, i also know men who would like to try an activity, or participate in an activity, that are not doing so because they might not be able to do it well. I just find that so sad................on the other hand, it is a time to get rid of some of those activities that we've been doing "because we are supposed to" but haven't really liked doing, or don't want to do anymore. .............. i guess i see this time as a time of NO RULES except those we want to i mpose on ourselves.
Jean
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Hi, Eloise! Good to "see" you again and "hear" your comments. Hope your family is doing well. Eloise used to put up with my French because I didn't know anyone else speaking that language and would purposedly choose speaking in French when I was with her. Some of us here in the Literature group and others in the Seniors and Friends group used to travel to different cities in the USA and Canada where the Senior Netter living there would host the gathering. Eloise hosted a wonderful few days for us in Montreal ending with a party where we all danced and listened to a musician who played and sang in French.
Robby
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Talking Heads #10
A forum for opinions on anything in print: magazines, newspaper articles, online: bring your ideas and let's discuss.
"Choices – For the Rest of Your Life?"
| (http://www.seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/whatshouldIdo/what.jpg) | We are fortunate to have Bruce Frankel as our guest in this month's Talking Heads discussion. Bruce is the author of "What Should I Do With the Rest of My Life?" in which he presents us with more than a dozen profiles of individuals he calls "ordinary people who embraced new possibilities late in life - extraordinary late bloomers who have overthrown the usual expectations of age."
| (http://www.seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/whatshouldIdo/robby.jpg) | Profiled in the book is one of SeniorLearn's own Discussion Leaders, Robby Iadeluca, a practicing clinical psychologist, who still conducts a full schedule of therapy sessions, five days a week at the age of 90! A Review of Bruce's book (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/NYCtrip/frankelbookreview.html); Amazon link (http://www.amazon.com/What-Should-Do-Rest-Life/dp/1583333657/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279830869&sr=1-1) |
Our questions for Bruce as we consider these profiles:
- Are these ordinary people like you and me...or do they possess extraordinary talent, wealth or physical fitness?
- What inspiration can we take from his research today? |
Thanks for joining us, Bruce! We're looking forward to hearing your words of acquired wisdom!
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| (http://www.seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/whatshouldIdo/maxine3.jpg) | On the other side of the issue, ..."Gerontologists tend to think of successful aging as taking advantage of what potential there is, staying as socially and intellectually engaged as possible. Our culture tends to measure it more in terms of how active people are." |
"Part of the pressure on older people to be successful and give back and volunteer and be active and play tennis is that we are a culture of doing. We don't really know how to be. That's something that late life gives us, is time to be. But that's stigmatized." "Turn 70.Act Your Grandchild’s Age" Kate Zernike, NY Times (http://www.sikhchic.com/people/turn_70_act_your_grandchilds_age)
1. Are goals and expectations necessary for our “second life?”
2. What is ageism? Outside of public policy decisions (i.e. Social Security, medicare, etc.) should age be a consideration?
3. Whose Second Lives do you celebrate?
4. Do you or did you look forward to life after 65?
5. Did you have any specials plans.
Your opinion? Let's discuss!
Posted by Steph:
Bruce, the reason for Law and Order is partly that last November, my husband and I were in an auto accident. A man ran a stop sign and hit us.. My husband was killed and I was injured.. I had several surgeries, but am now doing just fine. The man on the other hand has not been punished at all.. The little local police did not test for blood alcohol or cell phone usage.. They did not measure the skids to see how fast he was going. Three witnesses said he was going fast and weaving. Who knows. He was supposed to at least get his license taken away for 12 months, but when the day came and my sons and I were there for victim impact statements, he had hired an attorney and was pleading Not Guilty. At the rate this is going, the first anniversary of the accident will occur before anything happens to him. I thought taking the course might help me to understand the what and whys of justice.
Balance interests me.. the physical type. I walk every day about 40 minutes, go to the gym three days a week, do yoga and still my balance is not what I would like it to be. Very annoying.
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When Bruce mentioned "disengagement" he put his finger on the problem some of us have. How can we get past "I don't feel like it" to engagement? Several years ago I bought painrs and supplies and found myself unable to pick up a brush. Years ago in a college painting class the professor was critical of every piece of work I produced. I would like to be able to get past "What's the point? .... of paint ing or anything else."
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Often, these days, people -- particularly women, I should say; men are generally not as revealing (duh!) -- tell me that they know they need to do something different with their lives, bu they don't know how to find out what that something is? They ask me how one discovers it.
I usually tell them that, unlike in the movie "Jerry McGuire," it's not 'follow the money.' It's, 'follow your curiousity.'
But since so many of you have found ways to pursue what you love and to blaze new paths in mid-life and beyond, I'd love to hear your advice for other seeking that as-yet-undiscovered spark in themselves that brought enough kindling could burn a lifetime. What would you say?
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Stephanie - I am profoundly sorry. Words are so inadequate in the face of such tragedy. Please accept my heartfelt sympathies.
And it seems enormously brave and smart of you to take the course. Sometimes we forget that learning is doing. It seems to be an important and self-affirming thing to take on a course on criminal justice when you are facing something as frustrating and painful as you are. You have certainly earned by complete respect. That you are a functioning human being at the moment seems like a remarkable achievement.
I hope you will keep me posted.
Beyond imagining the pain of your loss, as a reporter of for so much of my career -- and one who has covered a lot of crime, I am left wanting to ask you a lot of questions having nothing to do with the topic. Is there no newspaper??? No press at all that has reported on these things and brought pressure for some serious attention? I don't know where you live, but feel free to contact me at my email address if I can be of any help.
Are the issues with balance related to physical injuries sustained in the accident?
Was there any kind of neurological trauma?
I'm really happy to hear you say you go to yoga. It's no doubt one of the best things you could possibly do for yourself, for so many reasons, including balance. I'm one of those people in yoga class that is always struggling with my balance in tree pose. And, if it's any consolation, I find it annoying, too. So, I practice a lot. When I'm waiting for the elevator, for instance, I often stand on one foot. The good news is that balance is generally (omitting certain medical conditions) something we can improve and learn. And because of the brain's plasticity, balance also appears to be one of those things that the brain will quickly reorganize itself to aid, if necessary. But the brain doesn't do any reorganization for us unless we ask it enough through regular and consistent practice.
I'd love to hear more. And again, I can think of nothing that will be a greater accomplishment that to heal from such a horrifying ordeal.
With admiration, Bruce
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I am so sorry Steph for the terrible loss you have suffered. I remember seeing your husband when he dropped you off at the Isle of Palms reunion, so young too. You are a strong woman.
Bruce,
Finding something challenging and interesting to do after the kids are all grown up doesn’t come to us on a silver platter, you have to DO something to find it.
Having had a stressful childhood, always moving from one place to another, I found that breaking away from one’s comfort zone is the challenge one needs to keep alert and that means taking risks.
In my 60s I travelled in Europe almost every year without reservations and very little money. It was so interesting but not always easy.
Taking courses for credits and graduating at 64 was risky.
Hosting an international reunion (we called it a Bash) in 2006 in Montreal for 41 seniors was a huge risk and I almost collapsed from fatigue. It took me two years of preparation.
I participated in a 2 year research at UQAM (University of Quebec in Montreal) about Technology and Seniors in 2007/8, you will see my name is at the bottom of the page.
http://www.intertic.uqam.ca/colloque/comite_org.asp
Unfortunately it’s all in French. 25 odd seniors participated for this 2 yrs research. Since then the government has allowed funds to buy new computers for Seniors Centers.
Like Jean said, it’s not necessarily what high profile seniors do that we all want to do. I love to cook for my large family, I sew and knit. I baby sat and helped my grandchildren with their studies. I live on the floor above one of my daughter’s family, so we spend a huge amount of time together. BUT sometimes it’s too comfortable and I need a new challenge away from here. What, for instance? It will certainly be something risky, because that’s where I will find the most satisfaction, where I feel I have accomplished something worthwhile.
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Ursamajor That college professor should be drummed out of town. I too, had a similar experience and during my childhood and youth I was repeatedly told I couldn't draw or paint.. After I retired in 1989 I joined an art class for what I hoped would be fun - it was -Amazingly, I found I could do it and not only that but that I had a wealth of creative energy that I had never used. I quickly began to take my art seriously and found that people liked what I did to the extent that my work sold every time I put some in an exhibition. I now have a solid and growing client base with regular sales, I receive commissions to paint particular subjects and invitations to exhibit my work, to demonstrate and to teach. It wasn't easy but I worked hard and still do and I had fun all the way.
So, forget that professor - get those paints out and start sloshing it on some canvas -given time and some practice the results will astound you. The big thing to remember is that you don't have to satisfy anyone - just enjoy!
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Random thoughts while reading and thinking about the posts:
There’s a “Social Comment” section on the bulletin board over my desk. One item is an old Wee Pals cartoon in which the character says, “I don’t mind facing reality once in a while. But when it’s every day, it gets to be a pain.” Amen and amen!
I recently read “The Third Chapter” by Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot. By her definition, this “chapter of life” occurs between ages 55 and 75
One of the ladies she interviewed had begun going to casinos after retiring from a long career in the service of others. When her activist friends chided her about not continuing her efforts with volunteer work, she said, “I am enjoying the privilege of wasting time.” Amen and amen!!
I will have completed this “third chapter” in a few more months. A few weeks ago, I was lamenting (well…ok…complaining…) to my doctor about physical challenges that have begun to severely limit or force me to give up quite a few activities and interests..
He said gerontologists see three stages of Aging: Young-Old, Old, and Old-Old, a/k/a “Go-Go”, “Slo-Go” and “No-Go”. There are no certain years attached to any of the stages; one transitions from one to the other like teens progress through puberty - at different ages and in different ways.
Among my friends who are, as I am, making the transition from “Go“ to “Slo“, the most discontent are the ones who defy limitations, refuse to adjust and are a pain to be with because they are constantly complaining that “things just aren‘t like they used to be” or trying to make them be so.
The most content are the ones who have a sense of curiosity. They adjust to limitations,remain interested in a wide variety of areas and are, therefore, a pleasure to be around.
I plan to be in this group - there are simply too many fascinating activities to explore and attempt that don't demand a lot of walking and/or standing.
Hi to Robby and Eloise. I remember with pleasure SeniorNet Bashes - waltzing with Robby in Tucson and a delightful time with Eloise in Montreal.
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" By her definition, this “chapter of life” occurs between ages 55 and 75"
I'm going-on-77, but I'm not in the no-go stage yet! Although I've been in a wheelchair for a number of years, I go somewhere mentally every day through reading and my internet friends, and go somewhere physically often through the help of friends and family who take me with them.
But I know I'm a piker compared to some of you.
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Joan, the author of "Third Chapter" had absolutely nothing to say about the "over 75's". This book is aimed at retiring Baby Boomers.
It was my doctor who mentioned the " - Go" stages but he emphasized that there are no specific ages to which any of them refer.
It sounds to me as if you are interested and, therefore, interesting. Good for you!
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What an amazing conversation! I don't see how any of us will come away without a better understanding of one another - or of ourselves!
Pedln found a New York Times article by KATE ZERNIKE - the whole thing is in the heading - that states -
"The risk, gerontologists say, is that in celebrating the remarkable stories, we make those not playing Radio City, and certainly those suffering the diseases that often accompany old age, feel INADEQUATE."
Some of you have admitted that you feel this way, that you are not part of the corps who feel they "successfully aging."
Bruce has turned the tables this morning when he asked for advice for those seeking "that as-yet-undiscovered spark."
"Since so many of you have found ways to pursue what you love and to blaze new paths in mid-life and beyond, I'd love to hear What would you say?"
I'm loving your responses - simply amazing, and I have to use the word, "inspiring." They are sure to help those of us who are still "seeking the spark to light the flame." Gum, I think you'll turn up in Bruce's next book! Your story and that of Bruce's mother are so similar. I think Anita would feel right at home here, Bruce, don't you?
I'm keeping a list of your words of wisdom -
*Follow your curiousity - from Bruce
*Finding something challenging and interesting doesn't come to us on a silver platter, you have to DO something to find it. Eloise
*The big thing to remember is that you don't have to satisfy anyone - just enjoy! Gumtree
*Have a sense of curiosity. Adjust to limitations,remain interested in a wide variety of areas. CallieOK
*Go somewhere mentally every day and go somewhere physically often through the help of friends and family. JoanK
I'm going back through the profiles in the book, Bruce - to see if any of these people needed help, needed a prod in the right direction, or did they just KNOW what it was that they wanted to do when and if they had the opportunity. I don't know why that AARP commercial on TV bothers me, but it does. The one where each person tells what they are going to do when they "grow up"? Build houses, become a teacher...etc. Maybe it bothers me because they just seem to KNOW what it is they want to do when they retire. I didn't know. I still don't know. But I'm going to follow the suggestions from those who have found fulfillment. Thanks everyone! Thank you, Bruce!
I have to say this before signing off - Steph is probably the greatest inspiration - providing us with an example of how one goes on, even when facing the daily reminder of the trauma she experienced. She's showing us all how to live, even when faced with the unspeakable.
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When one reaches the unmentionable "Fourth Chapter" there is a very noticeable lack of physical energy to follow up on any bright ideas one may have. This a a great impediment to many activities and most travel. We have books and computers, which are a great blessing.
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I'm with you, JoanP, regarding the AARP commercial. I never know what I want to be/do when I grow up.
With the help of grants and aid for Aging Workers and Displaced Workers (aka laid-off), I have enrolled at my local college. My goal is to get a Certificate in Accounting. I chose that course because bookkeeping is what I started out in, and liked, before I got side-tracked with other things. It also gives me a class in Tax Accounting that the Professional Bookkeeper Certificate doesn't. Hopefully, I have made a good choice. (My Dad always used to say I should be a Bookie since I liked horses and bookkeeping so much ;D ).
Still, it is a shock and a big bummer to know that the economy, technology changes in printing, and getting laid-off are putting my retirement dreams on indefinite hold.
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Hmm.. It seems as if an entry I wrote last night didn't post. I'm not sure why. It seemed to. But maybe the system timed out or I accidentally went offline without noticing. Drats!
I won't be able to take time to post again until this evening, but promise to do so then. Sorry. Bruce
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Hey Bruce. You are not alone. The disappearing post happens to all of us. After it happens often enough one writes posts in WORD or Notepad and then copies and pastes. We are all so grateful to your being here and taking so much time to talk with us.
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One of the ladies she interviewed had begun going to casinos after retiring from a long career in the service of others. When her activist friends chided her about not continuing her efforts with volunteer work, she said, “I am enjoying the privilege of wasting time.” Amen and amen!!
Callie, the comments above remind me of some of the comments currently being posted in The Library – a reminder that there are often people who think they know best what others should read or how they should spend their time. I’d like to read The Third Chapter, especially the Go-Slow section, and am reminded that years ago on SeniorNet we read Carolyn Heilbrun’s (Amanda Cross) The Last Gift of Time: Life Beyond 60. It may now be a bit outdated, as I recall a chapter about wearing pants – who doesn’t? -- and another about learning email. :P What I mostly remember is the anger and frustration in our group when we learned about Heilbrun’s suicide at age 77, something she had always threatened to do.
Frybabe, it looks like you haven’t lost your sense of humor, even though your retirement dreams have been put on hold. Good luck with the accounting and tax classes. The one thing I knew I really wanted to do when I retired from being a school librarian was to take the H&R Block Tax course, just because I liked doing my own taxes and wanted to know more. I did end up working for them for one tax season – didn’t like it, but did enjoy being an AARP tax volunteer for five years.
Ursamajor talks about the unmentionable Fourth Chapter when disabilities prevent us from doing what we want to do. Yes, they can and they do, but she also speaks positively about alternatives such as books and computers. I think we make adjustments and/or substitutions all the time as we move from stage to stage, be they walkers or wheelchairs, flat shoes or talking computers. I can’t imagine life without captions, on phone and TV. (AARP didn’t caption their commercial, so that’s probably why it didn’t bother me – I didn’t hear that bit about “grown ups.”)
JoanP, I’m going to paraphrase (i.e. shorten) you list above – it’s great
Be curious
Do something
Enjoy
Adjust
Go
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Ah! Pedln, one more thing that is always in the back of my mind, take chances, small ones or big ones, while being sure someone else will NOT have to pick up the pieces if they don't work. If you don't try, surely you wont succeed.
Right now I am fighting the inclination to just loaf. I have reduced my travel and activities over the past 5 years. I am looking at a different kind of challenge, like singing in a choir with my tiny voice and hardly any musical skills, but I love to listen to choir music.
Frybabe, I love your dad's sense of humor.
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Eloise - I have a wonderful photo of your smiling , happy face as you sang into the microphone at our Montreal bash. Tiny voice? Nonsense - you were great and I'm sure still are. So join the choir!!
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Please let me emphasize that the book "The Third Chapter" does not contain anything about the "Go-Go, Slo-Go, No-Go".
That comment was made to me by my doctor and I have no idea where he came up with it.
JoanR, I have a picture of Eloise singing at the Bash in Calgary. She was the "Hostess With The Mostest" for the Bash in Montreal.
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I have had a feeling for the last few years perhaps summed up by the dying words of Cecil Rhodes, "so little time, so much to do".....
I think the new things I have taken up are all related to the thought that this is getting to be my last chance to learn about stuff before the lights go out.....so I'm doing stuff I would hate to have died and missed out on! in my case these things happen to be all to do with learning, I've done my travel and it wasn't as wonderful as I thought it would be, and I'm not athletic or artistic or altruistic.
So in answer to the question about how to decide what to do if nothing immediately appeals, I suggest the above !!
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Hi!
Well, Dana, having a sense of urgency certainly isn't the worst incentive, particularly if it pushes you to leap toward learning. I would suggest, though, that having a sense that what you do matters, helps. And that sometimes, we're not conscious of how our efforts to learn or do help others, so it takes a certain attitude of faith that they do. But just take this discussion. While each of us may have our own personal, even narcissistic reasons for things we say, each contribution becomes part of a creative communal project which may have ripples into the world well beyond anything we can know. I think adopting a mindful attitude that sees our efforts, whatever they are, as being important to the world, no matter how unseen they may appear, has a potent effect. Just opening the door to the possibility that whatever we do matters changes the act of doing it.
Eloise, you keep making me smile. As Jean said, there is a strong resemblance to the story of my mother's return to painting. I loved this: I love to cook for my large family, I sew and knit. I baby sat and helped my grandchildren with their studies … I need a new challenge away from here. What, for instance? It will certainly be something risky, because that’s where I will find the most satisfaction, where I feel I have accomplished something worthwhile.
First, it reminded me of the way things were in Brooklyn for my mother’s family until later in my boyhood. On each floor of their house, there was a different generation or relation. The house and family were one. And perhaps when my mother visits the conversation – hopefully soon -- she can talk a little about how that arrangement in childhood had long-lasting effects.
What I thought about most, though, was Gregory Berns’s book Satisfaction. In it, he looks at the science of how and why the brain is satisfied. I’ll bypass the fascinating neuroscience of the book – how satisfaction can be seen at a deep level of the brain, known as the striatum, where information and individual meet, and how that triggers the release of dopamine. The important thing is that he shows how risk and novelty are at the heart of satisfaction and without them satisfaction ceases to exist. Reading Satisfaction made me intensely aware of why – the biological reason – it is important to leave our comfort zone in learning. There are other reasons, too. Studies have shown that if you want to cause cognitive growth, one of the best things you can do is challenge yourself with other, differing, unfamiliar viewpoints. Of course, this is just the opposite of the habits of comfort we naturally also desire. .... more later...
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Oh Pedlin, I too spent five years as a tax volunteer for AARP and would still be doing it, but we moved to a new area and the training and settings are 45 minutes away.. May give it a go this year though.
I love learning... and taking in person type classes.. I still do a lot of genealogical research, but am cautious now about helping others on line. Just kept finding too much of my very hard work being passed off as someone elses..
I love travel and when MDH was alive, we had an RV and had such a blast exploring all of the highways and byways of this glorious country.. Then we would fly off to Europe, climb on a river boat and take in the scenery and he could enjoy the unpack once syndrome.. I will figure a way to travel again.. But I sold the RV.. No way I was going to drive a 40' footer.. But I know I will figure out another plan..
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" Studies have shown that if you want to cause cognitive growth, one of the best things you can do is challenge yourself with other, differing, unfamiliar viewpoints. Of course, this is just the opposite of the habits of comfort we naturally also desire."
Thank you, BRUCE, for that comment. A good one. We try to do that in our book discussions.
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Ella, I can see from this discussion how valuable book conversation about work that was contrary to members' zeitgeist could become very interesting, provocative, and beneficial. We often speak of it as "stretching ourselves," bit it's interesting to hold the image of something outside us stretching us or our little crenelated brains.
Here's a question for you: What do you think it is in your experience that causes you to become connected enough to an activity, a project, a group, an idea, or whatever, that makes you feel a passionate need to see it develop?
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I just received in the mail an offer for some in-person learning at one of our retirement centers. There is one class on the brain and its learning capacities as we age. Each of these classes is offered in four 2hour increments and are taught by professors from the local colleges. Sounds quite interesting to me but there also one on the history of Broadway shows and I think that's what I will sign up for.
Bruce,
Can't wait to hear from your mother. She does deserve to be in any of your books.
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BRUCE - offhand I would say it is a passion for learning that connects us to books and discussion of them. The opinions of others, ideas! Ideas to occupy our mind as we go about the daily tasks of life. New ideas. It's a mental thing, rather than physical and good for all of us and, particularly for those among us who cannot get out too well, cannot walk as we used to walk.
Developing and keeping this site current is of great importance to many of us.
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Dana, Latin student extraordinaire, welcome. It’s really good to see you here.
and I'm not athletic or artistic or altruistic.
– I don’t believe that for a minute. You jump hoops around the rest of us in class.
The opinions of others, ideas! Ideas to occupy our mind as we go about the daily tasks of life. New ideas.
Ella, so true.
In about 2 shakes a friend is coming for dinner and then we’re heading for First Friday – the night in my small community that all the art galleries open up and beckon us. And forget about finding a place to park if you arrive after 6 pm. This year my church is celebrating 175 years, and it is joining the art community tonight with an exhibit of works from 35 members of our small congregation. A lot of talent here. And most of it over 60 year-olds.
