Growing up I spent a great deal of time with my grandparents.  My mother and I lived with them for extended periods of time.  In addition, they kept me over summer holidays and vacations, and I had great spend-the-night weekends with them.  In my mind they were neither old nor young ---- they were just my grandparents.

On the road the other day we stopped at one of the ubiquitous MacDonalds for an egg McMuffin.  As we came in the door there was a confused couple our age standing in front of a computer screen where they could order their meal.  It was not going well. 

I am not original in commenting that we are a nation of immigrants.  Even some of those we call Native Americans may have come across the land bridge from Russia to Alaska in the dim mists of history.  Every culture and family have their origin story, some more than one.

This phrase is often an unspoken comment indicated by a sigh or slightly raised eyebrow as I try and figure out whether this time I sign my name on the card machine or not, or if the card slides down at the side or jams in at the bottom, or if now some financial institution wants to know the name of my great-great grandmother before I can access my money. 

I think I have discovered the whole purpose of retirement.  It is not really about stopping work although that is what has certainly happened.  But what leaving the job is really about is the fact that it now takes all of my energy and ability just to run my life. 

We recently spent a holiday with our twelve-year-old granddaughter which so fits this cartoon from The New Yorker that I laughed out loud when I saw it.  Or should I say LOL. 

This last weekend I attended the college graduation of one of my grandchildren.  As the graduates trooped across the stage to collect their hard-earned diplomas the scene blurred a little as I thought back to my graduation 58 years ago, followed by the graduation of my daughters more years ago than I think can be possible. 

One of the most useful things about living more than three-quarters of a century is that you can see the repetition of events. This came home to me as I compared notes with friends on how the FedEx, UPS, and Amazon trucks were wearing a grove in the streets of our neighborhoods.

I am being inundated with reunions. I find it interesting that at this stage of life there seems to be a concerted effort to visit the past.

When I was growing up, Sundays were always a different day of the week from any other. 

Years ago, when I still had young children at home, an older lady moved in across the street who over the years became a good friend.  She had been in World War II as a Red Cross worker, and I enjoyed her stories of her service in India and the meeting of the man who would become her husband.

I have been contemplating the English language and its designations for indicating “old.” Why is ‘old woman’ pejorative and ‘older women’ is not? What a lot of power is given to those two little letters e and r.

This is often listed as one of the major problems of old age.  I would have to agree with this, but from a different angle than is often meant.  Of course, I cannot remember where I put my glasses; and, of course, I rush into a room in a great hurry only to find I cannot remember why I am there; and, of course, I forget the name of someone I have known for 50 years.  But that is not what I think is the real forgetfulness of aging.

If we are eighty or approaching it, we have stuff.  It is the result of years of living.  Some of it is important to us and some of it we have forgotten we even own.  That stuff is found in the dark corners of our closets, attics, and basements, and stays there out of inertia. 

It seems to me that I meet the word ‘dream’ everywhere I turn these days.  Women are to have their dream weddings, people are to move into their dream homes, and young people are to find their dream jobs.  I assume by this it is meant that the dreamed item will be perfect.  That is an awful lot to ask of a wedding, a house or a job. 

I have found the word 'culture' has come up a great deal lately in newsprint and conversation. It has made me think about how culture has changed in the three-quarters of a century that I have been around to observe it.

This was the heading that screamed from the top of an advertisement for a local retirement community.  The picture below the headline showed a gray-haired woman in a beret (a beret?) playing a lute while a goateed gentleman leaned on a railing looking on admiringly.  They were smiling at one another in mutual admiration. 

I had a very independent child for whom the words, ‘I do it MYSELF,’ trailed her throughout her twos. Right shoes were put on left feet; cereal bowls overflowed as the milk drowned the cornflakes and swept over the table; clothes were picked with no attention to color, but only to an inner two-year-old sensibility; and carloads of people waited patiently as she struggled to clip her seat belt on her own.

One of the most common complaints I hear when there is a gathering of people around my age, is the difficulty they have in understanding the accents that proliferate in our diverse and outsourced world.  I understand the complaint, as I have spoken to help desks from Singapore to Romania in my quest to get help with a computer and found myself struggling to understand directions spoken with a heavy accent. 

We older people really do not need a cruise director to run our lives.  We really don’t.   This idea seems to run counter to every idea currently in vogue with those building institutions for the over 55 set.