Category: My Story

What’s Lurking in the Basement

I have two neighbors, on the next block, who are obvious hoarders. Although a few houses apart, both have two or three cars parked in front of their houses and in the driveway that are jammed to the roof with their belongings. One house has a partially opened garage from which things are so tightly packed that some of them are leaking out. More of their possessions fill the front porch.

I don’t know these people, although I have seen an older woman out front occasionally, so I don’t know if these two overloaded houses belong to older people. But I do know it’s hard to get rid of your belongings as you get older.

I recently had visitors staying at my home, and I was dismayed to find that all my cabinets were too full to hide the bottles (of cleaning fluids, shampoos, etc.) that had been sitting on the floor. I don’t think of myself as a hoarder (and possibly my neighbors don’t either), but I can see that stuff accumulates without any visible effort on my part. And that if you don’t actively work to remove it, it stacks up into even bigger piles.

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Still Rockin’ Out

I don’t often go to concerts anymore. Too loud, and I don’t like crowds. But one of my favorite singers—Mary Chapin Carpenter—was performing at one of my favorite venues—Chautauqua Hall, built in the 1898 and totally constructed of wood. It’s an intimate space with fantastic acoustics that sits above Boulder with great views in any direction.

At age 67, Carpenter can still rock, especially with her five-piece band, consisting mainly of people in their 60s (to my eyes). It was good to see older people on stage, aged to perfection after performing for 30-40 years, and having fun doing it.

The audience was similarly older. Around me were gray-haired men (a few balding) and women, some wearing hearing aids. That didn’t stop any of us from rocking out with Carpenter and her band: heads swaying in time to the music, some gentle foot stomping and singing. During the encore, we got even more rowdy—loudly clapping in time to the music and dancing, even if it was just swaying back and forth.

If there were young people watching, I could imagine their reaction to this sight: old people making fools of themselves, pretending they were still young, forgetting they had arthritis and needed hearing aids.

But what younger people don’t know (and what they’ll eventually find out) is that none of us sees ourselves as old. In the confines of our home or car, we’re still screaming to the Beatles, dancing to Bruce Springsteen and singing along with Billy Joel’s “Piano Man.”

Even when I get older, I imagine listening to the Beatles and feeling the same joy I did when I was 13 and first heard them sing “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” Maybe I’ll even remember the words and sing along. They say that hearing is the last sense to go, so music is one of our last pleasures when we can no longer functionally move or talk. We’re not aging fools; we’re just enjoying life, even if our bodies betray us. We’ll keep dancing and singing as long as we can. I know I will.

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Seniors Left Behind Online


Traveling through Nova Scotia recently, I got another lesson in how thoroughly the world is run online.  To make a reservation for lodging, even when standing in front of the charming Harbourfront Cottages, I needed to go on the lodging’s website to see if anything is available. Many places, especially smaller ones, like B&Bs, don’t have friendly clerks waiting at the front desk to help you. You need to do all the work to acquire a room for the night.

Unfortunately, I discovered my cell phone didn’t work in Canada. That meant I didn’t get the texts from the airline telling me that my flight had been delayed or that the gate had changed. Luckily, my companion’s phone was working, but I realized once again how we have become totally dependent on this small pocket-sized device to navigate the world.

Without my cell phone, I couldn’t easily check my email, learn about the latest political scandal in the U.S. (a relief, too), get directions to the next town, or find out what friends were doing.  Because we were totally reliant on one phone, we had to make sure the battery was always charged, or we would be helpless—driving in circles—clueless without Google maps to guide us.

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