Steph – you will find a way to travel. Already in September y ou’ve got two choices, and how I wish you could do both.
Off to try a new veggie dish.
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I am now exploring a widows group, very large in a neighboring community. They go on bus trips and as much as I have not been fond of them, possibly it will provide a way for me to keep exploring our world. We shall see.
I love the First Friday type things. Live in too small a town to have any art galleries.. But there are several around here who do such things.. I am still somewhat timid about driving after dark.. But sooner or later it will get easier.
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What a terrific discussion! I am enjoying it so much. I love hearing the stories of the people here on SeniorLearn, who are so inspiring, just in their approaches to life and in the ways they learned to cope with life's vicissitudes.
When I first came to SeniorNet, I was "too young," but I've marveled at the strength a lot of our members have shown, not all publicly, in their lives. I say to myself, well XXX experienced that and look how courageously and well she/ he did, and that acts as an exemplar. It's comforting to see The Greatest Generation is here alive, well, and coping.
Robby I think most of those at the Chicago Gathering and the Isle of Palms and your harem hahahaha are here, what fun those all were. What great memories. I seem to remember in Chicago your giving up your own room and taking a room in a hotel away from the gathering so two women could have a central safe place to stay, too. That's like you, and went unheralded at the time.
I have photos of you walking out on the beach. And I still remember your saying for long stints at the computer you always get up, I've forgotten the pattern, one hour, two hours? And walk. Maybe those of you on the Friends site might like to let them know Robby's here in the discussion of Bruce's book and we're talking about the various gatherings we have attended over the last 12 years.
Bruce you are absolutely fabulous. I so look forward to meeting you in NYC. It should not be a surprise after reading your book, however.
I keep looking at the locations: Haddonfield NJ, close to Moorestown, my own stomping ground, Broward County Florida, Takoma Park, Maryland, Warranton, Virginia, DC, Mass, etc., etc. How did you hear about all these people in such various locales?
I'm trying to figure out what they have in common and then what they have in common with the common man (me/ us). That stage, it seems to me, the post retirement 65's, where you're not at the (whatever doctor said it: No Go stage) but sort of in a limbo, really, one career finished, the late 60's---doesn't always have answers. Or clear directions. We're not all going to be like some of these folks, or even when we follow a particular dream, it MAY not be rewarded...except to provide inherent pleasure. How are small dreams different from these big ones?
Sometimes, especially in the new '60's, when people are caught up in maybe fulfilling the expectations and challenges of daily life, they don't have a lot of time for pursuing individual pursuits and interests. And they may not feel that AHA moment that points them on the path.
So if we had to outline each story, what, I ask myself, do they have in common? Is it fair to say each one, doing what they do anyway, the mother at the party for her 2nd grader, the retired teacher wanting to help teach again, the sculptor, the late life filmmaker, kept working on the individual thing they liked to do, and kept at it, the "keeping at it" being key, refining it, just kept swimming, till it really did become something extraordinary?
Is it more a question of live this day as if you knew it were your last, or what would you do if you were told you'd live 100 more years in perfect health? What would you want to do? Is it too late?
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Another example of successful engagement by those over 60 also was on the P.O.V. program the other night, the volunteers, three senior citizens who between them have welcomed back personally 800,000 troops. I've been on airplanes where the pilot asked for a round of applause for returning soldiers, I think the actions of those fine volunteers are incredible.
Volunteers, people who do things for the love of it, without, perhaps, an eye on the prize at the end, will be the sung heroes, I hope, of the new millennium.
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And Ginny, those seniors caring for a loved one too.
Many people over 60 who are seldom in the limelight are spouses who have been nursing their sick partner for years and years, often wearing themselves to the bone and sometimes dying before their sick spouse deserve praise, awards, medals, grants, Oscars and instead they are left alone to cope with their problems, ignored by society and often also health professionals. They don’t have time to go after their dreams because their dreams have been put on the back burner until their spouse dies and afterwards they have lost their health unable to fulfil the dream.
Jean says Women Hold Up Half the Sky yes.
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From the inside cover of Bruce's book -
"What Should I Do with the Rest of My Life" captures the singular lives of everyday, yet extraordinary "late bloomers" who have already discovered unforeseen pleasures, and over thrown the usual expectations of age."*
Do we all aspire to becoming "late bloomers?" (I mean, consider the alternative!)
Bruce presents us with success stories - people who faced challenging, often difficult times, yet were able to find a more satisfying or fulfilling way to live.
Eloise and Ginnyspeak of the volunteers who contribute so much. Surely, (hopefully) these people find fullfillment in this service. Bruce provides several examples of these volunteers in his book. The two that stand out in my mind - Ira Smith and Barbara Kelly and their amazing Household Goods Recycling Ministry. Annie and I were talking about them the other day.
Bruce's purpose was to inspire his readers, to provide reassurance that we too might find the same success as these ordinary people.
In the course of this discussion we are finding that it isn't easy to find the right path. In your candid responses, we are beginning to see signs of encouragement for those who seek. For those Ginny describes as being in a sort of "Limbo." Just recognizing that one is in limbo is a start, don't you think? How does one get out of Limbo? Listening to Steph considering the bus tour, leaving her comfort zone to expand her world, I can't help but be inspired. And Fry, not ready to retire - struggling to handle that forced retirement in a new direction. (Fry, how about leaving the old company name behind for starters! How about just BABE? :D )
Bruce, do you see a new book somewhere down the road - for those who stuggle to make a change? For someone like me with so many interests - and commitments, that the whole situation is overwhelming? It's not easy being Gemini!
You ask an important question -
What do you think it is in your experience that causes you to become connected enough to an activity, a project, a group, an idea, or whatever, that makes you feel a passionate need to see it develop?
*You asked earlier how to highlight a quote. When you are in the Reply box, you see two rows of buttons above the posting box. Highlight the words you wish to quote and then, while highlighted, press the next to the last button. See how that works for you...
Happy Saturday everyone! Explore - outside the box!
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Here's a question for you: What do you think it is in your experience that causes you to become connected enough to an activity, a project, a group, an idea, or whatever, that makes you feel a passionate need to see it develop?
I forgot to say this is an excellent question!! Something to ponder today.
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First, apologies for writing so late last night that my first sentence if barely understandable, even to me.
Anyway...
Ella, I like your "new ideas" response. I'm guessing that has much to do with your connection to SeniorLearn.org. And I can see how addictive it can become.
The other day I mentioned my interview with philosopher William Barrett and his sad take on his failure to become a novelist. But I had another experience with Barrett, my first meeting with him, years before my interview, of which your response, Ella, reminded me. It is, I think, truly germane and makes me wonder, what if a man like Barrett had had a relationship with a group like this? (BTW: I believe I wrote his book was One Dimensional Man; I misstated: the title was Irrational Man.) Here's the story:
When I was in my 20s, I was dating a smart, contained young woman name Joanne who was still living at home with her family in Tarrytown, NY. One evening, while I was there, I was introduced to her younger sister's friend, who happened to be William Barrett's daughter, Nell. I told her how much I admired her father's work. She was astonished, being a teenager in her own world, that anyone other than her father's students might know his work. I told her how much I would love to me him. Then and there, she picked up the telephone and called her dad. "Dad, there's a guy here who says..." When she got off the phone, Barrett's daughter said, "Willie says that if you want to meet him, drive over to the house and pick him up and bring a six-pack of beer."
I did just that, and brought him back to Joanne's parents' house, where we all sat on the floor and listened to William Barrett hold forth, opening his capacious mind and sharing his thoughts, principally on the brilliance of Cezanne, Picasso, and Giacometti. The night progressed into the wee hours. And late along, I drove Barrett home. But we ran into a few problems: a heavy fog had rolled in off the Hudson, making it difficult for me to see anything that would remind me, unfamiliar as I was with the neighborhood, how to get back to Barrett's house. And he had had too many beers to help. So, eventually I pulled off to the side of the road to wait for things to clear. While we sat there, I asked Barrett a question I can't quite remember, but it elicited a response I will never forget. He said, "If you're asking me how I go on with my life, living here," he said, in part, referring to the fact that in suburbia there was not of the intellectual hotbed of his youth. "I'll tell you, I carry my community inside me and I continue to have conversations with the great minds of my past."
At the time, I thought it was a great and sustaining answer. Now, decades later, I see two sides of it. And what strikes me most deeply is how lucky we are if we can properly use the technology available to us properly, to be able to make real and actual connections -- and share current ideas -- to energize our minds, hearts, and lives, and not have to settle for the imagined conversation. I know there are a lot of frivolous use of the internet, but seeing the conversation here has made me see, too, how powerfully enriching and motivating a site like this can be. And what a shame Willie Barrett, who was critical of how contemporary society was missing the proper directives of technology, never got a chance to benefit.
And thank you, Ginny. Let's see if I can answer some of your questions:
I keep looking at the locations: Haddonfield NJ, close to Moorestown, my own stomping ground, Broward County Florida, Takoma Park, Maryland, Warranton, Virginia, DC, Mass, etc., etc. How did you hear about all these people in such various locales?
My methods of research were various. I found some subject doing web searches like "Success after sixty?" I also called lots of organizations. I called the Small Business Administration in Washington, D.C., for example, and asked for help in finding an entrepreneur who fit my criteria. A lovely woman in the press office sent out a nationwide request, and field officers sent back recommendations. Another instance: I wrote SeniorNet and Marcie Schwarz responded by referring Robby and Betty Reid Soskin. (I am eternally grateful to Marcie.) Others came through word of mouth.
We're not all going to be like some of these folks, or even when we follow a particular dream, it MAY not be rewarded...except to provide inherent pleasure. How are small dreams different from these big ones?
Well, first, I'm sitting here wondering: what does it mean to "be rewarded?" Few of the people featured were "rewarded" financially, so it's not that. They were rewarded by having achieved something tangible, something that validated their steadfast efforts. And I believed such commitment and passion always leads somewhere. But what if if, say, Thomas had danced all these years in class but not gotten the break he did and fallen into the spotlight. He still would have benefitted in enormous ways. He still would have found his "truest tribe." He still would have had the intellectual, physical, and communal benefits of daily engagement with dance. What if Margie had run, but not won? For her, competition is critical and winning means a lot. But I think it's fair to imagine that her discipline, would have brought other rewards; the engagement might have meant spending more time working with young children, and that may have developed. But, of course, she would still have the reward of feeling her own, personal accomplishment, of her health and attitude. What if the Smiths had merely continued to serve their community, but had not won recognition: As happy as the recognition may make them, I have every reason to believe their daily service to others is what matters most to them. That is their reward.
So if we had to outline each story, what, I ask myself, do they have in common? Is it fair to say each one, doing what they do anyway, the mother at the party for her 2nd grader, the retired teacher wanting to help teach again, the sculptor, the late life filmmaker, kept working on the individual thing they liked to do, and kept at it, the "keeping at it" being key, refining it, just kept swimming, till it really did become something extraordinary?
Yes, I think that's it precisely. As Dana Dakin says, what made her organization successful wasn't "brain science, we just kept coming back." In a sense, it's that personal devotion that transforms. Neuroscientists now know that it's precisely that repetition that causes new chemical tracks to be laid down in the brain, causes neurogenisis and reorganization of the brain. And it seems to me that when what we do, passionately (meaning with devotion) and with discipline, intersects with engagement with others, what I think of as success is inevitable.
Is it more a question of live this day as if you knew it were your last, or what would you do if you were told you'd live 100 more years in perfect health? What would you want to do? Is it too late?
Paritially, yes. But I'm not so sure it's necessary to add the freight of "your last day." It certainly helped Alidra Solday, though, to ask the question, "What do I want to do in my next lifetime?" when her life was threatened. Ultimately, she answered, "What if there is no next?" and she began her way to becoming a documentarian. She took a class. Then more classes. Then she found an idea. And so on, step by step, for five years. But having this conversation has made me keenly aware it is being present and committed do doing what we do. Those who do things with a civic purpose attached will, I think, naturally have expanding goals. But, for what it's worth, I believe that creativity is born of the love of doing something and the devotion and presence it requires of us. My mother's paintings will never be museum works and that was never her ambition. Her ambition was to do what she loved well, and then better. And out of that came connection to others -- in class and outside. For the purpose of the book, I sought examples of people whose work had received external validation because I thought it best to show the extent of the possible. And reading the last sentence back to myself I wonder if that doesn't ultimately hold the key to what I believe most important: Living in a state of possibility. Not the dreamy place that doesn't exist, but possibility that exists because we apply ourselves, body and soul, to what we love.
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Fry, how about leaving the old company name behind for starters!
I thought about it, JoanP, but I haven't figured out how to change the name without reregistering. Don't care for just plain Babe. Margie works.
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Great subject.. We’ve just returned from a trip to Iceland and England (24-hours of travel yesterday - does give one jet lag), so I’m just getting caught up.
Travel is certainly one of the things we took up after John retired at the end of 1991 (age 57) - and just as we mark a place off our list, we add 2-3 more to the bottom. We’ll keep going until the health and/or money runs out.
When John was transferred to Chattanooga in 1986, I was 50 and for the first time no longer raising children, involved in the community, or working. I had taken a painting class for fun a few years earlier, and really enjoyed it, so on the spur of the moment decided to take some more classes. This instantly changed into going back to college full time to finish the degree I had started 35 years earlier. I signed up at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga as a full time student, majoring in art. Three years later, I had a BA in Art (all my academic credits from all those years ago had transferred) and a BFA in Painting. So now I guess I’m an artist - I certainly enjoy what I do, in any case. And that’s all that counts!
Sometimes we do things just because we’re in the right place at the right time when an opportunity comes up. Isn’t that serendipity?
Hi, Ursamajor - I’m from Chattanooga. I found the old SeniorNet about 12 years ago, and found my way here and to Seniors & Friends after SN’s demise. I also am a knitter, reader (Kindle2), puzzle-worker, blogger, and photographer. As for exercise, I participate in a deep-water aerobics class 3 days a week at our local Y.
I’ve always felt that everyone is creative in some way or other - participating in “the arts” is not the only way to express yourself. Dance has been mentioned here, but any kind of music will do - and what about cooking? Or decorating? Or gardening? Or volunteering and organizing? The list goes on…..
Ps - I’m 74.
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Here's a good story from a lady author who I think contacted me when I was in charge of Author's Corner back in the dark ages on SN. She would certainly fit into one of Bruce's books.
http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewarticle.asp?AuthorID=1713&id=11784
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He said, "If you're asking me how I go on with my life, living here," he said, in part, referring to the fact that in suburbia there was not of the intellectual hotbed of his youth. "I'll tell you, I carry my community inside me and I continue to have conversations with the great minds of my past."
Bruce, I'm not sure I know what W. Barret was saying. He didn't feel he got stimulation from those in his community? He looked only to within? That could be lonely . . or snobby, I"m not sure. He sounds like a decent person, otherwise, though unfullfilled, as you mentioned earlier.
Welcome MaryZ, and thank you for sharing your “second life” activities with us. I knew than both you and John were really very good photographers, but didn’t know that you were also an artist.
I’ve always felt that everyone is creative in some way or other - participating in “the arts” is not the only way to express yourself. Dance has been mentioned here, but any kind of music will do - and what about cooking? Or decorating? Or gardening? Or volunteering and organizing? The list goes on
We can put so many on that list. This discussion has set me to thinking about many who, while they may not have gone into second endeavors in their later years, continued on with their careers practically until the day they died. Jessica Tandy is one who come to mind – winning an Oscar at age 80, and acting in two others in 1993 and in 94, the year of death.
And then there is Tao Porchon-Lynch, a 91 year-old yogi and ballroom dancer found on Bruce’s website.
Tao, Yogi and Dancer (http://brucefrankel.net/index.php/site/articles/category/dance/)
And check out her video (link on the page) Ann, you mentioned about the trim and thin people the other day. And here's flexible, too.
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Ginny, I guess many of us here have already met over the years at one of SeniorNet's gatherings and Robby was always the most popular bachelor dancing with every lady in sight. He was appointed King of the Williamsport Bash, Callie do you remember? It was there that I met Pedln and Anne, Joan R, Stephanie, Ginny and Robby and many more. It was enormous fun to meet seniors with whom I had known only through our discussions on SN. I am looking forward to seeing some of you when we get together in New York next month for our Soirée in NYC.
Ursamajor “I would like to be able to get past "What's the point? .... of paint ing or anything else." My 85 year old brother, at the age of 52, when he was forced into retirement as an accountant, became a famous painter and last year he won the Quebec National Assembly Medal for his contribution to the arts. He still paints even if he is now partly paralyzed.
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Good morning.
Thank you AdoAnnie for the reference to Carolyn Howard-Johnson; I will take a look at her novel.
And greetings MaryZ. I'm wondering if SeniorLearn.org has any way for members to post their art, writing, or video. If it doesn't already exist, it might be great to have a SeniorLearn gallery, where members could go to take a look at the work their classmates and correspondents were doing. Do you, MaryZ paint regularly? Why are you hesitant about calling yourself an artist?
Apologies for the garbled sentence on Barrett:
He said, "If you're asking me how I go on with my life, living here," he said, in part, referring to the fact that in suburbia there was not of the intellectual hotbed of his youth. "I'll tell you, I carry my community inside me and I continue to have conversations with the great minds of my past."
I meant to write "... referring to the fact that in suburbia he didn't have access to the intellectual hotbed of his youth."
As an editor of the Partisan Review and later the literary critic for the Atlantic Monthly magazine, he had the most vibrant kind of intellectual life imagineable. He was good friend with the poet Delmore Schwartz for many years, until Schwartz's decline, and he knew such literary figures as Edmund Wilson, Philip Rahv, and Albert Camus.
PedIn asked:
Bruce, I'm not sure I know what W. Barret was saying. He didn't feel he got stimulation from those in his community? He looked only to within? That could be lonely . . or snobby, I"m not sure. He sounds like a decent person, otherwise, though unfullfilled, as you mentioned earlier.
Barrett felt isolated in suburbia. I have no real way of knowing how much he really knew of his neighbors. But he felt unsuited to live in his bedroom community, where so many of the men boarded the train each morning at the Tarrytown train station and went off to their jobs in the city. Barrett imagined most of them going to work on Wall Street, though that was no doubt less true than he imagined. Other than his bi-weekly trips into New York City (30 min. by train south of Tarrytown) to teach at NYU, I think he felt quite cut-off from any kind of intellectual conversation on which he might have thrived. So, yes, it was a lonely existence. I think he was very happy when Nell, his teenage daughter from his second marriage, brought kids through the house. My point, though, was this: I wondered how much different his life might have been if he had been living in a time where simply by joining something like SeniorLearn he might have found a meaningful outlet for his wish to engage intellectually. I don't think he was a snob. He was brilliant and erudite, and spent much of his life studying things that he felt few who lived around him knew much about. They were, to his mind, well versed in the assessed valuations of their homes, not much up on Kant and Hegel. He was, though, not just commenting on his neighbors; he was also commenting on the fact that he didn't possess a common language.
Tao Porchon-Lynch is an amazing woman. Last week, she taught a yoga class in New York City and Jane Fonda came down from Woodstock, NY, to take it. One of the truly astonishing things is how quickly Tao repaired after she broke both wrists when she slipped on an icy, rickety back staircase for a Chinese restaurant she had gone into up in Westchester. Since taking her class, I have tried to follow her advice and do at least a little yoga in the morning on rising and at night before sleep. She is convinced it is the twists that have been particularly beneficial as she aged. Her degree of flexibility is just amazing. Lovely woman!
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Hi Bruce - interesting question (why do I hesitate to call myself an “artist”?) I guess I always feel there’s more to learn and do. I usually describe myself as a “painter”, reserving the term “artist” to the Masters. I do paint often. The gallery where I’ve been showing, and using as my studio, has just closed and I’m having to decide where and when I’m going to be able to work. I’ve been painting and hanging-out with my friend/teacher/mentor/gallery owner for over 20 years. She’s had a major life change, and decided to close her space. So even now, things change and we must deal with the changes.
The “ordinary” people in your book doing extra-ordinary things are inspiring to all of us…maybe not so much “extra-ordinary” as just “a little bit more”.
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Talking Heads #10
A forum for opinions on anything in print: magazines, newspaper articles, online: bring your ideas and let's discuss.
"Choices – For the Rest of Your Life?"
| (http://www.seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/whatshouldIdo/what.jpg) | We are fortunate to have Bruce Frankel as our guest in this month's Talking Heads discussion. Bruce is the author of "What Should I Do With the Rest of My Life?" in which he presents us with more than a dozen profiles of individuals he calls "ordinary people who embraced new possibilities late in life - extraordinary late bloomers who have overthrown the usual expectations of age."
| (http://www.seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/whatshouldIdo/robby.jpg) | Profiled in the book is one of SeniorLearn's own Discussion Leaders, Robby Iadeluca, a practicing clinical psychologist, who still conducts a full schedule of therapy sessions, five days a week at the age of 90! A Review of Bruce's book (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/NYCtrip/frankelbookreview.html); Amazon link (http://www.amazon.com/What-Should-Do-Rest-Life/dp/1583333657/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279830869&sr=1-1) |
Our questions for Bruce as we consider these profiles:
- Are these ordinary people like you and me...or do they possess extraordinary talent, wealth or physical fitness?
- What inspiration can we take from his research today? |
Thanks for joining us, Bruce! We're looking forward to hearing your words of acquired wisdom!
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| (http://www.seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/whatshouldIdo/maxine3.jpg) | On the other side of the issue, ..."Gerontologists tend to think of successful aging as taking advantage of what potential there is, staying as socially and intellectually engaged as possible. Our culture tends to measure it more in terms of how active people are." |
"Part of the pressure on older people to be successful and give back and volunteer and be active and play tennis is that we are a culture of doing. We don't really know how to be. That's something that late life gives us, is time to be. But that's stigmatized." "Turn 70.Act Your Grandchild’s Age" Kate Zernike, NY Times (http://www.sikhchic.com/people/turn_70_act_your_grandchilds_age)
1. Are goals and expectations necessary for our “second life?”
2. What is ageism? Outside of public policy decisions (i.e. Social Security, medicare, etc.) should age be a consideration?
3. Whose Second Lives do you celebrate?
4. Do you or did you look forward to life after 65?
5. Did you have any specials plans.
Your opinion? Let's discuss!
