Still Advocating
Writings of a retired educator, advocate, & baby boomer

Ouch, that knee hurts Fear of falling is a vexing problem for women my age. Like many people who fall, even if they're not injured, I have become afraid of falling. This fear causes me to cut down on my everyday activities, ironically making me weaker and increasing my chances of falling. According to Harvard Women's Health Watch, women are at a big disadvantage when it comes to falling, especially indoors. We're 50% more likely than men to show up at an emergency room due

Not really Shirley Temple I was born with black hair. Unlike my beloved cousin Annette, my mother didn’t have to cover my bald hear with cute bonnets. She could tie it with ribbons and braid it, but despite her and my paternal grandmother’s best efforts, they could never make me look like Shirley Temple. The image above is as close as they got, and it held up just long enough to take this picture. Growing up, all of the adult women I knew had beauty shop hair. After their w

My father was a huge fan of Jeopardy. He had an extraordinary memory for certain categories: history, sports, art, classical literature, and music and entertainment from the 1940s. I remember him shouting out the answers he knew and grumbling about categories like popular culture that were out of his wheelhouse. Much like his obsession with watching or listening to every inning of a Tigers baseball game, his daily devotion to Jeopardy was for old people. I avoided it like the

The fall happened in my kitchen on Friday, June 13. Given the date, I should have been more careful. It was quite dramatic and frightening as the glass teapot I was taking to the sink to wash slipped out of my hand and shattered, covering me and the kitchen in shards of glass. I fell trying to prevent the inevitable disaster. I was lucky as I only had a few minor cuts. After rinsing myself off in the shower to be sure there was no glass in my hair or on my body, a couple of B

On this 24th anniversary of 9/11, I’m lamenting the loss of community and caring I felt in the aftermath of the attack. My memory of that...

Still fighting! We don’t like to talk about it. We kid about it, but avoid sharing our deeper fears. Some of us are struggling with...

My granddaughter is to the left of John Lewis One of my granddaughters had the opportunity to meet John Lewis in 2017. She was twelve and...

Technological advances have created a bewildering and cruel world for seniors. In addition to living with the aches and pains of aging,...

My high school biology teacher I remember very few of the teachers I had from kindergarten through college. Some of them inspired fear –...

On Sunday, February 2, we enjoyed a performance by the Evanston Symphony Orchestra followed by an early dinner with good friends at a...