Intro to my Decade Eight

    My Decade Eight began last April when I turned 70.  Seventy is old.  It isn’t like 69, when you can pretty easily convince yourself you’re still middle aged.

    I remember being 15.  Both my mother and grandmother needed help threading needles.  They couldn't see well enough. Neither was a real seamstress but both were menders.  It was a pleasure to see them fixing rips on otherwise perfectly good things.  Their natural industry and thrift had been intensified by Depression Era abhorrence of waste.

    I was happy to thread countless needles for them but had to work to suppress expression of scorn and pity.  I couldn't help noticing that they were just too old to carry on normal life tasks.

    Good grief!  When I stop to consider, neither one of them was as old as 70 then.  When I was 15, Mom was 35 and Grandma was 59.  They were not yet into their Decade Eights - not even their Decade Sevens.

     Age looks different from this vantage point.  I have great plans for this eighth decade.  I won't be doing any mending but I have brightly colored magnifiers from the drug store anyway.

A good decade lies ahead.