I am absolutely blown away by this discussion. It reminds me of the "old" SNet discussions of yesteryear, when we all came together wanting to voice our individual opinions and contemplate the thoughts of thers. This is great and I thank you Bruce for the opportunity to read this. I am going out tomorrow (when and if I ever get home) and buy your book. After all,I will meet you in NYCity and would love to discussany issue in your book.
Everyone of you amaze me. You are so proficient and dedicated in all that you do. It amazes me that any one of you question your great worth. Robbie, our resident bachelor is of course held in greatest esteem by each one of us. Ginny, JoanP,Marcie, Jane, Pedln,Eloise, Steph, many of you whom I've already met and many of you, I am looking forward to meeting, amaze me with your vibrant wit, gentle humor, your dedication to learning and your humility.
You have what I sorely lack and that is dedication and commitment.
Daily, I question myself about the issues that have been posited here by Bruce and by the posters.
Daily, I search my heart and my mind asking myself "where do I go" where do I belong, what do I want to do?"
I'm not big on bucket lists so after 2 years of various courses at the college level and the local level of our community I still sit and shake my head, wondering with sadness, "Is there a place for me?" Where do I want to go from here?
Bruce's book may just be the connection to commitment that I need.
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I may have missed it but I don't recall Bruce explaining how he celebrated Harry's birthday. He carefully removed the first page of the chapter of each of the other twelve of us and mailed them to us. We then wrote a Happy Birthday inscription on this first page and mailed it back to Bruce. Bruce then carefully put them back again in their proper place.
Wasn't that a neat gift?
Robby
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Robby,
Yes, that is a neat idea for Harry's birthay present. By the way, are you joining us at Sarabeth's for tea on Sept 11th?? We would love to have you attend.
I have decided that my place in life is being a CATALYST. I have so much enthusiasm about life in general and I am always directing people where to contact someone, where to find a class, a talk being given, a book that you cannot miss, etc,etc.
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Thanks, Robby. It was a great way for me to bring everyone from the book to join me in celebrating Harry Bernstein's 100th birthday. He is, after all, the senior member of the book. But more, it gave me an opportunity, to feel as if all the people in the book who had shared so much with me could be joined in a collective act.
Too, Harry had been very generous in praising the book and in expressing his admiration of others in the book, and I knew how much it would mean to him to have everyone in the book wishing him well. And it did. He was very grateful and moved.
I am always amazed by Harry's mind and memory, but was growing concerned about his ability to bounce back from an illness. He had been recovering for months in his daughter's apartment in Brooklyn Heights. Always, when we spoke, even through his worst coughing spells, he remained committed to finishing his fourth book, which he was dictating onto a recorder for his daughter, a nurse practitioner with many responsibilities, to type at night before she went to bed. Every time we spoke over the phone as I worked on the book, Harry would, at some point turn the conversation away from him and ask me, "So, Bruce, how is the book coming?"
I was as desperate to see it published in March for my sake as to be able to say to Harry, it has been published. I knew how much he wanted that for me. Having suffered so many years of rejection -- 40 novels rejected -- over so many years, he was, other than my mother and Robby, perhaps my greatest cheerleader. He even nominated me for a Guggenheim award, of which he is the oldest recipient ever. So, my gratitude to Harry as a subject for my book, as a model of persistence as a writer, and now as a friend is considerable.
I prayed that he would be well enough to celebrate his birthday on May 30. That that morning, when he awoke, he felt a little disoriented. He was, after all, not in his own home, but still in the hospital bed in the spare bedroom of his daughter's apartment (in the converted hotel where my parents were married in 1947!). He wasn't sure yet if he would attend his party. He knew there would be lots of people, relatives and friends, but he wasn't sure how he felt about it all. He reviewed birthdays passed, ones celebrated long, long ago on the divided street in Stockport, England where he grew up before WWI and ones he celebrated with his beloved Ruby in their first apartment in Greenwich Village when he was first trying to become a novelist.
He got up and got dressed in a now too-large corduroy jacket, and, from his wheelchair, greeted everyone who came to the restaurant to celebrate. He gave a gracious speech, thanking everyone, including his editors who were present and a reader who has come to visit his every week, for their support and wishes. After the cake was finished, Harry went home and within a few days had completed his fourth book, sent it off to his agent, and had a new novel underway. It was a joyful 100th birthday!
Maryz, thank you for your remarks on the discussion!
You wrote: Daily, I search my heart and my mind asking myself "where do I go" where do I belong, what do I want to do?"
I'm not big on bucket lists so after 2 years of various courses at the college level and the local level of our community I still sit and shake my head, wondering with sadness, "Is there a place for me?" Where do I want to go from here?
I spent quite a while last night pondering the best way to respond. It sounds as if you are already on your way, taking courses. As Robby would be the first to point out, there are many questions one would want to ask before jumping in with any answer for you. We, of course, each already have "a place." The question is how we develop it, how we leverage our individual experience and history in a meaningful way. There is, I believe, no universal answer, no single script. We are too individual in our natures, histories, family backgrounds and relationships, and experience for that.
But asking yourself questions is always a good place to start. For instance, in recent times, whose story have you perked up at? who have you heard about and said, "Wow, if I could ever..."?? What job or cause or area of study have you come across that caused you to say, 'That's interesting, I wish I had the time to ... ' ? Writing down the answers as an exercise may be helpful. Trying to understand where your own resistance comes from in choosing a path may also be helpful, for ultimately we're our own worst gatekeepers. I've seen a suggestion that as an exercise it's helpful to write down jobs and paths you don't want to take, list why, and then, write down the opposite of those negatives for your perfect path's description. But I'm more and more inclined to think the answer for all of us lies at the intersection of mindful curiosity (taking the time to recognize and pursue our curiosity, seeing meaning and value in that pursuit) and action while in doubt (taking steps, no matter how small, rudimentary, ordinary, or distant from our imagined goal) and using visualization (taking the time to fill ourselves with the vision of our fantasy, no matter how grandiose).
In reading your question, I'm reminded of something an educator once told me about how to talk to your child after a day in school. He told me that it's a waste of time to ask a child what he did with his day at school when he comes home. The child will, predictably shrug and say, "Nothin'." I think we're a little like that child when we ask ourselves such a large question as "What should I do with the rest of my life?"
Why does the child say, "Nothin'" ? The educator suggested to me that it was because the opposite was true. The child's day is filled with so many things he can barely remember them all, and he learns early that what adults seem to want to hear about are outcomes, not, "Oh, I looked at an ant today." So, the educator suggested, when you ask a child about his day, ask him to tell you one thing he did or saw or thought about. Inevitably, talking about one thing will lead to others.
By the same token, I wonder if it isn't too much to ask of yourself -- particularly when asked with "sadness" and judgment -- 'Where is my place?' Better, I suspect, to ask, "Where is my place today, now?" and work from there. As I have said, most of the people in my book could not have predicted where they would end up.
But they seemed to have a couple of traits in common. They forgave themselves their "failures." Forgiveness of the self unlocks the door that self-blame keeps barred. It is a terrible paradox, but a true one. Of that, I am convinced. Self-blame keeps you tied to the past, protected from risk, and unable to access the very energy needed to move forward. The subjects of the book also live their lives forward: they keep their attention on the things that they want to accomplish. And I think they accept that it is a process, but are able to celebrate each step as if it were tantamount to succeeding entirely. They don't say, "I'm only taking a class." They connect it to their goal and celebrate it.
Lastly, while I might be the first person to make fun of it, I believe in the benefit of visualization. I know from reading in neurology that when we see ourselves doing things, our brain -- particularly the more practice we give it -- fires the same way it would if we were doing that thing. So, imagining is practicing. And becoming something, anything, is a matter of regular practice. And practice, not to go all yogic on you, is about doing something mindfully, in this moment, without judgment. When I began working on the book, a friend told me to see myself talking about the book on Oprah. I couldn't do that without subverting the image. But what I could and did do -- every time I flagged -- was close my eyes and see myself writing final pages, or handing the manuscript over, or signing the published book for someone. Every day, I got on the treadmill at the gym, I told myself, if I can make it for 30 minutes today, I can write another page; and I would see myself six months away, in better shape, ready for my publication. Ha! Dumb, I know, but effective.
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ALF: it's hard to believe that you question yourself: you are such a spirit for the rest of us.
I am questioning myself, too. I feel that I am in a rut, spending too much of my time on meaningless activities. But don't know where to go from here.
I'm reminded: when I retired, I knew I would feel guilty for not working. So I made a checklist for myself: if I did these things every day, then I would give myself permission to spend the rest of my time however I wanted.
Every day, I would do:
Something for my spiritual health
Something for my physical health
Something for my family
Something for the community.
I've gotten away from that, and I need to return to it.
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JoanK,
What a simple but meaningful list. I will print it and place it where it remind me daily to accomplish these goals and when I do to be satisfied. We can't always be heroes but in keeping ourselves satisfied, we can certainly be happier which makes the people around us feel good.
When I found SN, 13 years ago, I certainly never expectected to to make so many new friends or begin a whole new life at 62 When I remember all of the joys and sorrows that we have shared throughout the years, welcoming new grans, comforting each other and saying goodbye to those who have left us, I feel honored to know all of you.
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Bruce- bless you for even thinking of responding to my musings. It is more of a Quest than it is a question. I do not, however feel that I am anywhere near close- taking courses is a way of life for me, it is an escape, a search, a crusade of sorts to expand my mind and thus-- my thoughts. I exam and search and then I reach to find!
I have long felt that I would discover this "thing" that I was meant to be or do, hoping to light upon that inimitable search--haha,ha, I sound a bit like Don Quioxte don't I?
I hate being defined as a nurse, as a mother or as a grandmother. That is designating someone as an occupation, not as an individaul.
Don't get me wrong, it has been my life since I am 13 years old to care for, tend to and nurse. I love it but it is NOT what i wish to do with the rest of my life. After retiring from an admirable nursing career I want to dig my heels into something else. It is my duty to find my own way but I am floundering.
Perhaps you are correct in saying "ask yourself questions." Perhaps I will start with that today.
When I ask myself what is interesting, I jump at it ALL!
I love to read, to learn and will now concentrate on your thought that "trying to understand where your own resistance comes from in choosing a path may also be helpful." I agree I am my own worst gate keeper. I love that thought and have printed it our to be on my desk.
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Alf, if anyone can find the path, it will be you. You have endless joy in life and the verve to get up and do whatever you want.
The biggest lesson I have learned in the past eight months.. You can either stand still and die or put up your chin, shoulders back and forge ahead..
So I forge ahead, even though some days, I really want to crawlback in bed and pull the covers over my head.
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Andy,
Don't ever think you aren't where you are supposed to be. Something will come along and while you are waiting, please keep your sweet self content. You are such a credit to this group, with your bright smile and strong support for others.
Steph,
You have been through a hard year but we all know you are doing what needs to be done to keep yourself going.
((((hugs to both of you))))))
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Ann, you are definitely a Catalyst, and Lord knows, we sure need them. The things you do to and for your family and those around you. We’re all so lucky you’re here.
I hate being defined as a nurse, as a mother or as a grandmother. That is designating someone as an occupation, not as an individaul.
Andy, I don’t think anyone wants to be defined as any one thing, or even defined by others. Your comments remind me of a story told about the wife of an outgoing and very popular minister in Nashville several years ago. She was at some luncheon event and introduced to others as Mary SoandSo, to which some responded, “Oh you’re Bill SoandSo’s wife.” To which she responded, “I’m a lot more than Bill SoandSo’s wife.”
JoanK, shortly after reading your very appropriate list, I came across the “manifesto” of Lululemon, a Canadian company that makes yoga clothes and equipment. Some of the items caught my eye and seem appropriate to add here.
Do one thing a day that scares you.
That which matters the most should never give way to that which matters the least.
The conscious brain can only hold one thought at a time. Choose a positive thought.
Dance, sing, floss and travel.
It’s funny the little nuggets of memory that this discussion brings forth. Bruce, your comments about the child who says “nuthin” because he’s full of so many things remind me of a writer telling about family traditions. Every evening at the dinner table each child had to tell something, in detail, about one thing they had seen or done that day. Over the years that really developed their powers of observation and narration.
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Pedln- It matters not what anyone calls me, it matters how I view myself. I never ask someone what they did before they moved into this retirement community. It becomes a label- aclassification, if you will. AND how did you know that I am "Bill's so and so wife?" :o
I love your stories and do agree with yu about the value of having Ann as an impetus for eveyone that she comes in contact with and everything that she does. Bravo Annie!
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I've been scurrying today to put up a new post on my website and get more pages written for the book I am currently ghost writing. The post is on a recent study that suggests a regular schedule of social dancing into old age not only benefits posture and balance, but preserves cognition, memory and other abilities needed for maintaining daily life.
PedIn, I like the Lululemon manifesto. And even more, I like the writer's family's tradition. And it's right in line with exercises in a book of Neurobics -- exercises for the brain -- I read a few years ago and try to practice from time to time. It suggested making one thing a point of visual focus for the week, like noses or eyes on a face, and work to be truly conscious of them and distinguish between their characteristics. Not only, did the book's author suggest, will doing this enhance a person's power of concentration and memory, it will stimulate the brain in novel ways. Sometimes, in Manhattan, I just walk down the street acquiring noses.
You guys are so supportive of each other. It's really an awesome thing to see. It's proof, too, that not all our undertakings need to be individual, being engaged in something collective, like this site, is itself an important contribution and something of which you can all be justifiably proud.
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Bruce,
If you want to see how supportive and caring this group is, take peek into our discussion of how we are going to handle the NYC SeniorLearn Soriee, where you will be joining us on the 11th at Sarabeth's. Lots of plans have had to change but we all just seemed to roll with the punches. In the meantime, we have tried to plan for all who are attending. Take a look:http://seniorlearn.org/forum/index.php?board=90.0
We have done this trip to NYC three times plus the same kinds of meetings in Chicago(where we were met with a closing down of our chosen hotel and planned luncheon.We had just found out the night before because a couple of our members arrived early). Then we met, in Wash.DC, and on the Isle of Palms. Now these were with the books groups. Our French Canadian, Eloise planned a bash including all the members on SeniorNet in Montreal plus there was Calgary, Arizona, Norfolk, Atlanta-all big bashes. But we also had smaller member groups in the states. Ours in Ohio was called the Toledo Trotters. We tried to meet at least once a year. The group in Indy and Illinois seem to meet more often. I believe that the Washington/Oregon group still gets together. Its just been too much fun!!
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Isle of Palms is such a good memory for me. We had such fun, even though Ginny got chicken about the bridge.. I am looking forward to next years bash, since I cant attend this one.
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It's really an experience reading several days of your posts all at once after having been away for a bit! Was ready to comment on Andy's question - when I got sidetracked by the image of Bruce walking around Manhattan - "acquiring noses"! :D Has anyone ever caught you staring at her nose? Some people are very sensitive about their noses! Tell again how this is beneficial to the brain? (Watch out for Bruce in New York next month, you all!)
I'll agree with you about the importance of social dancing...any social exchange for that matter...especially as we age when the tendency is to turn inward. One of my best memories of an older couple dancing...at a wedding. They did "The Peabody." Have you ever danced it - or seen anyone dance it. These two moved, really moved all around the room - cleared the dance floor as everyone gaped - and applauded.
Back to Andy's comment when encouraged to question where her curiosity and interests lie -
When I ask myself what is interesting, I jump at it ALL!
Andy...I understand exactly what you mean. My problem too.
Bruce suggests "trying to understand where your own resistance comes from in choosing a path." Do you feel that by choosing one path, you must exclude ALL others? I'm reminded of Yogi Berra...remember when he said - "when you come to a fork in the road, take it." What do you suppose he meant?
Do you think some of us were just made to take the forks as they come?
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OK everybody on the dance floor for The Peabody
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naOfHtYJX0w
This is so lively you feel like getting on the floor and dance with them.
But at the Montreal Bash everybody said they were so tired on the last evening dance, but when Elvis songs played everybody was on the dance floor barefeet and arms flying. I have photos to prove it.
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Annie said: I have decided that my place in life is being a CATALYST. I have so much enthusiasm about life in general and I am always directing people where to contact someone, where to find a class, a talk being given, a book that you cannot miss, etc,etc.
I think we are clones, Annie. I feel like i have so much info in my "computer/brain" and when i hear someone say something that i can draw up a "recommendation" for, i feel useful giving it to them. Of course, that's not new for me, i was parodied in a 1980's NOW skit at our local Alice Paul Chapter of NOW. The premise was that when anyone one mentioned an issue, "Jean" had a person for them to contact.............LOL. Guess that's why i enjoyed teaching/training so much, i just kept giving out information for decades.
I'm still doing it. Next April i will be faciliating a Women's History course at a retirement community near me. The people there are in all stages of physical fitness, some great, some not so great, but they have great minds (they remind me of all of you) and they've developed a "university" for themselves. The knowledge, and questions, they bring to each topic is wonderful. I can't wait to get my course started w/ them. .........jean
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Annie and Jean - Being a "catalyst" sounds like a good thing to me. I suppose that part of being a writer is also being a catalyst. It's as if you have two brains, sometimes, working at once, which to a degree we all do. As a writer, I'm forever going back and forth between the maker-brain that pulls me deep into my screen and the march of words, trying to get the right word and right order. And then there's the catalyst-brain that is trying to figure out who these words are meant to serve and why and how they can best do it. Malcolm Gladwell, I think, calls the "catalyst" the "connector." Yes? It's a full-time occupation.
Well, it is kind of funny that I do, and still occasionally, do this thing, of collecting facial features. And now that I think about it, my father had a very prominent nose, so maybe there is something Oedipal in it.
I sometimes collect eyes, too, though. And head shapes.
Part of it is that I think I wish I could also be an fine artist. I took some life drawing classes when I was in college and went off to Florence, to live with my adored art history professor and her family, for a year after I graduated college. I read, scribbled, and drifted in and out of museums, not sure yet which direction to go. But, foolishly, I see now, I thought it was too late to become an artist. When I worked in newspapers and magazines, I spent much time in meetings sketching faces, often learning more about people than if I had taking the dictation of their words down in a notebook.
But I think the actual suggestion for the exercise of acquiring features came from Richard Restak, M.D., the author of Mozart's Brain and the Fighter Pilot. I believe the idea was to train the brain to greater levels of attention and, in later recalling the features, improving memory. But I just tried to locate the exercise and couldn't find it. It's plausible that I conflated a brain exercise and an Buddhist-inspired exercise from Sharon Salzburg's book Lovingkindness, The Revolutionary Art of Happiness.
According to Semi Zeki, who pioneered the study of the visual brain, "seeing" is not a unitary process, Restak reported. Rather Zeki wrote "there are multiple systems for processing different attributes of the visual scene." Retak noted that vision, along with all of our other senses, is an active process, not a passive one as scientists long believed. In Inner Vision: An Exploration of Art and the Brain, Zeki wrote, "Art is an active process, a search for essentials; i is thus a creative process whose function constitutes an extension of the function of the visual brain... We see in order to be able to acquire knowledge about the world."
In Lovingkindness, there was an exercise of walking down the street and conferring the wishes "I wish you physical safety, I wish you health, I wish you ease of well-being" upon people at random. I still do that from time to time. It opens the heart to others. It reminds us of how connected we are in this life. And it silently tries to bring a consciousness of peace and tolerance into the world. It also feels that, as a reward, it has a healing effect, too. I practiced this exercise of generosity when circumstances were making me want to feel otherwise. Doing it regularly helped me feel as if, though I had little else to give, I was doing some good, being somehow a catalyst for good in other people's lives.
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What a sweet story of Harry's birthday present from Bruce and everything around his party, thank you Robby for mentioning it.
Joan K, that's beautiful!
Bruce, you are the biggest surprise of the year. I am not sure why I am surprised, given the book, but I am anyway. What an absolutely super experience this is, both in your own responses and that of our readers here. Thank you!
But, foolishly, I see now, I thought it was too late to become an artist. When I worked in newspapers and magazines, I spent much time in meetings sketching faces, often learning more about people than if I had taking the dictation of their words down in a notebook.
You thought it was too late then? You look 30 years old now! hahaha If it's not too late for us, at any age, what's stopping you? :)
I'm struck by something in the heading:
"Choices – For the Rest of Your Life?" and something Bruce said earlier about the choices we make, and visualization.
For some reason that makes me think that everything is actually a choice. You can't help most of the time what happens to you, but you can choose how to respond to it. Think of a diet: not to choose is a choice, actually, when you think about it. There's something kind of comforting in that, for some reason, but is it valid? Or specious?
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Thank you, Ginny. It's a pleasure.
And, of course I meant to type: if I had been taking the dictation of their words down in a notebook.
I was in my 20s, of course, when I thought I was too old to become an artist. If I had any spare time or money now, I'm fairly confident one of the first courses I would invest in would be some kind of life drawing class -- that and French. But things being what they are, 2 college tuitions, 1 high schooler in private school, etc, right now, the program excludes far too much I would love to do. But, as I have said, if I learned nothing else from writing the book, I learned from Robby and Betty, from Harry and Loretta, Nancy and Alidra and Myrna, to keep my eyes on the prize.
Today, I spent part of the day interviewing Yaakov Stern, Ph. D. at the Taub Institute for Alzheimer's and Dementia research, at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, on the subject of cognitive reserve. Stern is not sure if he coined the phrase, but he certainly was one of the pioneering scientists to explore the idea that peoples education, behaviors, and pursuits may help the brain to cope with damage caused by disease or aging. Initially, he thought it was about education. He adjusted his view over the years. Adding leisure activities, all forms of learning, physical activity remain key. Yesterday, I posted a blog about how amateur dancers benefited. Today, I got to think more deeply about why. No one, of course, has the answers yet. It's still conceptual. But we're getting ever closer to actually being able to see how learning benefit the brain.
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Note to self: read before hitting send!
how learning benefits the brain.
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I'm reminded of Yogi Berra...remember when he said - "when you come to a fork in the road, take it." What do you suppose he meant?
Don’t just stand there. Take it. Move on.
Do you think some of us were just made to take the forks as they come?
Yes, because we didn’t know they were coming. And that makes me think of Jean --
The premise was that when anyone one mentioned an issue, "Jean" had a person for them to contact...
You could say she was offering them a “fork”. And she’s very definitely a catalyst or connector, as Gladwell would say.
JoanP, thanks for bringing up the Peabody, and Eloise, thanks for the link to it. What a fun thing to do and to watch.
