I have a most remarkable set of sterling silver flat wear which I inherited from my grandmother.  She was raised in a very wealthy family in Chicago which she left, over their objections, to serve in the Red Cross in World War I.  There she met my grandfather, a flyer in that newest branch of the military.

I have seen two grandchildren head off to college, and it is a very different world they enter than in my day more than half a century ago. As a female, my family’s goals for me then were very different than they would be today.

Gifts have meant many things over the years. 

     Venice, an old city past its prime, is hanging on as floods overtake it while at the same time it sinks into the rising ocean. I can sympathize, for I too am old, past my prime, and often have the sensation of sinking.  Yet in my case it is not rising water, but life that sometimes threatens to overwhelm me.

This year as Thanksgiving approaches the Salvation Army bell ringer once again takes up a post at the door of my grocery store where he or she stand rain, wind, sun or snow.

Years ago during high school, I spent a summer with my grandparents. My grandfather was reading, among other books which I do not remember, Admiral of the Oceans Seas, a biography of Columbus, and the Harold Nicolson diaries, both hefty tomes that lay on the table by his green leather chair. While I may not remember the other titles, I do know that all of the books he read that summer were non-fiction.

Even if you do not live in New York, or have never been there, you probably know this identifying landmark of the city.  Created in 1857 on 78 acres in the middle of the city, Central Park was designed by one of the leading landscape architects of the day, Frederick Law Olmstead. It was the beginning of a movement that fostered green spaces in the middle of cities. 

On a recent trip to the hairdressers (of course it is grey under there) I picked up a ladies magazine to read while I basted in the hair goop as it did its concealing thing. I was very surprised to see Helen Mirren gazing out at me from a page that was advertising a new L’Oréal product.

I recently came across an article in the newspaper which had a term that was new to me.  It referred to a store which sold ‘disposable clothing.’  The article did not mean a paper dress that was thrown away after one use, but a whole store of clothing that, while very trendy, are also very poorly made.  They are meant to last for only one season, and then be thrown away.  My grandmother would be horrified.

How old is old? This has always been a very elastic question, proved by a recent Pew Research Center poll done in May of this year. 

When I was growing up no present giving occasion passed without the required thank you notes at the end of the celebration. The joy of finding out what was under the Christmas tree or inside the birthday wrapping paper was followed by the knowledge that I was going to have to write a note to the giver of that gift. At six this was a hard burden, but I hope I progressed over the years to truly being thankful as I wrote those missives.

Aging seems to involve a constant examining of long held beliefs in light of the changes that time brings. I think back to my time in college, where females could not wear pants to class, there was such a thing as married student’s housing, and girls’ dorm rooms were off limits to all males except family members. In addition there were curfew hours (for the girls only) that put them in the dorms by ten during the week and midnight on the weekends.

Those that are my age are often puzzled at what goes on with younger generations today.  As a group we often shake our heads and secretly, and often not so secretly, long for what we think were the ‘good old days.’  But the fact is that along with the accumulation of knowledge and living that comes with a lifetime of ups and downs, also comes a subtle fog that settles over the past. 

I can see my grandmother in her Sunday church clothes tending to the mid-day Sunday dinner.  She has an apron on over her dressy suit, something which she took from a hook on the back of the pantry door every time she ventured into the kitchen to work.

Even the word is old.  Or how about that even more ancient word ….. deportment?  Those two words were part of my youth, but are seldom heard these days.

I seem to learn a great deal about modern life in the toy store.  On a recent visit to the American Girl store with my granddaughter, I saw this year’s featured doll who is a farm girl.  It made me realize that the farm and farm life are mostly ancient history today.  I was not raised on a farm, but in my childhood I could at least reach back and touch one through my grandparents.  My generation may be the last one in which farm life is actually a part of the family, and not an idealized past.

All of you young people out there had better wake up, and begin keeping an eye on us old codgers.  We are running away with the farm, and you seem to be totally unaware of it. 

We are always being encouraged to look at the big picture, however, I recently found a great deal of comfort in looking at the small picture instead.

I am sometimes amazed that my generation ever made it to adulthood.  We certainly lived a dangerous life by today’s standards.   We rode around on our bicycles without helmets, we slid around in the back of station wagons without seat belts as our parental drivers turned corners, and we chased after trucks spraying for mosquitoes, letting the white chemical fog emerging from the back of the truck engulf us. 

Growing up in the fifties I yearned to be on some sort of a team.  If there were girls participating in any kind of athletics other than riding horses, I did not know them.  To whet my appetite there were the school sponsored sports days in which we could participate in such Olympic-level events as the three-legged race, or the egg on a spoon race, or the ever popular tug of war.