Here is a collection of stories about old ladies. Old ladies—well, old gents too, all old people—become invisible in this culture; so a lot of folks tell me, and so I observe for myself now that I have become an old lady. We walk—or somehow navigate—down the street, and hey! we simply aren’t there, as far as the rest of the world is concerned. Other people just don’t see us.
Or they clean us up a bit and call us Senior Citizens. Once a young woman asked me if I wanted the Senior Discount; “Hell, no,” I said. “I want the Old Lady Discount.”
Is the invisibility and the clean-up attempt because we cost so much, medically and for other care? Because we are such a nuisance? Hey, most of us don’t want to stick around for the non-party; we are forced to stay. Death Panel—oh, I wish! I think it would be great if, say, every six months or so, somebody phoned me and said, “Well, hi, kiddo. How about it? You ready to go now? Next Tuesday? Fine....”
But I’m different in one way—in all ways, some would say—I see old people for the extraordinary individuals and human souls that they are—and so I have always written about them: from Vange and little Sara in the early books, to the old ladies in this book.
Maybe I see them so, have always seen them, because I had a grandmother who made all the difference to me, and to whom this book is dedicated.
Dick Francis wrote once that”...achievement is the savior of the very old...” So look at me, folks: I’m dancing my ass off here. And I like to think of it as an achievement.