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Ginny, I like your though on choice. Sometimes you make choices on the spur of the moment that are not necessarily the best choice and later regret it, but we can't spend an lot of time thinking if it's going to be the right choice or not and go for the enthusiasm you feel at that moment.
When I was 13 I decided that knowing English would enhance my life and I changed from a French to an English school. That decision made a tremendous impact on the rest of my life, I married a man whose mother tongue was English and 3 of my 4 daughters did the same. I truly believe that knowing other languages is good for cognition and my wish this fall is to take Spanish. My granddaughter speaks three languages.
We all want a challenge here and will continue doing that till we die.
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How much time each week do you think learning Latin -- or any language -- requires?
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Eloise- It would not mater if you had chosen Swahili to learn and speak. You are a true scholar and a lady. I think it is wonderful that the children are now offered Chinese in school, It amazes me how quickly they pick up on it and God knows we will need that skill in the years to come.
Ginny- both the thoughts of choice and "a fork in the road" are entertwined for me. From an early age, on- my dad used to tell me think about it and make your choice, remembering that what you determine may or may not be the correct choice. It doesn't matter, make it! Trust your judgement and your maker, he used to say. If it is wrong, it can be rectified. (Of course working intensive Care Units, I have found that is not always the choice. Some things just CAN NOT be rectified. ::)
It's like Pedln said, take it and move on. I personally have made many excellent selections and have also bottomed out on a few. (We won't even discuss husband #1- what's his name?)
Bruce-Note to self: read before hitting send!
Haa Welcome to my disorderly mind. :D
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Ginny can probably answer that question Bruce more accurately but I tend to believe we each learn at different rates. Some need longer time to read, others must use visualization techniques, auditory aids or just plain old repetition to learn. I feel fortunate that I am a quick learner and I always try to assist others that are struggling.
In all honestly however, there are somethings, (like math) that I am dumber than a box of hammers and have no desire to learn. ;D
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Sometimes we need to be reminded that not making a choice constitutes a choice in itself.
About learning Latin: I found it easy until it got to the point of memorizing the enormous number of verb forms; that was too much for me! It stopped being fun right there. I wonder if memorizing becomes more difficult as we age....? Seems to be nearly impossible for me.
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How much time each week do you think learning Latin -- or any language -- requires?
As Andy said, we all learn at different rates. I can't speak for other languages, but for me, Latin has to be a daily thing. How much time each day -- varies with the assignment and who, what we're reading. I try to set standards for when the class doesn't meet -- like now -- such as read something out loud every day, but unfortunately don't always keep them.
Note to self: read before hitting send!
Isn't it amazing, the strange words that pop up into our writing, especially when we're typing ahead of thoughts -- or should that be -- our thoughts are ahead of our typing. Good advice, Bruce.
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It interests me that more than a few of the people i am in contact w/ have taken up art/painting in their retirement yrs................huuummm. i.e.....Sev'l of you here, plus Bruce's thinking it might be in his future, some of the folks in the retirement community i mentioned before, and a friend of mine.
My friend was in municipal management all his adult years, but in retirement has become an accomplished, selling painter. He started in water colors and painted lovely landscape scenes. He's now moved into acrylics/abstracts and recently had a one-man exhibit, selling 6 of his acrylics from the show.......................
Questions in my tho'ts: why didn't this interest present itself earlier in your lives? why does it present itself now? was being an artist - yes Mary - not "the thing to do" when you were younger? did making a living supercede being an artist? is there something in our mature years that makes us more observant than in our younger years, more introspective, more searching for beauty? ...................jean
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Jean, I don't remember being interested in art as a child. Definitely not like my friend here who we joke "came of the chute with a paintbrush in her hand". As our youngest was getting ready to graduate from high school, we thought we needed to find some other interests. I had seen a lovely book of pen-and-ink drawings accented with splotches of watercolors and it had caught my interest. We signed up to take a weekend watercolor workshop at the local community college, and I was hooked. I was 43 at the time and had never used an artist's paintbrush before - at least not since elementary school . John took the classes for a while, but then quit. Obviously, I stayed with it.
We married while in college (ages 21 and 19) and immediately had children (as happened in those days). I raised kids and did community stuff, then, as the girls got older, worked to put money in the college funds. I "retired" at 50 when John got transferred, and we moved away from my job. That's when I went back to school full-time.
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CONNECTOR!! THAT'S WHAT JEAN AND I ARE! I LIKE THAT BETTER THAN CATALYST, i think? Well we do have the same habits of always being able to connect with someone. We take in information that may have nothing to do with anything and store it. Then we drag it up and place it on the table for someone to consider. This keeps our brains pretty busy.
I was out of breath watching that dance. My gosh, the Peabody is awesome! The older couple who danced that at the wedding that JoanP attended musn't have been very old. Did they have an ambulance awaiting them at the end? Hahaha!
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" You can't help most of the time what happens to you, but you can choose how to respond to it".
A friend (a yoga teacher) has a poster of a yogi doing a difficult pose on a surfboard, with the caption "You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf."
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Boy, things are clicking – here and around – or maybe I should say connecting. Today I received an email from our local library inviting me to serve on a Senior Advisory group that would advise on programming of particular interest to Seniors. Of course I responded immediately with a big yes, managing at the same time to express comments about SeniorLearn and our discussion with Bruce about his book. But as much as I look forward to being a catalyst/connector for our programs here, I’m also very interested in hearing what others have to say. Sometimes we get so caught up in our own activities that we not aware about what others want or need. We don’t start until October, I’ll keep you posted. Please let me know if you have special programs for Seniors in your library setting.
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Our Friends of the Library sponsors a Senior group each Friday for 10 months a year. Meets around 9:30 on Fridays in our little cafe. Sometimes we have speakers of various types, at least once a month, we chat and try to keep everyone up on senior matters in our area. Fun.
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I have always wished to do something artistic and if only I could have afforded to do it full time when I was young, but.... I guess when people come to retirement age they can finally pursue the most rewarding activity in the world, creating art. There is art in gardening, decorating, writing, setting a beautiful table, cooking a special meal, every activity we enjoy doing is creative, I think.
A new language is learned faster by hearing it than by reading it, language immersion is the most effective way to learn. Spending time in a foreign country where nobody understands you. A language is like music, it has sound and rhythm. When I was in Portugal and couldn’t understand the language but I loved to hear them speak, it sounded so soft and musical.
Ursamajor, yes no choice is the best thing when I am undecided.
I am not worried about not choosing what I will do the rest of my life because I will just continue with what I am doing, it’s what I love to do, so it must be where I belong.
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Have I mentioned that I am the greatest grandmother and great grandmother here in downtown Gahanna??? Just want to get that in my resume.Tee hee!
Bruce,
My sister Mary is buying your book today. She doesn't know that I am paying for it. She is also getting my copy for me. I will loan it out to anyone in my hometown. I love this book more, way more, than "What Color Is Your Parachute". I took a class on the parachutr book and found out, at the time, that I knew very little of the working world but I sure knew how to take care of the needs of horses and how to ride them and how to attend horse shows that my daughter rode in. I was also a super band parent for my sons. Got into all that kind of stuff. Heck, I even took flying lessons!
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Our Friends of the Library sponsors a Senior group each Friday for 10 months a year. Meets around 9:30 on Fridays in our little cafe. Sometimes we have speakers of various types, at least once a month, we chat and try to keep everyone up on senior matters in our area. Fun.
Steph, fantastic. You are right in line to be a super catalyst-connector. Can you be a Friday speaker or facilitator and tell everyone about SeniorLearn, about all the exciting things we do. Wow, you are in position and you have clout.
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"Connector" is a good word..............in fact, i should have tho't of it because we call our dgt "the Connector," (must be genetic) she is forever telling the person she's talking to "Oh, you should talk to .........." Our family cook-outs get larger and larger as she invites many of those she's "connected" to come have ribs and chicken. There's even at least one couple who are now married to each other that she "connected."
Jean
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You are all fantastic. I was feeling a little behind in my writing and a little overwhelmed by the research ahead. After reading through the most recent pack of comments, I feel newly energized. A little sleep helped, too.
Yes, I too, Alf and Ginny, am a big believer in deciding, doing, and the detouring, if necessary. As Robby would say, "Let the shadows fall behind."
Memory and age is an interesting puzzle. The truth is that the brain changes as we age and processing of memory slows down because of those changes. Studies have shown that what we don't fare all that much worse in terms of what is remembered, or how much. But the speed of recall is definitely effected. So, learning a language may highlight that when you want or need to recall verb tenses quickly. That said, there are promising developments in all of this. Michael Merzinich's PositScience claims that its brain training program can speed up central processing and has studies that support its claim. Other neuroscientists are dubious of such claims for brain training programs. It's plausible that people who use these programs (and I have tried) improve in the tasks they are repeatedly doing, but the generalized effect remains in doubt. Also in doubt is how long their effect lasts. Famously, learning and practicing juggling for just six weeks will alter the brain's structure and expand the amount of grey matter in the areas that process and store visual information. According to a study published in the journal Nature, a research team compared brain-imaging scans of nonjugglers before they learned to juggle and three months later and discovered increases in grey matter in certain areas of their brains. (Grey matter is responsible for high-level mental activities.) This indicates that, like muscles, the capacity of the brain itself can improve with training. But taking a break can cause shrinkage. Three months after the new jugglers stopped juggling grey matter had decreased again.
I suspect learning language is a little like this. Task repetition grows neural networks that help our memories, no matter what our age. And the better those networks get, or the more interconnected they are, the easier the task gets, or seems. Anxiety, of course, is destructive; so when people fear that they're not going to learn something, they're unwittingly making the learning more difficult. It's a conundrum.
I asked about the time people dedicate to learning a language because I hope to try to work learning language back into my life when I done with this project. I sometimes let the amount of time I know I need to commit stand in my way. But it's always worth remembering something Freud once said: if we spent 15 minutes a day learning about something, in 10 years we'd be experts. Again, though, I think it's a better idea not to focus on becoming an expert, but taking pleasure in what's learned in those 15 minutes.
Almost daily now, there are discoveries about the brain and memory. Quite recently, scientists in Cambridge, Mass., have found a protein in the brain that promotes memory and brain flexibilty; the enzymes, known as sertuins, have gained some fame for slowing aging; they get released when people are on survival diets. We also know, for instance, that exercise causes the brain to release BDNF (Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor, if you must know), which stokes the brain for learning. Other scientists have recently come up with a new model for the overlapping quality of neural networks that support learning and memory. It is amazing how complex brain function -- and memory-- is. And that we are beginning to understand it.
On the inclination to art as we age: it seems obvious when you watch children at play, before they are required to do things, how native making art is to our makeup. It seems intrinsic to our natures. And perhaps, as we age, we feel inner dictates more strongly again and are less driven by external expectations. What do you think?
Thank you, AdoAnnie -- and your sister. I'm very grateful.
PedIn -- After I read your comment, I thought a bit about a notion I have about how closely related listening to others is to brain flexibility. I'm afraid our culture, in general, is suffering from a failure to listen. It's certainly true in politics where partisanship, posing, and polls are all that matter. I think we need to train ourselves -- and remind ourselves -- to be more effective listeners. Perhaps listening gets a bad rap: it's seen as passive. But listening well is an art and an assertive act. ...Also, I'm so happy these days when I hear people, like you and Steph talking about libraries. We all need to do everything we can to support our libraries. There's a terrible misconception abroad, that libraries are dinosaurs because we can search everything up online. But the opposite is true. Libraries are more important than ever. And tech-savvy librarians are more critically important than ever. (See Marilyn Johnson's very good: This Book is Overdue.)
Eloise, I think you're right about language and music and the importance of immersion.
To all, have a great day!
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I see my post from last night never made it. hmmmmm!
Eloise said:
A new language is learned faster by hearing it than by reading it, language immersion is the most effective way to learn.
I was thinking about enrolling in a Latin class at my local college this summer before my layoff. My local college doesn't list Latin classes anymore. Now that I will be doing accounting classes I don't think I will have time anyway until next year at least.
Has anyone tried those Rosetta Stone language programs? I was tempted to order the Latin language one, but they are sooooooo expensive (not as expensive as live classes, I expect). The other question I have about them is if they are classical Latin or medieval (ecclesiastical?) Latin.
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Talking Heads #10
A forum for opinions on anything in print: magazines, newspaper articles, online: bring your ideas and let's discuss.
"Choices – For the Rest of Your Life?"
| (http://www.seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/whatshouldIdo/what.jpg) | We are fortunate to have Bruce Frankel as our guest in this month's Talking Heads discussion. Bruce is the author of "What Should I Do With the Rest of My Life?" in which he presents us with more than a dozen profiles of individuals he calls "ordinary people who embraced new possibilities late in life - extraordinary late bloomers who have overthrown the usual expectations of age."
| (http://www.seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/whatshouldIdo/robby.jpg) | Profiled in the book is one of SeniorLearn's own Discussion Leaders, Robby Iadeluca, a practicing clinical psychologist, who still conducts a full schedule of therapy sessions, five days a week at the age of 90! A Review of Bruce's book (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/NYCtrip/frankelbookreview.html); Amazon link (http://www.amazon.com/What-Should-Do-Rest-Life/dp/1583333657/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279830869&sr=1-1) |
Our questions for Bruce as we consider these profiles:
- Are these ordinary people like you and me...or do they possess extraordinary talent, wealth or physical fitness?
- What inspiration can we take from his research today? |
Thanks for joining us, Bruce! We're looking forward to hearing your words of acquired wisdom!
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| (http://www.seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/whatshouldIdo/maxine3.jpg) | On the other side of the issue, ..."Gerontologists tend to think of successful aging as taking advantage of what potential there is, staying as socially and intellectually engaged as possible. Our culture tends to measure it more in terms of how active people are." |
"Part of the pressure on older people to be successful and give back and volunteer and be active and play tennis is that we are a culture of doing. We don't really know how to be. That's something that late life gives us, is time to be. But that's stigmatized." "Turn 70.Act Your Grandchild’s Age" Kate Zernike, NY Times (http://www.sikhchic.com/people/turn_70_act_your_grandchilds_age)
1. Are goals and expectations necessary for our “second life?”
2. What is ageism? Outside of public policy decisions (i.e. Social Security, medicare, etc.) should age be a consideration?
3. Whose Second Lives do you celebrate?
4. Do you or did you look forward to life after 65?
5. Did you have any specials plans.
Your opinion? Let's discuss!
Check out Bruce's Website and Blog! (http://www.brucefrankel.net/)
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"A new language is learned faster by hearing it than by reading it".
I suspect that depends on what you plan to do with it. If you want to read books in the original language, as in Latin, I'd think you would need to learn by reading.
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How much time each week do you think learning Latin -- or any language -- requires?
That's a good question, Bruce. I'm hearing from a lot of students what Pedln says here:
As Andy said, we all learn at different rates. I can't speak for other languages, but for me, Latin has to be a daily thing.
This is what I keep hearing! This year we're moving to a three day class week, but that's what I keep hearing. I hope we can use the alternate days also for Latin without having to be in the class, it's scary really, why mess with success?
I think how much each day varies for each student depending on how they learn and how much Latin (if any) they had in the past, and how captivated they are by it. Many of our students hold full time jobs. Latin is a discipline, and so to excel in it you have to discipline yourself, but it's worth it.
New approaches include immersion texts which use Latin words essentially in English constructions and constructs, using deliberate derivatives to make students think they are "reading Latin" when they are reading something else entirely, but they are cute and fun. There used to be conversational approaches and people who taught the class only in Latin, no end of affectation, while the real Latin authors go unread in their dazzling complexity. The problem is you have to kiss a lot of frogs in Latin normally before you meet the prince: the real authors, like Cicero for instance. Latin underwent a lot of change in its long long history, so it depends on which period you are reading, too.
Frybabe, Rosetta Stone seems to come up all the time. I can't imagine why, in Latin, unless people just like to hear the text read, we can and should do that. When we were on SeniorNet we were hampered by the size of the server, here we are unlimited, but perhaps you have put your finger on it: Church or Ecclesiastical Latin perhaps would be useful to hear and to practice pronouncing. I understand that you repeat to the computer and it corrects your pronunciation. Does it do the same for grammar? Compound complex sentences in composition?
I've been tempted to get the thing just to find out and in fact I think they did offer it to us here, free if I recall, but what's the point? Once you know how the words sound from the Golden Age of Roman Literature (which is our focus and that of most Latin courses) you know it.
Based on the various comments here and there about the audio element, however, it seems we need to do more with the audio element, so I am planning to do a lot more audio this time and am grateful to Laura Gibbs (Aesopica) for her assistance audio file programs, but primarily the Latin of Caesar is not an oral language, unless you know anybody 2000 years old, it's more like hieroglyphics. You are unlikely to meet anybody with whom you can converse (other than the societies who meet and converse, you can see a couple of examples on the internet...er...ok... yeah...). and no native Latin speakers, so the idea, as Eloise says, of how one learns a modern language best works for languages now spoken.
That idea is somewhat lost with the idea of trying to communicate in 21th century idioms in a 2000 year old language which has its own beauty and idiomatic expression. The Latin of Golden Age, for instance, is much richer in nuance than anything we have now. We have nothing that equals the ancients.
This is another way it's a discipline: it will not yield its treasures without effort and work. There ARE no short cuts, unfortunately.
It's worth it.
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Thanks for the input, Ginny.
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:) Sorry, hope that wasn't too strong?
Whatever students find useful is what we should do, to the best of our capacity. Can you tell the Rosetta Stone commercials irritate me? They may be fine for modern languages, but they do include Latin. As you say, which Latin do they include? If it's ancient Latin the mind boggles with:
"There’s no translation or memorization in the Rosetta Stone experience,"
Oh really?
" so you’ll learn naturally and build continuously on what you’ve learned."
How, if you don't remember what you learned yesterday? Or will you magically "remember" this approach without "memorizing?"
" Our interactive program will keep you engaged and motivated throughout your language-learning journey. You’ll listen to the voices of native speakers to refine your pronunciation and speak confidently in real conversations. And since our program is easy to use, you can focus on learning-and have fun along the way."
It would be worth it to me to hear the 2000 year old native speakers speak the language as it sounded then. JoanK is right.
I don't see the claims on this ad about the no boring drills, conjugations, maybe they've removed that nonsense. If it sounds too good to be true it probably is. We've all done the Travel Learn Italian French (this is why I should not type in a thunderstorm!) hahhaa in 7 days and that's fine until you want to read Les Miserables, then you find, doggone it, you can't. Maybe Set #2 includes the boring conjugations, verb forms, and drills. hahaha
"Build a foundation of fundamental Spanish vocabulary and essential language structure"
Ok you're going to build a foundation but you won't remember any of the words and language structure because you won't be memorizing. Anything. Including your address or phone number. But you'll build a foundation.
Review: "Wow, seriously."
"I am amazed at how much easier it is compared to memorizing verbs, nouns and conjugation charts was in high school"
Yeah. So much easier, but you'll learn them if you go far enough to read real literature, you just aren't there yet. Become a brain surgeon in a week, no memorization, just listen and learn.
Sorry, rant over. :) Really over :)
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You’ll listen to the voices of native speakers to refine your pronunciation and speak confidently in real conversations. And since our program is easy to use, you can focus on learning-and have fun along the way."
It would be worth it to me to hear the 2000 year old native speakers speak the language as it sounded then.
You crack me up, Ginny. LMAO ;D ;D ;D
Monday I should be able to register for my fall classes, IF the classes are not full. The program they got me in on gets me free classes, I pay for the books, etc., BUT I can only register five days before classes begin. I'm going to try registering online first thing, but I still must go get my student ID, parking pass and books. After that is all settled I will be able to tell if I will have time to take your Latin class this fall. My adviser wants me to take three classes if I can get them.
I guess we ought to get back to Bruce and the book.
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Frybabe, you ARE Bruce's book. Look at you!! Just look. How long did you work at your previous employment, you got laid off in the recession, and LOOK at you, three classes, a grant, you go, girl! To what career, what studies is your new frontier taking you now? You mentioned it somewhere, but just the idea is so exciting to me. You and the rest of the people here ARE living the dream and it's very exciting to even be around your fabulous selves. You'll need to change your login name to reflect your new dazzling status. :)
I particularly love the light our members here on SeniorLearn give off without even knowing it. I love, even if I can't myself equal it, basking in it. It just makes you feel better.
And you're right, just this morning I was reading A Pie Maker's Place. I am so struck by Loretta's philosophy of life, it just blew me away in its humility and beauty.
At 76 in 2009 she is still getting up at 6 am to "cook, bake, and greet her loyal customers." She runs a diner, can you imagine how tiring that must be? At 76? "After eight years, the diner's novelty had worn off a bit.....But when she was made an offer, the year before, she decided to give herself an extra day off instead of sell."
So when things began to get tough, she adapted, just like she did her entire life, she's surfing the hard waves of life, what a story she has.
"But then I go to the diner and we..." The reason she believes people come from twenty miles away is that people see in the diner "something dependable. 'I think, too, people want to be spoiled a little, they want to feel like someone cares.'"
"My father used to say you reap what you sow. I think of that each week when I go to the bank to make a deposit. I take out twenty dollars to give to someone who really needs it. At my age, what difference does it make, as long as I have enough money to eat? I don't want to travel. I don't need to shop. I'm very content with what I'm doing every day. I enjoy people saying to me 'It was a good meal."
There's something really noble about this person's quiet dignity and humility mixed as it is with perseverance....something really fine.
She says that people come come because "they feel comfortable here, for the fellowship. I guess that's what I'm here for."
Something about her story brought tears of admiration to my eyes. I am so glad she is also in the book. Here is a woman so humble, working incredible hours at 76... in a new career she started. I mean I can't cook in the first place, can you even IMAGINE what her days must be like? She seems to have no lofty aspirations yet she is probably one of the loftiest people I've read about, I can't say how impressed with this woman I am. Widowed at 67, lost her daughter in 2003, burned out by a fire: look at her life!
She's one of the probably thousands of unsung American heroes we meet every day and never notice. I am so glad for this book.
What made you decide to add her, Bruce? Was there anybody you reluctantly had to leave out of the book?
