Old and on their own

by Robert Coles

The goal of the popular middle-aged quest for longevity and physical well-being is, of course, getting there. Here, Coles listens to what it's like to have arrived, to have been lucky enough to make it. With surprising wit and candor, these people share their thoughts, memories, aspirations, and worries. They tell us what it means to be old. These stories span a century of American life. Nellie, born in 1897, now almost blind, describes how she follows the sun's course by watching the changing shadows in her house each passing day. George, ninety-nine and an enthusiastic conversationalist, looks forward to his hundredth birthday when he'll see his photograph on the Today show with Willard Scott. Anne, who took up ballroom dancing at eighty-three to help combat her grief over her husband's death, now finds fulfillment in the pure joy it gives her. Callie and Charles, both ninety, talk about the trials and rewards of their seventy-year marriage and their lives as "oldsters" today.