I, too, lament the depiction of very old people as remarkable and removed when they are able to perform the basics. So I was thrilled to read of Rita's accomplishments and to see her hauteur-like pose in NatureNews (nature.com), while strutting her stuff--in high heels.

Thanks for the inspiring post.

My 87 year old mom says she misses having a car. She also says boomers with money should be inventing some kind of vehicle solely for seniors, as the toughest part of getting older, for her, is the loss of freedom. Even though I drive her everywhere she needs to go, she darn well misses her car! I get that.

Great story. Here's to celebrating the ongoing contributions of many older adults....

Recommend The Mature Mind by Gene Cohen MD PhD....Cohen has worked with thousands of older adults and has presented new findings regarding the aging brain that combined with findings of other related researchers dispell negative misconceptions that still plague our culture. All that learning and experience adds up to the elder advantage--we knew that, but seems that others need to get the message, and hopefully they will.

Well! I saw a very nice pic or Sen. Levi-Montalcini. She is a stunner. A smart woman looking smart.

And this by Tina Brown:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-04-20/the-beauty-of-susan-boyle/

This is an article about the Susan Boyle phenom. I like the bit about the invisible women.

Anne - regarding your last sentence: I'm trying. I'm trying on this blog every day.

Such a huge percentage of "aging" is culturally enforced stigma! It's true that you may slow down (or not), or have a few physical problems (or not), or have different tastes than when you were younger (probably, but why is that bad). SO? People change--one way or another--at every age.

The rub comes when "out of it" is imposed on you--the "invisibility" of women our age is relentlessly enforced in dozens of small, cruel, everyday ways.

Susan Boyle is a great example, with her ordinary looks and stunning talent. Much has been made over her "awful haircut." I'm guessing they mean the short, butchered bangs and the fluffy sides. But guess what! That haircut is one of Three (or so) Official Old Lady Hairstyles you automatically get over 40 at most "salons." It doesn't matter what you want, what you need, or what you like. You get what old ladies get, which is a modified 20s bob--out of style for decades before most of us were even born. But hairstylists "know" this is what old ladies should have. And if they sit down in that salon, it's what they're gonna get.

Looking around, I'd have to say it's even not the ugliest possible variant. The glitterati don't know that, of course, because they never "see" any women over 40. They also don't "see" how their own experience in a salon might be drastically different from someone one chair over who is presumed because of age or weight to have no style, no sex life, no job, and no future.

Well, NOW they won't have those things for sure, because they're stuck with one of those hideous haircuts!

Her dress, about which much snark has also been heard is--HELLO!--what's available as "dressed up" in most stores to non-size 2 and non-rich customers. Again, not a world TV folks would know.

As several other posters point out, there remain essentially no role models for being a stylish real female person over 45 with a real life. One way or another, we all vanish.

It's almost like "they" plan it that way. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean your enemies aren't designing "Better Sportswear" (NOT!), available at any department store near you.

Thanks for another insightful essay, Ronni. As usual, it made me think about all kinds of things.

One thought I had was about today's centenarians, people who were born AFTER the airplane and the automobile were in common use. When I was a boy in the fifties, those old old people had been informed by the experience of the Civil War (or War Between the States, if one is still holding on to that little bit of southern charm). They voted for (or against) people like Teddy Roosevelt. They were already in their late seventies by the time of the great depression. When I was a boy, after the Korean War and before Vietnam, the perspective of the old old included living through two World Wars as adults, remembering a time before houses were wired for electricity and gas lamps provided evening illumination. Those people were grown-ups before broadcast radio came on the scene, and they were respectably old by the time their neighbors bought the first TV sets.

There's a college that does the short view about the life experiences of entering freshmen, for example: "The class of 2012 has never know a time when radio stations were required to present both sides of public issues." Over the last few years they've about run out of remarkable factoids and they have to pad the list with Harry Potter references and such.

Somewhere along the line I lost track of that wonderment I felt about the depth of history our old old people represent. Time flew by and now only the oldest of the old were born in the 19th century. The last time I remember thinking about this was in the early seventies when the older people had lives that began before the airplane was invented and were still going strong when man first walked on the moon.

Thanks for triggering this for me.

I had originally intended on going off topic (and still am going to, sorry!), had a good page or so written up on a hypothetic topic... but writing that page or so helped me clear up some personal issues on aging and death... so I've decided to just post an open ended question... open to anyone that happens to read it...

What would this world be like, if people did not die from old age? (or age at all beyond their early 20's)

Think about it... I found it to be quite the useful thought experiment...

I'm vacillating on this one. The "still working" one. I hear what you're saying, but...