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Accounting Certificate, Ginny. I am going back to my roots. In high school I took the Business/Bookkeeping courses. My first jobs were mostly accounting. Back then you could get a job in business without having to go to college. My first real job was at a TV/Radio station where I was responsible for ALL of the Accounts Payable and the radio station Accounts Receivable. I was also the one they wanted typing (remember typewriters with carbons?) the tax forms because I was good at getting everything lined up properly. Nowadays, it seems people want to see a degree of some sort for almost everything.
The course includes a Tax Accounting class, and I can sign up for Technical and Report writing. The writing course is one I always wanted to take but couldn't fit it into my schedule when I when to college in the late 80s. It's amazing how many people are trying to steer me to Business Writing because the T&R class is mostly for engineers. I've spent years creating and typing letters, memos, etc. The T&R class will teach me, among other things, how to write proposals. I've typed proposals before, but they were already templated and all I had to do was adjust and drop in numbers for individual clients. I am looking forward to these two classes especially.
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Frybabe, all my good thoughts are streaming to you. Sounds like you really know what you are doing. Don't forget to eat right and get plenty of rest.
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Thank you, Ginny, I'm going to print your message out and tape it on the wall over my desk! I am deeply touched by it. I may need to hire your to market the book for me or say my prayers that you write a review on Amazon.
There's something really noble about this person's quiet dignity and humility mixed as it is with perseverance....something really fine.
She says that people come come because "they feel comfortable here, for the fellowship. I guess that's what I'm here for."
Something about her story brought tears of admiration to my eyes. I am so glad she is also in the book. Here is a woman so humble, working incredible hours at 76... in a new career she started. I mean I can't cook in the first place, can you even IMAGINE what her days must be like? She seems to have no lofty aspirations yet she is probably one of the loftiest people I've read about, I can't say how impressed with this woman I am. Widowed at 67, lost her daughter in 2003, burned out by a fire: look at her life! She's one of the probably thousands of unsung American heroes we meet every day and never notice.
Loretta was one of my earliest subjects. I had called the Small Business Administration in Washington, D.C. and spoke with a wonderful woman in the press office. I told her about the book I was hoping to write and that I was searching for candidates. I asked if there was some way to ask SBA offices around the country to send me suggestions of people to profile who fit my criteria -- over 60, no prior success, no huge financial advantage, finding success in business. And like that, my wish was granted. The SBA sent out word to all its press officers and among the responses came one from the Syracuse, NY office about Loretta.
There was something that appealed to me about her story, though the outline I received had few of the personal details included in the book. It may not even have had anything about the pies. But it appealed to my imagination. At first, I phoned Loretta and her grandson. She was lovely to speak with, but not extremely chatty and not, it seemed, a natural storyteller. If someone's life is going to be a chapter of a book, it helps if they're not too shy or too humble. But even with her reserve, even speaking with a stranger, the intrinsic qualities of her personality came through. I wasn't sure if her story would hold up, but I figured I would gamble and drive 8 hours north to DeKalb Junction.
I left New York around 8 p.m. By about midnight, I was far upstate on, and my mother called me on my cell from Florida to keep me company on the drive. I don't remember what we talked about, just that she made me laugh and helped get me through a tough patch of driving. I arrived in DeKalb Junction not long before dawn.
My experience talking to Loretta in the diner and in her farmhouse across the road is pretty much all there. I clearly fell in love with her. I'm not a religious person, but when Loretta spoke of her faith it felt like the real deal. It wasn't put on. It wasn't abstract. It wasn't about religion for religion's sake. It was part of the quality of her life, a life that shined with just that nobility you mentioned, Ginny. When she spoke about her life growing up in DeKalb, of her married life with Paul, her farmer husband, of their one adventure to Niagara Falls on their honeymoon, or the pleasure she took joining him in the field during haying, I was transported by the beauty and connection she felt to her own life. There was no complaint in her. Her losses were full and felt. She did not hide or gloss over the pain of her son's death. The losses were woven into the fabric of her life in a way that made them somehow illuminating. Her ambition, as she distilled it, to provide good food and good fellowship was genuine.
In the diner, I would have had to be as dumb as a brick to miss how others regarded her. Her customers seemed to come to attention in her presence. I don't mean like soldiers. I mean that they seemed to light up a little more brightly, too. It was not the pies, I realized. The pies are an excuse for people to come to the diner. It reminded me of places I had seen in my childhood in Florida, places that no longer exist, places that were lost to brightness and speed and change. Loretta didn't represent a way that had been lost; she is it. Her goodness was palpable. The question, however, remained, Is there enough of a story?
My first draft was not promising. Nothing came to life. The details were there, but not the feeling. I considered cutting Loretta from the book. But first I gave the chapter to an editor to read for me. She agreed with me that I had not succeeded, but she encouraged me to take another crack at it, to put more place and more pie in it. Those were her marching orders, and I am ever grateful. It was after that I asked Loretta to send me -- over her protests -- pieces of pie in containers I FedExed to her. And it was after that, that I really worked on the place -- thought about Loretta in her kitchen in the morning, about the road that cuts through DeKalb, and about the community to which she is so important. I knew that Loretta had the qualities of truth and goodness and determination that I hoped would define "success" in my book. I just hoped that my writing would not get in its way. I had never wanted to write a prescriptive book. I wanted to write a book in which people could be seen and felt and from whom each reader could have her own connection, discover his own lesson. Perhaps, because what she did or does is so ordinary, Loretta was the most perfect subject of all. I think people respond so deeply to her because she is a beacon of authentic values, the stuff those of us of a certain age remember people once aspired to.
Anyone I left out?
Well, yes. I see and hear about people all the time now that I think, "Oh, why didn't I know about her!" But there was a gentleman whose story I wanted to tell, an amazing story about light that his achieved from darkness. But he decided that he did not want to bear his story publicly afterall.
And there was a chapter that I wrote, and which still sits in my computer, about the poet Samuel Menashe, who lives in a 5th-floor walk-up flat in Greenwich Village where he moved when he was thirty-one years old. Its original clawfoot tub in the kitchen. After years of being rejected by the poetry establishment, he received the Poetry Foundation's Neglected Masters Award, intended to draw fresh attention to a signficant American poet whose work deserves a wider readership. I liked the piece, but for space and diversity my editor and I made the decision to cut Menashe. It wasn't easy. But the truth was that his story did not quite fit the book.
His poems are compact. Here are three:
"The Niche"
The niche narrows
Hones one thin
Until his bones
Disclose him
----
AT A STANDSTILL
That statue, that cast
Of my solitude
Has found its niche
In this kitchen
Where I do not eat
Where the bathtub stands
Upon cat feet--
I did not advance
I cannot retreat
-----
White hair does not weigh
more than the black
which it displaces--
Upon any fine day
I jump these traces
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Your posts are so great to read that you should put them all together and you would have another book. I love your indecision over Loretta. And, I too, loved her response to her earlier life when she told of joining her husband in the fields and enjoying it. I would bet we have an army of farm wives around the world who have felt the same way.
We haven't said much about the lady runner who really challenged herself. She did have much support from her family but she was so strong and focused on her running life. If only we could all be that much of a straight arrow in our lives. In whatever we do. I must return to her story to see if she was always a runner. I can't remember. Back tomorrow!
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Oh me, yes I talk up seniorlearn everywhere.. The Friday groups,, the Friends of the Library and my widows group.. I love senior learn and I know others will .. Big drawback seems to be the computer . Amazing how many people I meet, who dont do anything but email.. Sigh.
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Steph,
I think that those of us who joined this group and many others like it, just aren't ready to sit down daily and watch TV. Plus, we are so thrilled with our computers and what great things are revealed to us on the net. I love the speed with which I can get info.
Maybe, that's what I should have said about myself after I took flying lessons.
That was the year when we sold a house we had raised our kids in and moved out of state. Having had a computer in the house since 1977, I was not afraid of seeing what I could do on it. Not much, but from reading all the magazines that the men had laying around, I soon knew how to speak "computerese". I became their gofer and had to speak as tho' I knew more than I really did. So, I learned to speak the language without really knowing much. I would have made a great saleswoman at that time.
Anyway, it took me almost ten years and the development of Apple's Lisa which my son owned, for me to see the beauty of it all. It could cut and paste!! It could cut and copy what it cut to a different place! Amazing!
We moved to California from Georgia where we bought an all-in-one Apple Macintosh Plus and I thought I had hit the jackpot! I did lots of work for my husband while he was inventing a new way to refuel airplanes aloft and I learned much from that but my biggest fun was writing our first Christmas and printing it in color. I was agog!! I made up a poem using the poem meter of "Twas the Night Before Christmas". I continued to do these Christmas on that little box and joined Compuserve which gave me a little looksee into the internet. We weren't on the net yet but it was coming alive. I even did some genealogy on Compuserve and also trip planning using the connection at work(travel agency) to get up the airline schedules. We several applications on their own floppy disks including MacWrite and MacPaint.
Here's a link to my old Macintosh Plus: http://www.landsnail.com/apple/local/design/macplus.html (http://www.landsnail.com/apple/local/design/macplus.html)
How far we have come!! Now we have too many computers in our house even a new iPod for me but I have to say that we still use them. And I am still agog!
At one time, I taught people at the senior center how to use their new computers, even showed them how to get to Seniornet but I don't think any of them realized the power they had at their fingertips.
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Shortly before I retired from nursing, I had worked at Tampa Genl. hospital where I was first introduced to a "NURSING computer. I was floored with the possibilities of what this machine could do and how it could expedite valuable nursing information for the nursing staff and for the docs. I was hooked after that- had never used a computer in my life and still marvelled at the typewriter that i used at home all of the time. with that-- I bought a big-arsed lap top (1990) and discovered a whole new world. Unfortunately I had to go back to nursing for another 15 years, but strived to become quite proficient and interested in the technology and still love to learn new things about the computer. I don't come close to knowing a great deal but I love to learn.
At this point every nursing station has computer access and I marvel at this wonder.
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"White hair does not weigh
more than the black
which it displaces--
Upon any fine day
I jump these traces"
Oh, yes!
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Amazing how many people I meet, who dont do anything but email.. Sigh.
Steph
How true, or maybe play games. And many don’t like to register for anything, free or not. Which is understandable, sort of. I guess our mission is to just keep plugging away, letting folks know what SeniorLearn has to offer.
Ann, my 81-year-old brother goes back before 1977 with his first computer – if you can call it that. An oblong piece with 8 toggle switches – for bits and bites, I guess. You could say that we’ve come a long way, baby. I bought my first one in 1982, before we even had one in the school library or in the school, deducted part of the cost on my taxes and got audited by the IRS office in St. Louis. I sent that auditor reams of stuff showing library work, even running overdue lists at home, overnight. It all worked, they allowed it, but then they started clamping down after that.
Bruce, I’m glad you told us how you found and chose some of the people for your book. I can’t imagine the agonizing decisions you had to make about who to keep and who to cut, or all the extra things you did, like having Loretta send you the pies, to make sure that you did the right for everyone concerned. Amazing.
Frybabe, I hope all the classes that you want to take will stay open until you get them. Good luck.
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First computer.. 1979.. a friendly idiot. YOu must load it when you turn it on.. I think called a TI.. not very efficient, but as a genealogist, I could see how great it would be.. and it is.
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I still have my Osborne computer, which was the first portable computer available. Ozzie weighs about the same as a sewing machine and is about the same size. His companion was Daisy, a daisy-wheel printer. Alas, Daisy passed away long ago. The computer came with bundled software, including Dbase2. The screen is abut the size of a filing card. You put the work disk in one drive and the software disk in the other slot. It was a wondrous machine, and taught me how to use Dbase, Word, Excel and several other forms of softwaRE. I wonder if he has any antique value now. ???
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Wow, what great posts, what a great discussion!!
Stephanie, thank you for promoting us!!
Frybabe, Accounting!! I can't begin to do accounting, failed the only course I ever took. More power to you!! Never understood the Balance Sheet, does not make logical sense. There ARE people whose assets exceed their debits and there ARE people whose debits exceed their assets, but all must balance equally in the famous Balance Sheet. (is that what it's called?) HOW? A homeless man on the street will not have equal assets and debits. It's not LOGICAL!!
Bruce! I'm honored, my goodness, and I think your last post should be framed, itself. How beautifully and lyrically you write.
Wow III:
I did not advance
I cannot retreat
Boy o boy o boy. Truth in a nutshell. Absolutely love it. Thank you for putting his poetry here. I agree with Pedln, thank you for that fascinating explanation on how you chose and had to eliminate people from the book.
I thought of you and Loretta on Saturday night, flipping the cable channels, trying to find ONE thing of interest in the hundreds of offerings. Reality shows. Bridezillas, The Kardashians. I lingered on the promo of the Kardashians, truly revolting and sad, is this what America has become?
I thought (The Pie Maker being fresh in my mind) how nice it would be instead of seeing people punch thru walls in a drunken stupor and in tears etc., if we could actually see The Pie Maker for one episode. Something positive, real, and uplifting for a change.
The Food Network features real people doing real things, Charles Kuralt used to do it, is there any hope that someday perhaps we can see the What Should I Do With the Rest of My Life people on our television? Any nibbles from producers, etc?
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All registered. Got the classes I wanted. I guess that means I will have to pass on Latin again this year.
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My first contact with computers was in 1955. I was one of the early computer programmers. The first program I wrote was in Binary (all zero's and ones) machine language. The computer was so big and heavy, it needed a special room and extra-strong flooring. My program took an hour to produce 100 numbers of data, and the output was on punched paper tape, yards of it, that fell into a huge bin. you had to role it up to put it on another machine that read it. If you grabbed the wrong end, you wound up with a huge paper tape snarl, that would take hours to untangle.
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Hi, all.
Well, it was like wearing a wet blanket in a sauna today. Yeesh!
Thank you all for your generous remarks.
I had fun, after I read your posts, thinking back on my own computer life. In college, I nearly flunked statistics because I just could not figure out what I was supposed to do with one of those binary systems, all 1 and 0s. It still makes me anxious to think about it.
I remember when we, as reporters, began to use increasingly sophisticated word processing systems. When I first started at the newspaper, it was all Selectric typewriters -- the Cadillac of all electric typewriters. Or the Rolls Royce. Harry Bernstein still writes on one. When I went out on my own as a freelancer, I got my first "portable" computer in 1983. It was like metal suitcase, barely portable, and only held a couple of pages in memory. Even the floppies -- real floppies -- didn't hold much. And wow, I remember when I had my first laptop for reporting from the courts when I was covering the Gen. Westmoreland vs CBS libel trial, and the Ariel Sharon vs Time Inc libel trial, and the Leona Helmsley tax fraud trial. The modem was about the size of a shoe, and you had to stick the whole phone in it to send. But you could only send a file of less than 2 pages. That was around 1985.
Sadly, my son recently borrowed my MacBook and his friend accidentally spilled water on it and killed it!!
PedIn, It never fails, though, when you go the extra step in reporting -- like asking Loretta to send the pies-- it pays off in spades.
And Ginny, I only wish that there was interest in a What Should I Do With The Rest Of My Life? TV show ala Charles Kuralt. I did love his work!
And Charles Osborne. Radio poets.
I share your frustration, of course, with what's on television. I gave up watching TV almost entirely many years ago. I only watch the Yankees or the Knicks, but almost nothing else. I know there's much that's good. But I don't have the patience to find it, when I know there is so much I know I want to read. I do wish I had the time -- and a working DVD player -- to watch movies from time to time. I miss doing that.
Today, I was interviewed for a radio show called The Writer's Voice by Francesca Rhiannon. She did a great job and knew the book thoroughly. When we got around to talking about Thomas Dwyer, she told me that her mother had danced professionally into her 80s, when she broke her hip. Then she took up painting. When I came home I looked her mother up online: Frances Alenikoff. She was quite well known and a very big part of experimental dance in America. And her art, which she is still making, at 93, is quite interesting and accomplished. I will call and speak with Frances over the next couple of weeks and do a blog post on her for my website.
On Sunday, I posted a little recognition of Abbey Lincoln, who died Saturday, at the age of 80. There was a woman who knew how to reinvent herself with passion and purpose. You may remember her from For Love of Ivy, with Sidney Poitier. I was rushing, so didn't write much, but I loved the way she sang. When I was listening to her work yesterday, I heard a song I had never heard before: What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life? Take a listen:
http://new.music.yahoo.com/abbey-lincoln/tracks/what-are-you-doing-the-rest-of-your-life--217497534
'Night. Bruce
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Oh, a song I love.. How neat. I love the 1955 computer history. I remember the punch cards that came with your telephone bill.. With stern instructions on not folding, punching, etc. And the comics that made fun of said cards.. The beginnings of the computer world were interesting. I took several courses in binary and played with it, but never got good..
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JoanK,
1955--iWow!!! Was that Eniac or Univac?? They are both in the Smithsonian! And I thought our first desktop was hard to use. You had to write your own programs which I did not do but my husband and the boys really had a blast with it. They wrote several games, a recipe program for me, and their own form of Excel and they used it to contact their friends on those contact boards?? Can't remember what they were called.
As I said, I didn't have my own desktop until the MacPlus came out but I just found a picture of the first Apple desktop that Steven Jobs and Steve Wosniak built in their garage.
Here 'tis: http://www.landsnail.com/apple/local/design/apple1.html (http://www.landsnail.com/apple/local/design/apple1.html)
Looking at that wooden case made me laugh. Its shaped like this that I have a footstool under my desk for staying in the proper position while I compute. Ergonomically correct!! That's what I am!
And, I don't remember some of the old names except TI which stands for Texas Instruments.
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Bruce, that’s great about your being interviewed for The Writer’s Voice. That’s an interesting website. Do you have a broadcast date yet?
We really need a link to your website and blog up in the heading – so we can meet all the other people and things you write about. I tried to put it there, but don’t understand the word “table” and was afraid I’d do something to mess up the whole thing. So, JoanP, Ginny – here it is
Bruce’s website and blog. (http://www.brucefrankel.net/)
Bruce, do you have a schedule for your blog, or do you write there just when something especially motivates you, such as the death of Abby Lincoln?
Steph, binary? I’m impressed. I remember my 5th grader coming home from school and telling me about it, and I got the yes and no part, but could never translate Arabic numerals into binary.
Thinking about Margie Stoll – if she can do all she does, then I can surely swim a few laps. So, off to the pool.
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I remember learning about binary but I took a class from at the local community college that they offered free for parents whose children were learning about the binary system and I could never figure it out either.
Oh, Bruce, you have your own blog site? Will it tell us of your other talents and list other books? Is this your first "first person non-fiction"? I will go look!
I love the story of Abbey Lincoln who made many changes in her life, clear up to Saturday or Sunday, whe she died at the age of 80.
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Bruce, I think you are in good company, didn't everybody "nearly flunked statistics"? Fortunately, in my graduate studies we had a professor who recognized that most of us were never going to be doing heavy-duty research and took pity on us, so i got a "B" as a graduate student and haven't used one iota of what was being taught in that class since then.
My first experience w/ computers was being friends in the mid-60's w/ people who were using them in banking, w/ punch-cards, etc. My hands on experience came w/ an Apple IIE in the mid-80's, our first in-home computer. My husband was a v.p. at a college and had the expert advice of the computer people on campus. They were so right........ When i started using computers on the job in the 80's w/ Dept of Army, they were using and training us in pc's. Ohhhhh what a complicated mess compared to the Apple. Apple used, what seemed to me, to be rational, simple language for the actions of use, while IBM apparently wanted to make there products exclusive/status bearing - you're something special if you know how to use our programs - while Apple was appealing to the majority.
I was pleased that a young - 40-something- cousin made note on her facebook about Abby Lincoln's passing. Many of that generation are listening to the standard bearers of the 20th century. I have a grand-nephew who has a jazz ensemble who listen to and play the "standards" of jazz: Monk, Coltrane, Brubeck, Peterson, etc. Isn't that nice to know? And isn't it nice that we have their recordings to continue to listen to for the rest of our lives? Music has become more and more important to me in the last 2 decades. I find it a stress reliever and a joy. ................... jean
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Well, Jean, I am glad that you like the Apple products. User friendly is what they are.
And like many of us, you appreciate the older jazz and its spectaculary talented musicians. Monk, Dave Brubeck, Dizzy Gilliespie had his moments,too.
And I too, have some younger than springtime grans who love the oldies and have them playing in their cars and there technically correct stereos. Its a treat to talk about some their favorites, like Ella, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy, Mel Torme, Perle Bailey. I have some great CD's of Ella, Mel Torme with Earl Garner from Concord Studios, and of course, Marion Mc Partland. This kind of music keeps us sane in the sad world of junk that is available at this time.
Have you listened to Diana Krall and Jane Monheit??? They are very good and quite young!
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Ohhhh, Erroll Garner, YES! Isn't his music lovely?
And yes, i am a great fan of Diana Krall and Jane Monheit, and the net makes it so easy to hear their music, i'm really falling in love w/ the internet, it's finally doing all those things that we were promised in the 90's...........i'll never have enough time to enjoy all of it's goodness, it already steals my time from other things i should be doing..........jean
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BRUCE: what a lovely song.
JEAN: it was UNIVAC. I'm amazed it's in the Smithsonian.
I'm so glad that the old jazz is being kept alive. PBS is now rerunning a program about Miles Davis. Sad to think of the many great musicians in the old days that never got recorded and so are lost to us.
I'm surprised that the children are learning binary. It has no practical use, but I guess it stretches the mathematical way of thinking.
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JoanK,
That was me asking about whether your 1955 computer was Eniac or Univac. Its in the old Smithsonian original building and was there when we visited in 1978.
Thanks for telling us about the PBS special on Miles Davis. I will look and see if our station is showing it.
Also, I didn't know about Diana Krall and Jane Monheit being on the net. I'll be looking for them.
When the college offered the "new math" description to all the parents, many of us jumped to see what it would consist of and there, the Head of the Math Dept, a Dominican nun, was trying to explain something to us and we had no idea what she was talking about. But she kept repeating it was the future of math. This was in the early 60's.
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About my blog. I have tried to keep to a schedule, but not well. My hope is always to post on Tuesday and Thursday, but lately it's been one or the other. Or catching up with Thursday over the weekend. The blog is a melange -- stories about people from the book or others how accomplish or have accomplished much in later life; poetry; neuroscience and aging, and dance and the brain. I would like to write more essayistically, but time really hasn't permitted me to do that. I've mostly fallen back on reporting, more or less. Another goal for the blog is to do more original interviews on it. Alas, while on deadline on the book I'm ghosting, I've been lucky to find the time to do anything.
Now, I'm off tomorrow to take my mother to the hospital for a battery replacement in her pacemaker. We don't expect any problems. She's tough stuff.
I happened to remember the name of my first portable computer. It was called Kaypro.
Take a look at this streamlined baby: http://oldcomputers.net/kayproii.html
And speaking of 1955, here's a poem I wrote about my mother and her relationship with her vacuum cleaner, circa 1955:
VACUUM (1955)
You were the vehicle of her obsession
to rid our house of dirt,
if not disease,
a gray, urn-shaped, chrome-grilled fish,
a stove-enamel bottom feeder
which inhaled us clean.
I come to you, icon, dust grave,
employed by love until you seemed
almost a lover,
angel of hygiene reposing on rounded rail sleds,
Lurelle Guild’s Model XXX
Electrolux,
whose name, richer than Royal, Kirby or Hoover
(though Eureka had its claim),
was scripted
in post-war aluminum over nail-polish red,
implying something feverish,
sexual.
She slid you out— electric, streamlined,
bullet shaped— and unfurled
your cloth hose,
placed it in the slant nose hole
until clips clicked on curled
metal lips.
O ardent machine
that burned to suction rugs
through sculpted snout!
Your motor grew hot and ionized the air while she wielded the long wand,
probing every crease and crevice,
every spot.
Still I smell the air after you had stopped, after the loud hum
cut out and left our limbs tingling
in aftershock.
Smiling, satisfied, she emptied the small sac.
Nothing rare: green cat’s eye,
nugget of snot,
black bobby pin that held her hair in a tight brown bun,
but mostly cotton-candy ash of dead
compacted cells,
sloughed-off selves which day after day confettied
down for your immaculate bride,
vacuuming away.
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Enjoy! - Bruce
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By the way, I love Diana Kroll, too.
But also, there is a lot of contemporary music that I like, when I hear it. I don't listen a lot, but -- ahem -- I love my son Alex's music. His band is called Holy Ghost!
Here's a video of Holy Ghosts! recently released "I See, I Hear":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aJcyde1N9Y
(I suggest letting it load up a little and dragging the start point back. It take a little time to buffer. That's Alex in the thin striped shirt singing & playing guitar, keyboard, and some riffs on drums; that's nick on drums; that's the very talented Caroline Polachek doing a guest spot.)
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I meant "I Know. I Hear."
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I agree that I love the older jazz. My grand is into head bangers ,, but she is only 14.. All her bands have horrible off the wall names,,
I did a little programming on my second computer. It was a portable(ho ho ho) Compaq.. Little green screen and you had to be strong to carry it. I used the old Read..Writer... File.... Report programs to create my genealogy program and data base. I was sick when I had to change over. I loved the freedom of my programming.. Now I use a simply genealogy program for its speed in tucking data here and there, but am not fond of it.
The TI was more of a novelty than anything.. It hiccuped,, lost data and generally was experimental, but I just knew that all was coming and now it is here ..
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Not my cup of tea, Bruce, but if they are successful who am I to knock that music?? Its just not for me. I do see their musical abilities though and am reminded that one of the musicals on Broadway is entitled, "The Million Dollar Quartet", which is about a 1956 jam session of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins at Sun Studios. All music that we know from that age. But the amazing part of this story is about the musicians who are on stage. Although their history is varied, they have played all genres of music while here they are doing the music of the '50's and they sound great. After an ad for another show on Broadway, take a listen to this musical and these talented young men:
http://www.broadway.com/shows/million-dollar-quartet/video/150761/spotlight-on-million-dollar-quartet/ (http://www.broadway.com/shows/million-dollar-quartet/video/150761/spotlight-on-million-dollar-quartet/)
Hope your wonderful mother got along with her pacemaker replacement yesterday. My husband has to have that done in the next month or so. Its always one thing or another in this long life but all seems to go along in good, if sometimes slow, rhythm.
I was rereading the beginning of the book about your mother, Bruce, and here is Virginia Marsh Bell, age 86, who having lived had a unbelievably active life with her ideas of how to give care being accepted in many countries around the world and bringing much to the education of caregivers and kindness and love to those who have dementia, fought her way through non Hodgkin's lymphoma at 85 while studying string theory in math and maintaining her three days a week at 6am in high impact aerobics. What a strong lady! Her mental and emotional abilities are just amazing. Would that we all could look at the world as she does saying, "I don't mind getting old. I enjoy life to the fullest. What I most of all hate is the idea of missing the rest of this century."
Are her abilities in her genes?? And how was she nurtured in her early years?? Is this nature or nurture??
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Bruce: I liked the Holy Ghost music (listened to some of their other songs on youtube, too). Are they recorded?
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AdoAnnie -- Of course, I can easily imagine that Holy Ghost! might not send everyone to the moon, though I'm delighted that you listened. Thank you for taking the time. And yes, "The Million Dollar Quartet" looks like a lot of fun.
Steph- There's so much I would risk trying, but I can't wrap my head around the idea of trying programming. It says a lot about you that you took a shot at it.
JoanK -- To answer: Alex, my son, and Nick, the drummer, were part of another band that was signed to Capitol Records when they were still in high school. The band split up a few years later and Alex and Nick changed their style of music, worked as studio musicians, and began releasing a song here or there through their producers, DFA. They also do a lot of writing for other bands, and their songs have been very successful. In May, they releasd an EP - a four record album -- and began to perform live as Holy Ghost! for the first time. They opened for a big pop band, LCD Soundsystem no a national tour. Alex first night performing was before 4,000 people. So, it's been a steep learning curve. They are signed to two very big labels, Universal in Europe and the Far East, and their signing with a giant in the U.S., Canada and South America will hpe shortly. Their full album will be out early next year. They've been getting amazingly good press.
As for Virginia Marsh Bell: My first conversation with Virginia will be forever imprinted in my mind. And as I said in the introduction, her saying, "You've got to make the brain sweat" made a huge impression on me. But one of the things that struck me, and goes back to a point someone made earlier, is that Virginia grew up on a farm, too. She told me a wonderful story of standing by and watching her father dig post holes in his late 80s, and he was still urging and encouraging her. She was a math major as an undergraduate at Transylvania College/University (?), before she married. Her husband was a minister, and for the most part she lived the life of a minister's wife. But it did seem to me that there was something of the farm life that nurtured Virginia. My own theory -- which I didn't write into the book -- is that the strong values of farm life of communal responsibility, of respect for life, of perserverance in the face of disappointment and failure, and that kind of self-reliance that Emerson famously wrote about was breathed in by these girls who grew up on farms. It is speculative, but after interview Virginia Marsh Bell and Loretta, in particular, I thought about how many disciplines are encountered growing up on a farm; and how much is lost in lives of total privilege, or a life where all one does is concentrate on school work. Virginia Marsh Bell is an amazing woman.
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I am reading the book and like it very much. The stories are full of fascinating detail and most engaging. I appreciate all that these people have done. My accomplishments in retirement have been modest. One thing I have learned is that once retired I was really the manager of my own life, and that is not always so easy. I have had to make choices, say no to some things, and plan for the future. One reason I am so late signing into this discussion is that I have spent a lot of time this summer in the summer Latin reading group. I thought it would be a brief diversion, but it has turned out to be an everyday commitment, not just to translate but to review the grammar and attempt some exercises.
I must mention my friend Sally Gordon, who at the age of 101, is still working as a sergeant at arms for the Nebraska State Legislature. I went back to Lincoln for the celebration of her 100th, and it was great--a big reception at the state Capitol and a luncheon at the Cornhusker Hotel. Recently she received an award presented by Sen. Ben Nelson from Experience Works as America's Outstanding Oldest Worker for 2010. Sally was secretary to two different governors of Nebraska and retired in her 70's from the Social Security Administration. She volunteers at the Governor's Mansion as a hostess. She walks a lot, goes to the grocery store and brings home her groceries in a shopping cart, and lives alone in her own home. There is a chapter about Sally in Mary Pypher's book on aging, and there have been many magazine and newspaper articles.
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Bruce, I love the poem about a vacuum cleaner, it’s good to laugh and so true too. We shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously.
Many of my children had a musical experience in their teens and still enjoy listening to pop music mixed in with some classical pieces, where I enjoy some jazz I prefer classical, but last night I listened to South Pacific on PBS that was thoroughly delightful.
Anne, “Are her (Virginia Marsh Bell) abilities in her genes? …..Is this nature or nurture?”
To me only so much of the make up of the body is attributed to genes. Abilities can’t be one OR the other, it is both nature and nurture. I believe that the key to healthy aging is mental and physical balance and when one predominates the other suffers, but we never have enough time each day to do what we want to do.
Sometimes we have to let loose and throw everything by the way side and be a little bad, otherwise wanting to have your cake and eat it too will drive you crazy.
At 84 I am still healthy, active and useful in society, but how long will that last? I don’t know and I don’t think about it.
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Good morning. So, in this strangest of worlds, I am sitting in a hospital waiting room in South Florida, while my mother is in an operating room having her batteries changed. Before she went in, she promised to come out like the Energizer Bunny, advertising her new power source.
Lucy, Thank you for joining in and for your comment on the book. I was unaware that Sally Gordon had won the Outstanding Older Worker award. I will definitely look up recent stories and perhaps contact her, to write a blog posting for my website. She sounds great. And I am hugely impressed wtih your commitment to learning Latin. I feel a little jealous of those of you who are pursuing Latin. I think that when I'm done writing the book that I'm working on, I'll have re-evaluate my schedule and see if I can figure out a way to work in the time commitment to do a Latin class or some language learning.
Eloise - Thanks for the comment on the poem. And it seems to me that you've got the right attitude. Though I am only 60, having survived both cancer and a heart attack over the last two decades, I'm well acquainted with the feeling of not knowing how much longer I might be able to work to realize my goals or to enjoy the things I enjoy. But in working on What Should I Do With The Rest of My Life? , it became clear to me, if it wasn't already, that the people I was interested in had a great ability to focus what engaged them and not on questions of "how much longer," of what they could easily have spent time fearing. Just as brain studies have shown us that imaging an act, particularly if we've already had experience with it, causes the brain to fire neural circuitry as if we were doing the act, I suspect there's a neural benefit in directing our free-floating thoughts toward what we want to do.
I'm wondering what examples of successful goal setting or visualization this group might have to share, since you all seem to have accomplished so much in recent years. For instance, has goal setting been important to learning Latin? Has visualization of something you hoped to do help you to do it? -- Bruce
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Talking Heads #10
A forum for opinions on anything in print: magazines, newspaper articles, online: bring your ideas and let's discuss.
"Choices – For the Rest of Your Life?"
| (http://www.seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/whatshouldIdo/what.jpg) | We are fortunate to have Bruce Frankel as our guest in this month's Talking Heads discussion. Bruce is the author of "What Should I Do With the Rest of My Life?" in which he presents us with more than a dozen profiles of individuals he calls "ordinary people who embraced new possibilities late in life - extraordinary late bloomers who have overthrown the usual expectations of age."
| (http://www.seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/whatshouldIdo/robby.jpg) | Profiled in the book is one of SeniorLearn's own Discussion Leaders, Robby Iadeluca, a practicing clinical psychologist, who still conducts a full schedule of therapy sessions, five days a week at the age of 90! A Review of Bruce's book (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/NYCtrip/frankelbookreview.html); Amazon link (http://www.amazon.com/What-Should-Do-Rest-Life/dp/1583333657/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279830869&sr=1-1) |
Our questions for Bruce as we consider these profiles:
- Are these ordinary people like you and me...or do they possess extraordinary talent, wealth or physical fitness?
- What inspiration can we take from his research today? |
Thanks for joining us, Bruce! We're looking forward to hearing your words of acquired wisdom!
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| (http://www.seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/whatshouldIdo/maxine3.jpg) | On the other side of the issue, ..."Gerontologists tend to think of successful aging as taking advantage of what potential there is, staying as socially and intellectually engaged as possible. Our culture tends to measure it more in terms of how active people are." |
"Part of the pressure on older people to be successful and give back and volunteer and be active and play tennis is that we are a culture of doing. We don't really know how to be. That's something that late life gives us, is time to be. But that's stigmatized." "Turn 70.Act Your Grandchild’s Age" Kate Zernike, NY Times (http://www.sikhchic.com/people/turn_70_act_your_grandchilds_age)
1. Are goals and expectations necessary for our “second life?”
2. What is ageism? Outside of public policy decisions (i.e. Social Security, medicare, etc.) should age be a consideration?
3. Whose Second Lives do you celebrate?
4. Do you or did you look forward to life after 65?
5. Did you have any specials plans.
Your opinion? Let's discuss!
Check out Bruce's Website and Blog! (http://www.brucefrankel.net/)
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Bruce-in-the-waiting-room -- either you or your mother be sure to ask if the pacemaker is the same or did they put in a new one. I had my battery changed about three years ago (after 10 years of good use), but didn't know until much later that they had also replaced the pacemaker -- and I was awake the whole time! I think the company sent me info.
Best regards to your mother. I'm sure she's glad this is over and done with for a long time.
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That has got to be the only poem written about a vacuum cleaner!.....lol.
My sister celebrated her 84th birthday recently and she said to me that she never expected to live this long,(although our parents both lived into their 80's, the previous generations and my parents siblings mostly passed away in their 70's). But she grew up on a farm and lived on a dairy farm until her 60's and then had a house w/ a large garden. I said to her that she had all those great fresh fruits and vegetables all her life, maybe they helped. But she has also been very active in her church and in the community. Our hometown has a huge community fair every summer and until 2 yrs ago she was responsible for the arts and crafts display and competition which had hundreds of entrants. She still spends one day a week "supervising" and setting up. She's still an excellent driver and drives all over the area, which is mostly rural. She's continued to be active w/ her children, grandchildren and grt-grands, attending all their sports events and babysitting as needed.
I'm just about to be 69 and i'm hoping that i have that same gene pool, altho i've had more health problems already than she has had and havenot been as physically active as an adult as she has been her whole life. I didn't spend as much time on the farm, but as Bruce has commented, i think there is a lot to be said for the lessons learned in a farm family.
One of the first truths that i figured out, many yrs ago, was that there was more equality among the sexes and among the children and adults in a farm family - everyone has to do their job, or the family suffers economically and therefore psychically. So rational men recognized how important their wives and the women and children in their family were to them and treated them as such. There are many strong, smart women in my family, altho i didn't realize that until i was well into my adult yrs. My Mother and her older sister both attended the local college in the first 2 decades of the 20th century and therefore had "careers" of their own. Of course, at the time by local law, my mother had to quite teaching when she got married, which she would have probably done any way being a farm owner.
I've been thinking a lot about that generation during these hot days of summer - all those clothes they wore. My Mother NEVER was w/out stockings, even when she went into the garden to work - she never wore slacks. But they were w/out air conditioning or even electric fans.............whewww, that must have hardened them.........lol.......
I liked the music Bruce................and i'll be looking forward to the Million Dollar Quartet coming to Philly...............jean
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Bruce, The Vacuum Cleaner really brought pictures to mind. My parents’ home had a small low cupboard under the stairs that would never hold an upright. It surely must have been made for the electrolux.
Lucy, I really liked hearing about your friend, Sally Gordon One of the questions in the heading asks “Whose second lives do you celebrate. And she certainly has had many.
I read something the other night that I think fits in well with this discussion. It’s from my f2f group’s selection for next month, The Songcatcher by Sharyn McCrumb. A Carolina innkeeper near the Appalachian Trail is shelling peas and talking with one of his guests .. … …
“There’s a serenity about the whole mechanical process of opening pea pods, you know? I was watching the butterflies a little while ago, and I thought: They know what it’s like to be inside a pod, only no one helps them break out. They have to do it on their own. Now, with people, some folks break out on their own pods, and some have to be broken out by others, but it doesn’t matter which way you’re set free. The important thing is that you emerge -- get out there into the great world and seek your destiny.”
And from today NY Times, an article about another second life, or maybe just an extension of the first. Bruce, I’ll bet you probably already know her.
Out of the Loss of a Garden, Another Life Lesson (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/19/garden/19garden.html?_r=1)
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First, all went well in the hospital today. My mother's doing fine. They kept her overnight for observation, but she was in great spirits after the procedure. I do not believe, PedIn, that they replaced the pacemaker, but I'll double check tomorrow. Thank you for the heads up. The doctor said he put a bigger battery in and changed the lead. My mother was all smiles this afternoon, and already talking about going back to Curves and starting some sort of re-training regimen. Psychologically, I think it's a huge relief to have this behind her.
Jean, I love your message about your sister and the various advantages -- and disadvantages -- of growing up on a farm. You noted something that I have thought a lot about: how the interdependency of farm life seems to teach communtarian values and foster some equality of the sexes, though I am sure that was very much a function of the particular family and culture. I hate to get sucked into romantacizing what probably wasn't so perfect. But, at least among the women I interviewed for the book who grew up on farms, there did seem to be both a sense of balance and a belief in themselves that was a direct result of having had real responsibilities to the family, the farm, and, by extension, the larger world.
Barbara Smith, of HGRM, also grew up on a farm, near Ogdensburg, NY. As I note in the book, she came from a large family that struggled on the Kelly family farm through the Depression. Barbara was valedictorian of her high school class, but almost didn't go to college. From the beginning, it seemed to me that the values of farm life contributed, half a century later, to the creation of HGRM. Rural life has been in decline for more than a century now; electrification (bright lights, big city) hastened it, as did industrialization the move to cities. And family farms continue to disappear. One of the sadder moments of writing the book,occurred when Loretta's son, Mike, had to auction off his cows and the reality that a family's way of living, an occupation that reached back to Loretta's Scottish ancestors who first settled the area where she grew up. I know this is not a novel thought, but I often find myself wondering about all that has been lost and how it ripples out and, even unnoticed, takes something back from all of us.
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I met Sally Gordon in a weight loss group many years ago in Lincoln, Nebraska, where she still lives. She was not particularly well known at that time except for being in fashion shows which included clothing for older women. She had never been very overweight but has lost weight as she aged. I remember when she turned 80 and I planned a small party for her in a local restaurant, and then we held one for me when I turned 50. Now Sally is quite famous and handles her fame with grace and dignity. She is pleased to be recognized but her happiness does not depend on other peoples' opinions..
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Bruce,
Sounds like your mom is really doing well and getting on with her life. Its been my impression that when a pacemaker is replaced, the whole unit is replaced.
Pedl'n,
That article in the Times was very interesting. Without all the volunteers and her advance on her book, she wouldn't have been able to save her lovely garden. I want to get her book for a gardening friend for Christmas.
Also, what a wonderful quote from Sharon McCrumb's "Songcatcher". Its so true!
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I hope this isn't too long. It gave me a good laugh. Enjoy!
$5.37! That's what the kid behind the counter at Taco Bell said to me.
I dug into my pocket and pulled out some lint and two dimes and something that used to be a Jolly Rancher. Having already handed the kid a five-spot, I started to head back out to the truck to grab some change when the kid with the Elmo hairdo said the harshest thing anyone has ever said to me. He said, "It's OK. I'll just give you the senior citizen discount."
I turned to see who he was talking to and then heard the sound of change hitting the counter in front of me. "Only $4.68" he said cheerfully.
I stood there stupefied. I am 58, not even 60 yet!!! A mere child! Senior citizen?
I took my burrito and walked out to the truck wondering what was wrong with Elmo. Was he blind? As I sat in the truck, my blood began to boil. Old? Me?
I'll show him, I thought. I opened the door and headed back inside. I strode to the counter, and there he was waiting with a smile.
Before I could say a word, he held up something and jingled it in front of me, like I could be that easily distracted! What am I now? A toddler?
"Dude! Can't get too far without your car keys, eh" ? I stared with utter disdain at the keys. I began to rationalize in my mind.
"Leaving keys behind hardly makes a man elderly! It could happen to anyone!"
I turned and headed back to the truck. I slipped the key into the ignition, but it wouldn't turn. What now? I checked my keys and tried another. Still nothing.
That's when I noticed the purple beads hanging from my rear view mirror.
I had no purple beads hanging from my rear view mirror.
Then, a few other objects came into focus. The car seat in the back seat. Happy Meal toys spread all over the floorboard. A partially eaten doughnut on the dashboard.
Faster than you can say ginkgo biloba, I flew out of the alien vehicle.
Moments later I was speeding out of the parking lot, relieved to finally be leaving this nightmarish stop in my life. That is when I felt it, deep in the bowels of my stomach: hunger! My stomach growled and churned, and I reached to grab my burrito, only it was nowhere to be found.
I swung the truck around, gathered my courage and strode back into the restaurant one final time. There Elmo stood, draped in youth and black nail polish. All I could think was, "What is the world coming to?"
All I could say was, "Did I leave my food and drink in here"? At this point I was ready to ask a Boy Scout to help me back to my vehicle, and then go straight home and apply for Social Security benefits..
Elmo had no clue. I walked back out to the truck, and suddenly a young lad came up and tugged on my jeans to get my attention. He was holding up a drink and a bag. His mother explained, "I think you left this in my truck by mistake."
I took the food and drink from the little boy and sheepishly apologized.
She offered these kind words: "It's OK. My grandfather does stuff like this all the time."
All of this is to explain how I got a ticket doing 85 in a 40. Yes, I was racing some punk kid in a Toyota Prius. And no, I told the officer, I'm not too old to be driving this fast.
As I walked in the front door, my wife met me halfway down the hall. I handed her a bag of cold food and a $300 speeding ticket. I promptly sat in my rocking chair and covered up my legs with a blankey.
The good news was I had successfully found my way home.
Notice the larger type? That's for those of us who have trouble reading.
P.S. Save the earth...... It's the only planet with chocolate !!!!!
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I cant answer about the latin since I am still on the fence about taking it.. But I know that the past nine months have been time for me to set goals.. I wont say I will get there, but I needed to make sure that I learned to not only live, but enjoy life.. I find aging exhilerating most of the time.. Sure I ache now and then, but I love to walk, I love the gym and exercising,, yoga at least helps a bit with my balance.. One thing the physical therapist taught me.. She says it is all in the trying.. Succeeding may take time, but the trying needs to start at the beginning.
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Succeeding may take time, but the trying needs to start at the beginning.
I love this philosophy, Steph. Thanks for sharing it.
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Succeeding may take time, but the trying needs to start at the beginning.
I see Mary has already put that up, but it bears repeating . . . . and repeating. That's perfect, Steph, and so appropriate in this discussion. Classic. You inspire us all.
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It is easy to romanticize the family farm, but it is anything but romantic, most of the time. My Mother never got over the fear that came w/ the tho't that lightening might set the barns on fire, even tho i never heard her tell a story of that having happened to her or anyone in her family. There are all sorts of dangers - machinery, animals, bad weather meaning lose of income, etc. etc. There is no such thing as a vacation, cows have to be milked every day. Work is never-ending especially in spring, summer and fall - most of the babies in our family were born in Sept, Oct, Nov - does that tell you when there was an opportunity for love-making and conception??? Outside work must be done in the summer no matter what the temperatures. ...................... none of my sister's four children choose to go into farming. Altho they are all still in the community they were raised in and very involved in it.
Bruce - can you give us any clue about why there are only women involved in this discussion? ...........................jean
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My mother was raised on a farm, and left it as soon as she could.
But her brother came to visit us. He wanted to show us his pictures, and I thought they would be pictures of his grandchildren. No, they were pictures of his farm. You could hear the love in his voice when he talked about it.
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JoanK.. I grew up in a farming community. We owned a small farm, not for our living however. My Dad was a contractor.. Still we raised chicken, pigs, etc large vegetable gardens, a small orchard.. etc. But the people I went to school with were mostly from farms and many of them are still there 55 years later. They do love the soil and what they do. The smart ones have learned to sway with the tide and have changed the type of farming. No more dairy anywhere in our county and the chicken farmers now all work for the big chicken companies, But now they are mostly orchards,, vegetable farms,,and specialty types of vegetables. The most successful have started large farm stores on their property and seem to do quite well. People love to go to farm stores and think everything is grown right on site. Sometimes yes, sometimes no..
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I have a friend who grew up on a farm, youngest of 8 chlldren, who says that when she hears about others who grew up in the city, she feels envious. Hearing of their escapades with friends in the city makes her think of what she missed. Most of her siblings were gone and there was no one to play with. And although she kept busy helping her mother raising chickens, planting the kitchen garden, she was very lonely. She has retained a love for having gardens--floral and vegetable. Her yard looks like a botanical experiment. In spite of being 80yrs old, she works in the garden daily, starting at dawn. Early, because she must avoid the heat and the sun as she has skin problems due to too much sun.
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I'm back in New York, with my mother safely discharged from the hospital and back at home with her new energizer batteries. We had a little wrinkle that kept her in an extra night, but all went well and she's now looking forward to enrolling in a new painting class this fall.
(And yes, Adoannie, you were correct, the whole pacemaker was replaced. I had the chance to speak with the technician from Guidant when he came to do a pre-discharge check of amperage, etc. He explained that generally they refer to it as a battery replacement, because when doctors talk about replacing the pacemaker entirely, they include all of the leads to the heart.)
On the plane ride home, I sat next to a woman who has worked cleaning the New York University dental school offices for 36 years, since she was newly arrrived from Yugoslavia as a 19-year-old. She is on the verge of retirement, but feels as if she has done nothing with her life. When I suggested to her that she's not really too old to go back to her love of art and architecture -- and that she could probably get free tuition at NYU, she said, "No, if I haven't done it all these years I'll never do it. I've lost all ambition I ever had." I tried out a couple of encouraging stories on her, but she was sticking to her story. "My father ruined my life when he took me from my home and brought me here at 19. I got married young because I was angry at him. And I am angry at him because I ended up having to work my whole life doing nothing but cleaning up after others."
What struck me later was how this woman had created a storyline for herself, and she was more loyal to the story than she was to her life. She had probably repeated it so many times over so many years, she could not begin to imagine a life that was not attached to her father by that story of destruction. She was clearly not going to hear anything I had to say, and so, I mostly listened. But I wondered what one of you might have said to her.
By the by, the Sept-Oct. issue of AARP, the magazine, is out with a story on creativity. Note, a tip from yours truly in the accompanying box.
All the best, Bruce
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Good for you being in AARP, Bruce! I don't get the magazine any more but I know somebody who does and we'll look for you. :)
I think I would ask her if she's going to allow her father to ruin what remains of the rest of her life.
Easier said than done, tho with a grievance that old.
One story we haven't commented on is The Doctor of Substance, which is about our own Robby. I love the way this is written. I found out things about Robby I did not know, either. I didn't know he ushers at the community theater or that he writes a monthly column for Warrenton Lifestyle Magazine. I'd like to know how he ended up doing that.
That's the first time I heard Robby's mother and father's names. I wonder if the effect of WWI had any bearing on Robby's final choice of profession? And he raised homing pigeons. I used to keep pigeons too. I can just see him in his Chesterfield coat and Homburg hat and cane at 18, too. I had a Chesterfield coat when I went to college, boy was it thin, the icy air would whip thru it as if it were made of paper, but it was a Chesterfield! hahahah And Roseland! What an interesting chapter this is, all kinds of things about Robby I never knew.
The Boy Scouts, reporting, graduate school and the poignant death of his mother, marriages and various careers, it's fascinating reading of a full life in which Robby never seems to stand still or stay in one place.
I liked the part where he retired from ARI in May 1989 at 70, for two months, and then took a course to become a state certified abuse counselor. That seems to be the key to his constant upward success, he keeps moving. At 76 he fought by appeal and won, becoming a clinical psychologist. Retroactively. I know that was a sweet victory, hurrah for Robby!
Then psychopharmacology and 17 workshops (17 Workshops!) between 1995 and 1999. Squad cars. Booking at the station, an education in addiction.
Writing children's stories, taking up bridge, ALL-OK indeed. Wonderful article and wonderful person! I am proud to know him.
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And he has been our fearless leader in Story of Civilization for how many years? Leading us from prehistoric times through Greece, Rome, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance. Even he didn't imagine that!
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I don't think there is anything you could have said to that woman. She had dug her thoughts into such a deep rut, she couldn't see out of it. Maybe if a friend took her by the hand, and led her to someplace where she could see something she loved (art for example), it would bring her out.
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What is the saying, JoanK, "Men (and women too) lead lives of quiet desperation.?" How sad, a young woman thinking she has to give up what she loves because her circumstances change. And then to live with those thoughts for years. You tried, Bruce, and who knows, maybe you awakened something in her that will come out later.
I've been thinking of Sharyn McCrumb's words above, how some people need help in breaking open their pods, and that also brings to mind the many different venues that help them do that. The local First Friday art events here are pretty much for the talented, but every Sunday the local newspaper has a display of photos that various subscribers have submitted. Last weekend was a BIG 2-day Special Olympics event -- Outdoor Games -- lots of photos, articles about individual participants.
I guess I'm getting away from "second" lives, to living lives to the fullest, but one leads into the other, and my point is that it's sometimes important to provide the ways and means to do so. No doubt, everyone here can give examples of how it's done in their environs.
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I know people who are like that woman and they do not change. They cling to the old grievances. It is sad. Life is a feast.. I truly believe your wishes and desires and even needs change over time. YOu must reach out and sample.. I love the stories of painting, but have no great desire to paint.. I journal, but blogging does not seem quite right for me. I am too private in the end. In our widows group, we have a widower whose wife loved to write poetry. He loves it, carries many of them in his wallet and reads them aloud at every opportunity. I asked him why he didnt try to write some, but he explained that carrying them and reading them to people brings her back to life for him. I liked that explanation.
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I belong to knitting groups, and some of the people are very talented and some are even professional designers who are publishing books. I am content to do what I do, simple things, but I have learned much since I joined and now am doing simple things that are more interesting and challengiing. It's a great opportunity to see what people have done. They have trips and luncheons, while the group here in the library on the beach just talk and go out to lunch, which is also pleasant.
I'm not looking for a second life, just ways I can improve the one I have now, which I like.
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Very interesting notes from all.
I loved your message, Steph.
Life is a feast. I truly believe your wishes and desires and even needs change over time. YOu must reach out and sample.
And that's an incredible story of the widower who carries his late wife's poems to read. What a poignant image: her poems folded into his wallet for him to read aloud every chance he gets. I liked, too, your impulse to ask him why he didn't try writing some of his own. I wonder what those poems would sound like.
And yes, PedIn, I agree. I think this business of second lives and third chapters gets a bit artificial. As Ginny pointed out in her wonderful recap of Robby's story, life is not so divisible. It's a little like when a great baseball player hits his 600th home run. What makes the 600th more important than the 599th or the 601st. It's just the way we mark things or put a handle on them.
In truth, I had to edit Robby's chapter down considerably, as I did several other chapters. There were some wonderful passages in Robby's early life, growing up in Islip, and fascinating things about his mother and father and the old house in Islip that I wished I could have woven into the chapter. I have a very solid image of Robby as a boy -- playing musical instruments, participating in a variety of church choirs, riding his bicycle great distances, exploring nature around the Great South Bay, occasionally getting into trouble in town, but always fueled by his mother's encouragement, intelligence, and wisdom.
But like you, Ginny, what I always found most amazing was the decision at 70 to get the internship at the University of Virginia And Robby really lived it, packing his hours into three days, if I remember, sleeping in Charlottesville two nights a week. Twenty years later, the dean still had a vivid recollection of Robby's inquisitive learning style and his tough-mindedness. Yes, Robby's life is filled with motion, but it is mindful and purposeful movement. It's never movement for movement's sake. It's goal driven and belief-driven.
When I first showed an editor the manuscript for What Should I Do With The Rest Of My Life?, her first comment about Robby was: "I guess he's your poster boy!" He has certainly proved a great inspiration to me during the work on the book, a quality matched by his generosity and support since the book's publication.
What's most impressive, though, may be how well loved and widely respected Robby is in Warrenton. And what I witnessed in my visit with him, in particular at lunch and dinner, was how quickly he engages with others -- and how quickly they respond, and seem to want to continue the engagement.
I, for one, am hugely grateful to Robby for sharing the stories of his life so far with me.
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Robby has the unusual ability to simply be comfortable no matter where he is. When we went to South Carolina, he was the only man and he simply fit.. We all enjoyed each other and laughed and laughed. Many men would not have been able to cope with that many women all at once.
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It looks like the end of the month is fast approaching. We can keep going here as long as we like, although some of us have got to wash a few clothes, toss them in a suitcase and head out to New York. And for most of us there, the highlight of our trip will be meeting Bruce and MaryAnn McFadden at Sarabeth’s in Central Park. And I get to catch up with my daughter and her partner for the first time since May when we were all together at a family wedding.
Bruce has asked us about our goals.
I'm wondering what examples of successful goal setting or visualization this group might have to share, since you all seem to have accomplished so much in recent years. For instance, has goal setting been important to learning Latin? Has visualization of something you hoped to do help you to do it? -- Bruce
When I was growing up, and would tell my mother about a friend or acquaintance who was allowed to do something that I was not, her response was always, “What will she have to look forward to when she’s 25?”
Now that I’m in my 8th decade I still want things to look forward to – like this upcoming trip. They may not be goal-setting spectacular, more like short-term cattle prods. Can I do 900 yards in the pool three times this week? Will I try that new dessert for bridge club, instead of always buying Tiramisu.? I think I feel more like Lucy, who says . . .
I am content to do what I do, simple things, but I have learned much since I joined and now am doing simple things that are more interesting and challengiing. .. . .
I'm not looking for a second life, just ways I can improve the one I have now, which I like.
Happy with the status quo, but still trying to improve it.
What about the rest of you? Do you set goals, or maybe y ou don’t call them that. Do you look and/or hope for the special things in your life
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Something we have not addressed at all is what happens in the later years of retirement. Robbie excepted, energy levels fall and physical ailments appear. One still craves something in the future, but there doesn't seem to be anything ahead except an early bedtime and another doctor's appointment. The internet is a real resource but television is very disappointing, especially since the interesting PBS shows come later in the evening than I can stay awake. Fifteen years ago we did many things that are no longer possible, like driving to visit our children and young grands. Now the grands are teens and driving on congested interstates seems unwise. Airports scare me to death. :(
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I find chemistry (anti-depressants) and gratitude lists help significantly. ...lol....I didn't realize how depressed and angry i felt until i started taking just 10mg of amitryptiline a day, which i actually took for my fibro, not for depression, and had a change of brain chemistry - ya know "better living thru chemistry......." And every couple of days i try to list - mentally is not actually writing - what were the good things about today, just to get me away from the negative statements in my brain..........it works
I also find that i feel so much better after having lunch or coffee w/ friends, no super hiways, no airports, just driving a mile or two to meet up w/ them. ................and the stimulation that i get from the conversation w/ all of you helps too.................I feel like i'm still a part of the world.
I was never a goal setter and found that i did many things that just popped up in front of me that i wouldn't even had tho't about and therefore would not have been on a "goals" list. I have done many things in my life that i never even could have been a possibility when i was 20 yrs old. I find that is true for many people i talk to. The world has changed so much thru our lives that there are occupations and hobbies and fun things to do that weren't even in the world when we were young. So i'm not a goal setter now either.
The most exciting thing that i'm involved w/ now came about accidentally also. A friend asked me to go to an Elderhostel/Exploritas/Roadscholar event at a retirement community near us. It was a once a wk, 6 wk series about women and political leadership. It was very good, but thruout the discussion i heard more than once women saying they didn't know much women's history. That being my avocation - history being one of my occupations, I wrote out an outline for a potential course and gave it to the woman in charge of the E/E/R course. At this retirement community they have their own "university," inviting in college professors and experts for 4 courses a year. So next spring i'm going to be presenting a course on Women in American History. One of my favorite parts of teaching is doing the research, pulling resources together, and building the course. So i'm feeling very good right now, as i'm in the middle of doing that. While talking w/ my friends about it one suggested that i get in touch w/ other retirement communities in our tri-county area to offer it to them - so that's my next "goal?" ..........jean
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JEAN: we are all so excited abouit this course of yours.
One thing we all learn as we grow older is that life is not a straight line. You set off in one direction, buzzing along, then suddenly something happens (a death, an illness or disability) and wham! You have to pick yourself up, and either start all over again, find a new way to the old path, or find a new path to follow. (This is true for everyone, only young people don't know it yet).
I was born with a handicap (partial paralysis of my right side). Didn't learn to walk until I was 3 or 4. I felt that I knew how to deal with handicap. Yeah, right!!! Each time there is an increase in disability that limits me more, I have to go through the whole process all over again, as if I'd never known it before: the self pity, anger, frustration, depression blah blah blah. But the important thing is, I DO get through it. I use all the help that I can get: medicine, friends, spiritual resources, brain power to get around, over, and through obstacles. In the end, I'm too selfish to spend my life feeling sorry for myself it's BORING!
(I talk a great game: wait for the next crisis, see how I do!)
Forty years ago, I set a modest goal for my personal pleasure: since I love birds, I wanted to see at least 300 species of birds in the wild before I died. That's very modest, for a "birder", but I knew I didn't have the resources to go abroad or the physical ability to travel to wild spots w/o much help from others, especially now that I'm in a wheelchair. I reached that goal the other day, just before my 77th birthday. HOORAY!
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Jean....what you say about amitryptyline is so very true. I'm a psychiatrist and often used to prescribe it for some kinds of physical pain (fibro being one) and, of-course, depression. It would frequently work well in low doses.(esp. for pain) Then it got supplanted by the newer antidepressants--but I often thought they were not as efficatious. Anyway--the difference IS amazing when it works.
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What an exciting event for you, Joan K! Congratulations!
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JoanK, congratulations. That’s a fantastic goal that you have met. Can you give us a quick breakdown. Like where, approx. did you see these species. I’m thinking Israel, Maryland, Californai, and . . . .? Do you have favorite birds? The biggest challenge to see?
(I talk a great game: wait for the next crisis, see how I do!)
I think many do, and there is nothing wrong with it, either.
ursamajor, I understand what you’re saying. Our capabilities change, and our perspectives along with them. And sometimes it’s hard to reconcile with that. But as Jean says, there’s lots of things going on today that weren’t possible 25 or 30 years ago. I remember my kids sending me videos of their children when they were little. Now they can put them right on the Internet or email them. And with webcams, you can connect to their own live shows. Tomorrow – personal video conferencing. (One of these days I'll learn how to work the webcam on my laptop :D )
I remember one rather dismal Christmas several years ago – my first and only, ever by myself. My son and family were in the Phillippines for a year, my youngest daughter was working in Guatemala and her sister was going to spend the holidays with her. I was to go to my Seattle daughter and her family, and two days before departure her youngest came down with chicken pox. I’d never had them and it was deemed wise not to go there. It wasn’t awful, I was invited out to dinner, along with other strays. It was fine. That night, at home, an email came from my son directing me to Photoloft, and there were tons of Christmas pictures of all their family doings. Technology made my day. And I’m a firm believer that there are and will be ways to work around some of those bumps that pop up in the road.
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I've just read through all of the posts since my last and kind of digesting them rather than trying to say something intelligent in response. Mostly, I just continue to be amazed and fascinated and inspired by your conversation. Particularly, I'll add, by the honesty of it. The public honesty of it.
But I couldn't not congratulate you, JoanK on bird #300. What a great goal! And to me, what a huge accomplishment. Like PedIn, I'd love to know more, but in particular and immediately, what was the 300th bird? where did you see it? how did you spot it? what did you do to celebrate?
I'm such an absolute urban dweller that I might be able to distinguish a cardinal from a pigeon, or blue jay from a crow, but I'm not sure how much further I could go.
It reminds me, though, of a documentary on collecting I set out to make 15 years ago. Because of funding and issues with a collaborator, it went unfinished. The film was going to be kind of quirky, as much a look at collecting as animal behavior as individual obsession. One thing that has always stayed with me is a comment that a scientist at Oxford University told me about how innate collecting is to our species. He cited rhyme as an example of our need, maybe our earliest form of collecting. There were all kinds of theories, as can be seen in the chapter on Naomi Wilzig. But I think it is like music. It is about the pleasure the brain takes in observation and pattern making. But it is also a way of setting our lives to a kind of score. Perhaps it is too fantastic, but I wonder, Joan, if you looked back how many of the days you might remember associated with the birds you saw, about the memories that would flood in and attach to the image of that bird.
I was touched by your post, PedIn, to ursamajor. I find, too, on my many days alone as a writer, with my two older sons flown and my youngest often elsewhere, that I turn to the resources of the Internet to bring me some connection that otherwise I wouldn't have -- a look at one of their facebook pages reassures me that they are living their lives, a quick email just to touch base. When I visited my mother, I was upset to see how slow her old Dell has become and how little can now be done with it, and realized how vitally important a new computer is for her now. I also realized how poor a substitute the virtual is for the real.
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Goals, since life got turned upside down, I have been steadily working on new goals.. Elderhostel is providing some travel and I will somehow work in more. I still get sad when I see the big RV's.. We had such fun in ours, but that part is done. I will try to find other outlets. I am doing some volunteering, but recently received an application to help in a local animal shelter. It was more intrusive than any employment form I have ever seen. I sent it back with a No thanks letter and received a very snippy reply about how they need to be careful.. Since I planned on cleaning cages and dogs, not quite sure how careful they needed to be, but since I have worked with several dog rescue organizations for years, will continue just to do that.
The library is a nice volunteer place, but our library puts so much emphasis on the childs library and I really dislike volunteering in the childrens end. Research is my love and nonfiction.. so again I am not actively volunteering, although they supposedly have my name on file if they need helpers in the main library. I gather that the students at the community college get preference in the main library. Sigh.. Oh well.
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I haven't been in this folder for a few days and have just really enjoyed the stories that our posters have written for posterity here.
Bruce,
Glad your mom is back home and feeling good. I know that its a relief for you to know that she still looks forward to the future. What an amazing person!
My dr told me he plans on retiring in the next year when he turns 65. His wife will also. He says they have found that working 60 or 70 hours a week is finally catching up with them. So, I told him about Bruce's book and the people he as featured in it and asked him if he had any plans for the future when he is retired.
Well, that brought his story to the surface! Seems that he is too busy living his life to think too far ahead. After raising 5 children, giving them all college educations and working to support all this, he and his wife find that they are slowing down. Getting tired more easily and all that.
But he does expect to keep up his other business which is on the internet. He has a well known travel agency that he maintains after working 12 hours everyday.. Beautiful site! Then he will continue to keep up his pilot's license requirements by volunteering with Civil Air Patrol. Sometimes planning for second chapter or third life just doesn't occur for our aging population. They are already involved in more than one life as it is.
Oh, JoanK, congratters on reaching your goal. Like Bruce, I don't recognize that many of our fine feathered friends although I do enjoy watching them from our windows that overlook a woods and creek.
Steph,
You are doing such a good job of helping yourself recover from a great loss. Hang in there!
As Pedl'n has mentioned, some of us are planning a trip to NYC where we will have the honor of meeting Bruce Frankel and Maryann McFadden at a tea party on Sept 11th. And we have to pack!!
I want to mention that I will be out of town for the next four days visiting friends in eastern West Virginia. We plan on a visit to the radio telescope facility near their home plus a ride on the Cass Scenic Railroad. We hope to spend one night on their deck, wrapped in blankets, enjoying the sky and stars above. They live way out in the mountains and have no city lights to prevent such an evening.
I will try to go online but haven't much hope for that in the mountains.
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Thank you those who responded to my post. It was so interesting that Mabel found a whole new way to expand a long time interest and to hear about Joan's seeing the 300th bird species! And Pedln, thank you for your response. It is particularly hard to be alone at Christmas.
I still have a wonderful husband and stay in contact with our five children, but the oldest daughter now prefers to spend time with her own grandchildren and most of the others are too far away to see regularly. We did this summer rent an enormous house in the mountains and all our children were there; the married granddaughters did not come because they have small children and thouht the house unsuitable. In the past there were family communities of several generations but now mostly the kids are educated and go where they or their spouses find work. It is too long between visits.
I will ask my doctor daughter about amitryptiline.
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I am in absolute awe from recent posts.
Being involved in my youngest daughter’s family life since we share a house, I only have part time to devote to my own goals, but I squeeze it in. I can say that the Internet has brought me more satisfaction that I could ever imagine. My most rewarding project was participating in a government research 2 years ago about seniors using the computer. So much came out of that research that senior’s Community Centers have received government grants to buy new computers and hired teachers. The goal of the project was to make sure that seniors would not pass this great opportunity of knowing how to use a computer to enhance their life.
In this research I mentioned my involvement with SeniorNet almost 14 years ago and I made a presentation on that subject at the close of the research. I can absolutely say that the computer and the Internet has fed my mind, improved my health and increased my social circle more than I could have imagined.
Seniors make a large contribution to society in general and we should not be concerned with the negative image from television ignoring 25% of the total population. We are more active than we were only 25 years ago and able to bring young people our experience and wisdom. We just have to do something, instead of waiting for someone to do it for us
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Congrats Joan! Now do you go for 350? Since we moved into a house w/ a small woods in the back yard, i've generated an interest in birds, but have never gone "birding."
Don't forget to look for the "two moons" tonight. I don't know in what part of the world you'll be able to see them, but here in the northeast, we can.......it's a once in a lifetime experience, i'm told, but maybe you have to stay up late.
Steph, i'm so impressed by the way you are pushing on. I hear a lot about retirees volunteering, but i think i could not just "volunteer" it would have to be something i really care about. I make blankets and caps for babies at the hospital because i like to knit and crochet. I wouldn't do it if it was a chore. I volunteer at the Alice Paul estate because i was a founding board member of the AP Foundation, but i wouldn't be interested in say - the Walt Whitman house nearby. I'm offering the women's history course because i like the subject, but also know about a dozen of the people who live in the retirement community. I know that i could not just do "something." It has to intrique me.
I think we all have Seniornet/seniorlearn/seniorsandfriends on our "gratitude lists." My life would be significantly more boring w/out those sites. Thanks to everyone who established them and keep them operating. ................... and to authors like Bruce who will spend some time w/ us. Great intellectual stimulation, which is one my greatest "losses" since retiring.................jean
Bruce, you comment about collecting intrigued me, can you tell us more about that?
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BRUCE: "if you looked back how many of the days you might remember associated with the birds you saw, about the memories that would flood in and attach to the image of that bird".
You hit the nail on the head! It's thrilling to see a "new" bird, but even better is that these birds become like old friends to me, with stored memories and histories. I may be in a strange place, but if I see a bird I "know", I know I have friends there. And my knowledge and understanding of the birds and their lives deepens each time I see them.
For those reasons, Mabel, you might want to get a "bird book" (Peterson is good and cheap: so is The Golden Field guide) and learn their names. Then when you see them, you will remember " that's the bird I saw singing yesterday: today he's carrying nesting material. Hmm."
Now is fall migration, so you may see birds that you won't see at other times. Your book may tell you that the bird you saw came from Canada and is headed for South America. In the Spring, you may see the same bird headed the other way.
The other gift that birds give us: they keep our eyes and ears open. Birds to me represent the beauty that is all around us, but that we don't see, because we don't look. There are some wheelchair accessable or car accessable wildlife sanctuaries, but mostly, I have seen birds by just keeping my eyes and ears open. Seeing one bird can keep you alive to the beauties of nature in the drabbist urban sdetting.
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JoanK, do you ever look at the Pale Male web site? You may remember that Pale Male is the red-tailed hawk that lives on an apartment building overlooking Central Park in NYC. There was a lot of controversy a number of years ago when some of the tenants wanted to destroy the nest. The hue and cry was tremendous, and so the hawks were allowed to stay. This photographer posts new photos every day of Pale Male and other hawks, birds, and Central Park wildlife. He's a great photographer, so it's fun to see what he finds.
http://www.palemale.com/
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Sandpipers of various sizes have reappeared on my beach. In the spring I was told by a bird watcher friend that they were migrating. Now are they reversing their trip and going south again? They are delightful, running along the shore very near the water. We also have an endangered species here, the Piping Plover, which I have never seen and I have heard is difficult to spot.
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Talking Heads #10
A forum for opinions on anything in print: magazines, newspaper articles, online: bring your ideas and let's discuss.
"Choices – For the Rest of Your Life?"
| (http://www.seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/whatshouldIdo/what.jpg) | We are fortunate to have Bruce Frankel as our guest in this month's Talking Heads discussion. Bruce is the author of "What Should I Do With the Rest of My Life?" in which he presents us with more than a dozen profiles of individuals he calls "ordinary people who embraced new possibilities late in life - extraordinary late bloomers who have overthrown the usual expectations of age."
| (http://www.seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/whatshouldIdo/robby.jpg) | Profiled in the book is one of SeniorLearn's own Discussion Leaders, Robby Iadeluca, a practicing clinical psychologist, who still conducts a full schedule of therapy sessions, five days a week at the age of 90! A Review of Bruce's book (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/NYCtrip/frankelbookreview.html); Amazon link (http://www.amazon.com/What-Should-Do-Rest-Life/dp/1583333657/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279830869&sr=1-1) |
Our questions for Bruce as we consider these profiles:
- Are these ordinary people like you and me...or do they possess extraordinary talent, wealth or physical fitness?
- What inspiration can we take from his research today? |
Thanks for joining us, Bruce! We're looking forward to hearing your words of acquired wisdom!
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| (http://www.seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/whatshouldIdo/maxine3.jpg) | On the other side of the issue, ..."Gerontologists tend to think of successful aging as taking advantage of what potential there is, staying as socially and intellectually engaged as possible. Our culture tends to measure it more in terms of how active people are." |
"Part of the pressure on older people to be successful and give back and volunteer and be active and play tennis is that we are a culture of doing. We don't really know how to be. That's something that late life gives us, is time to be. But that's stigmatized." "Turn 70.Act Your Grandchild’s Age" Kate Zernike, NY Times (http://www.sikhchic.com/people/turn_70_act_your_grandchilds_age)
1. Are goals and expectations necessary for our “second life?”
2. What is ageism? Outside of public policy decisions (i.e. Social Security, medicare, etc.) should age be a consideration?
3. Whose Second Lives do you celebrate?
4. Do you or did you look forward to life after 65?
5. Did you have any specials plans.
Your opinion? Let's discuss!
Check out Bruce's Website and Blog! (http://www.brucefrankel.net/)
Jean, I second JoanK's mention of Peterson's bird guide. It is my favorite. I keep a modest bird list, but I don't always remember to list new birds that I identify. Most of the birds on my list I have seen right in my back yard. I thought I saw a Marsh Hawk in my back yard this spring. It saw me the same time I saw it and off it went through the pines. Later, there was one hoping about in the branches on a very windy day. What a thrill (though the squirrels didn't think so). I am hoping for a nest in one of the pines someday.
The first week at school is history. All I have to say is that the accounting class is too short. I want to keep going.
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I didn't say where I live and where I saw these birds. It's Rockaway Beach, Queens, near the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Preserve, one of the last stops on the A train.
I just got word that my 101-year-old friend Sally Gordon is going to be on the Today show (NBC) next week. We don't know the day and time.
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The most amazing thing when we lived at the beach was the number of shore birds and seagull with one leg missing.Did not seemto affect them at all.. No idea what they must get caught in or something.
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MaryZ, thanks so much for the Pale Male link. Really wonderful photos. And what a labor of love. For those who have not yet been there, you may find that the pictures are larger than your screen. Just set your browser view to 75% or 50%.
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Yes, they are. Aren't they wonderful -- the different species can all feed together because each species has a slightly differant way of finding food, so even though they are together, they aren't competing. Watch for these differances in behavior.
LUCY: You're lucky to have piping plovers.
PBS did a special on Pale Male. Watching the chicks learn to fly brought together strangers from all over New York.
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Phew, just finished the very difficult task of clearing out storage that I had been spending money on each month. I had to give away a ton of books and still brought 19 boxes of books back to my apartment, so I can take my time with them, deciding which to give away and which I "need" to keep. It has raised for me another issue, one I didn't address in my book but seems somehow connected: letting go! Just the opposite of collecting.
So many of the books I had kept, for instance, were really attached to memory and not necessity. They were either books that were important to me or books that I had some hope/belief I would return to one day. I began to see the books like tiles in a mosaic. Who I am was constructed over years, piece by piece, by those books, each one adding to my shape or coloring. How could I cast out pieces of me? Other books were like thick snapshots -- as I held them, a freeze-frame of the life I lived would rush into memory. Some were attached to ambition: what I had hoped to write, who I wanted to be. If I got rid of them, was I surrendering my dreams? Was I accepting that I would never become what I once hoped to become?
I survived. Over time, I will weed through what's left. I kept hearing Walt Whitman in "The Song of the Open Road," singing to me, "Leave the book on the desk unread..."
Steph - That's great about finding ElderHostel. I've known a number of people who have joined and loved it. I have an aunt and uncle who go every year and are truly energized by the learning they do. And working at a library these days is, I would think, a very interesting experience. As I think I mentioned earlier, my friend Marilyn Johnson wrote a wonderful book, This Book Is Overdue! which is funny and fascinating, about the importance and various roles that librarians play in our technological age. As a result, I was invited in May to appear at an annual library conference and was amazed by the various discussions. Librarians, I think, have replaced the reporters in terms of being on the front lines protecting free speech, etc.
Also, I looked up Sally Gordon. I will try to contact her on Monday. I'd love to do a Labor Day piece on her for my blog. Thank you very much for the tip.
Joan, loved your description of the importance for you of watching birds. In particular, I loved the idea of how seeing one bird can remind or reestablish beauty in the world. I think Joseph Cornell, the artist who made boxes filled with birds, stars, and ballerinas, would have deeply appreciated your thoughts.
Looked up the Pale Male. Great shots. A decade ago, I lived in an apartment on Central Park West across from a roosting for one of the hawks. We watched his comings and goings as you might a celebrity who lived in an apartment across the street. What are we eating for dinner tonight? Oh, that must be a juicy little rodent you have! Bon appetit!
Jean, the business of why people collect is fascinating. For the film I was making we interviewed psychologists, psychiatrists, animal behaviorists, Thomas Hoving of the Metropolitian Museum, and a wide variety of collectors: there was a guy who collected tractors upstate; a man who collected cast iron products; a woman who was a great art collector; an artist who collected -- I kid you not -- inspection stickers that come with products: for the graphics; a collector of Civil War daguerotypes of the dead (it was a convention of the day); etc. We also studied the bower bird! which is may be the only other animal that really collects to decorate. It its case, it decorates apparently to attract a mate, if I remember correctly. One psychiatrist thought we collect, beginning in childhood, to reconstitute our families: her is the mamma rock, the daddy rock, the baby rock. Another thought we collect because we have an intrinsic need to complete sets. One psychiatrist I knew felt certain that collecting was an attempt to pacify a feeling of emptiness, or a lack of love. But as I said in the chapter on Naomi, collecting is a very common and widespread human behavior.
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Bruce, when did you interview Tom Hoving? We have quite a history with Thomas Hoving, starting with our meeting with him in 1998, our first ever Books Gathering, and continuing in email correspondence until quite recently. I was sorry to read about his death. Did you know he wrote a book on Doris Duke?
I think perhaps some of the things he thought turned out to be right, too.
Wasn't he something!
I would personally love to hear more about Robby's childhood and his father, I wonder if that exposure to a traumatized veteran was in any way responsible for his later choice of career?
I loved the story of the Household Goods Recycling Ministry, the chapter titled "Recycling Lives" where the couple give away furniture to people who need it, that's an amazing story. They should be in Parade Magazine or People Magazine too. It's just amazing how normal people, by volunteering, can make such a difference.
I loved this statement: "People come to them for help and leave with their dignity intact." and...."They created an environment that motivates people and brings out the best, just by how they treat people."
That's pretty inspiring!
And I loved the Ralph Waldo Emerson quote: "It is one of the most beautiful compensations in life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself."
THAT is a chapter, there.
I really like this book.
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Thank you, Ginny -
I guess we interviewed Hoving circa 1984. He was, indeed, something! He was very much as you might imagine him, I think, but perhaps warmer, more open, and, now that I think about, generous. Our credentials as filmmakers were limited. My had made one documentary. And I had a decade of reporting. We were young, that's for sure. And he freely gave us his time and thoughts. I don't remember him saying anything radical, but he would have had a prominent place in the film, because he had a wonderful knack for threading ideas. And, of course, he had a marvelous presence. I remember reading about some of the later controversies, but can't say I kept up terribly well. I did know of the Duke book, but I have not read it. Did you discuss it in the Books Gathering?
Robby's parents moved out to Islip when he was quite young and when Islip was still a very rural place, an hour and a half or more out on Long Island from New York. It was surrounded by great natural beauty, close to the Great South Bay. Robby has written a couple of detailed chapters of his own on his childhood, and what was particularly remarkable about them was the detail with which he remembered the town itself. I came away feeling very much as if I could imagine the growing, but sleepy town it still was in the late 1920s and early 1930s, in part because he rode his bicycle everywhere and for great distances. He seems to have been an intrepid explorer even as a boy.
Robby remembers the water pump for his house, the outhouse, and when electrification finally came -- as, I believe, part of FDR's Rural Electrification program during early 1930s. He loved school and embraced learning from a very young age; his mother filled him with encouragement. And she, herself, must have been a terrific model. She wrote poetry, journalism, and opinion, particularly on the plight of WWI veterans like Robby's father. Robby's father spent much time at the local VFW when he was growing up; he never worked. And I have a feeling that the contrast between Robby's mother's can-do attitude and her curiosity and her encouragement of all the things she had Robby doing -- playing the violin, singing in every choir around, regardless of denomination-- and his subdued, unenterprising and parsimonious father was formative. In addition to the music, the pigeons, and the school work, Robby explored the natural habitat around him like a young scientist.
He did, from time to time, get in trouble. And he was aware that his family was not on the same plane socially as his friends. But his mother's qualities and the friendships she established with women in town seemed to bridge that gap. He had one particularly close friend with whom he palled around most of his childhood, when they were young and in their teen years. Robby was also a good athlete.
As mentioned in the book, he got his nickname from the choir director, who was one of those important figures in his life. Robby was disappointed that he didn't rank among the top two students in his graduating class. But obviously, his skill as an orator and thinker were quite apparent even then -- enough so a contest was created to find an additional speaker for commencement among the seniors, perhaps as a way of having Robby speak. I love the story of his forgetting to bring his speech to the graduation, scaring the daylights out of the teacher who selected him. But, of course, Robby didn't need a text to deliver it, word for word as he had written it.
Robby got a fair dose of New York City, traveling in to visit with his paternal grandparents. The family had a great deal of pride in its roots in Sicily, and this can't be underestimated in Robby's investment in education. If I am remembering correctly, his paternal great grandfather was a superintendent of schools there.
I lived part of my adolescence on the South Shore of Long Island, in Long Beach, and used to travel out to East Hampton to visit with a great uncle. And so I have a pretty good sense of the area. And it helped me in imagining Robby's childhood to remember the history of the Islip area: it was once home to a branch of the Algonquins known as the Secatogues; it was settled by the English before the end of the seventeenth century; andthere was farming all around the area, by the time Robby's family moved out in the midst of the Great Depression, the fishing, clamming and oyster industries were prevalent. They employed thousands. Indeed, New York State passed a law that made it illegal to call oysters "Blue Points" if they came from anywhere else. Through the early part of the 20th century, it attracted wealthy tourists who big houses, lodges, and country clubs. So, rich man-poor man awareness permeated that area that part of the South Shore. During Robby's childhood, I doubt there were more than 35,000 people living there. But after WWII, the town Robby knew largely disappeared and was swallowed by cookie-cutter developments. I can't say for sure, but I'd guess more than 300,000 people live in Islip today.
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I liked the "Recycling Lives" story because it shows that there are enough goods (and I think also food) for everybody, but we lack an adequate distribution system. We are in the habit of throwing out the old item with little thought about where it can be used and how much use it still has. When we get rid of something, we should be as concerned about recycling the old item as acquiring the new.
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That's a great way of putting it, Lucy.
What is astonishing about the Smiths is how much effort they put into doing the work without any thought of what they might get out of it. It was only their example, bit by bit, that convinced others -- including former clients -- to join in the all-volunteer effort. There was no hype. No grand words. Just service and action. Barbara was more driven to it, obviously, than Ira. He acquired belief over time, witnessing the good they were doing. Remarkably humble and purposeful people.
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I have been trying over the past several years to go from collecting to giving.. To some extent I have been successful, but I still feel I just have too much stuff. But.. a good many things have a deep resonance in myheart.. So I have been relearning what I need to make me happy.. That is things around me and what I keep because someone I loved loved it.. Hmm..
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Bruce, your memory is amazing. There were a few minor -- actdually unimportant errors -- for example it was our band and orchestra leader who dubbed me with the monikor of "Robby." And the fact that my Italian heritage is Neapolitan, not Sicilian. My great grandfather was superintendent of all the schools in Naples. But overall you give a picture of my childhood. Islip at that time had about 3,500, not 35,000. It was impossible to walk down Main Street without knowing practically everyone. I still do a lot of public speaking. And I guess my memory is still pretty good. Recently I spoke before the local Chamber of Commerce on the topic of the various positive and negative attitudes toward aging and in the process incorporated Browning's "Grow old with me" and Shakespeare's "All the world's a stage" which I recited from memory. During the speech I also sang )with an 89-year old voice from the song "When I was seventeen", specifically the verse "And now the time grows short, I'm in the autumn of the year" and from "It ain't necessarily so" the verse "Methusaleh lived nine hundred years."
I'm very active in my community and that has kept me from being as active in leading "Story of Civilization" as I had been. I'm on two Boards of Directors -- the state Psychological Assn, the local Hospice, and an organization to prevent recidivism called "Second Chance." I lead brainstorm sessions to stimulate the local economy. This was taught me by Alex Osborn, president of BBDO. And of course my provate practdice continues. If you read the book, you know about my dear friend Nancy Walbridge-O'Connell with whom I used to do lots of dancing. On the 25th of September she will be hosting a birthday dinner for me. So life is good. My health is good and my spirits are good. I am blessed.
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Happy Birthday to come, Robby! I really enjoyed hearing about your childhood, thank you Bruce and Robby.
The recent HBO special on children in need in California, diving in dumpsters, really shows where there is still need for initiative. I don't live in Anaheim but the thought of paying $870 for a motel room for a month to get your children off the street is staggering, to me. I wonder what we can do.
Bruce the Hoving book we discussed was King of the Confessors, about his acquisition of the Bury St. Edmunds Cross. I had read it when it came out and thought (and still do) it was one of the best books I ever read. I see that the Metropolitan Museum of Art has a $400+ replica of it in their holiday catalog, wish he were alive to comment on THAT one. hahaha
Yes he was very generous. I think the Duke book never came out in print, it was eclipsed by a couple of movies on the same subject.
What a true joy ths discussion has been! Thank you so much , Bruce! We look forward to hearing you speak in NYC next week is it really next WEEK? Wow.
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Hey, Robby, thank you so much for piping in and correction my memory. And though you may say the mistakes were trivial, no Neapolitan standing in Naples -- particularly at a soccer game -- would remotely agree with you. I might be dueling for my life!!!! So, thank you, as always, for your generosity of spirit. It cheers me so much to hear of your latest adventures. I wish you were coming along to NY as well!
And Ginny, JoanK, PedIn, Steph, Eloise, Lucy, Adoannie, UrsaMajor, JoanP, Ellie, Gumtree, MaryZ, Frybabe, Jean, and everyone on "Talking Heads," thank you for allowing me to share the space with you and great pleasure of hearing your thoughts and conversation. I look forward to seeing you at Sarahbeth's and meeting you in person. Warmest regards and gratitude, Bruce
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Bruce, we have been overwhelmed and awed by your generous contributions to this discussion. I don't think there was a single comment to which you did not respond. From all of us - many, many thanks!
Expect a warm welcome in New York!
Let's leave this discussion open for a few more days for last minute comments. We'll let you know soon of the next Talking Heads topic.
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Bruce and Robbie and everyone else. I have loved this discussion, wish I could meet you and be in NYC, but alas it is not to be. That is the week of the trial of the man who hit us..I will think of you.. Would must prefer to be there than here.
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Steph, I hope the trial will not interfere with your class reunion.
Bruce, Robby, everyone, many many thanks for making this such a good discussion. We've covered a lot of territory, and I for one have learned much. I hope I speak for many here when I say we know now that we too can set goals, try new things, step outside the box. It's never too late.
Bruce, I'm looking forward to meeting you in New York next week.
And thanks especially for Loretta Thayer's inspiring story -- without it I might never have had popovers for breakfast this morning.
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Steph, keep us posted on how the trial goes. I know you'll have your family there for support, but I wish we could all be there in person for you - of course, we'll be there "virtually".
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Thank you so much, Bruce: you have really inspired us!!
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Thank you Bruce, and everyone, for a genuinely outstanding discussion.
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Thank you Bruce for your generous contribution to this discussion and we look forward to meeting you in New York very soon.
Thank you Robby for being an inspiration to many of us especially during the discussion Story of Civilization that you have generously led for the past 6 years, I will never forget some of the things I learned in that discussion. Merci mon ami.
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Thanks to Bruce and, as always, to Robby, loved all the stories. Have a good visit in NYC........Steph, take care of yourself. Take some handwork to the trial, it will help keep your blood pressure down - seriously.............. :) ........we'll be thinking about you.........jean
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Thank you to all for your many kind thanks. The pleasure, I assure you, was mine. With admiration, Bruce
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So glad I came in today and found the discussion still going. We have been out of town for the last few days and I wanted to be sure to say "Thanks, Bruce, for being a great guest author. We have so enjoyed all of your comments."
About your old books describing you and your dreams, and not wanting to get rid of them, I too, have many books including the one that my mother used to name me. Entitled "Ann Veronica" by H.G.Wells, I am so named and will keep the book and maybe one of my children will value it and if not, I won't know, will I?
Robby, as usual you add another dimension to all of our conversing about many things here in the Books discussions. Thanks dear friend.
Steph,
I hope your reunion goes well and the trial. We will all keep you in our good thoughts and prayers and do as Mama Jean says, take some handwork with you, it will help keep you sane. And I hope you will join us at our next get together of the Books folks. ((((((Hugs))))))
This has been a most surprising discussion with so many people wanting to tell of their lives plus the wonderful book that has led us all to it. Thanks to all of you who have added your impressions on the book's stories. Aren't people just amazing? I loved it and loved being in here with you all. (((((hugs)))) for all of you.
See you in NYC, Bruce and others.
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All good things must come to an end, and this has been one of the best. Thank you again, everyone, for your thoughts, wisdom, and participation.