Pushing Sixty Behind Me

By Lois Stewart Perry

Lois Perry sees humor in almost everything she does and in almost everyone she meets.

"If there was one thing I did not feel like doing, it was standing nude in front of my son's girlfriend."

"Myoko!" Our host, Ishibishi-san, drew his chest height to emphasize to his wife and to all his guests the importance of what he was about to say. "Perhaps Lois-san must use the toilet."

Pushing Sixty Behind Me contains hilarious descriptions of first encounters with a health club, a fitness farm, skiing, massage, a water park, and a Japanese toilet. It also includes Lois's off-beat descriptions of the medical community, recycling, uncertain recipes, and sex.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Feb 16, 2007
• ISBN: 9781425197162

Lois Stewart Perry

Lois Perry has been pushing sixty behind her for a few years now. She finds it to be great exercise. With her steadfast and forbearing husband Ron, she divides her time between the sand dunes of Lake Michigan and the mountain majesty of Colorado. Her roots lie in her family and friends, some of whom she's still looking forward to meeting. Lois wants her tombstone to read: She Lived for the Fun of It

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© Copyright 2006 Lois Stewart Perry.

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ISBN 978-1-4120-9011-7

ISBN: 978-1-4251-9716-2 (ebk)

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CONTENTS

Acknowlegments

Dedication

Preface

The Body Works

Pushing Sixty—Behind Me

Midnight in Kyoto

The Water Park

Sex

Clipped by Coupons

The Inscrutable Toilet of Ishibishi-san

Letting Go

I Was Just Thinking.

Recycling Recycled

An Apple a Day—We Wish!

Weighed Down

Recipe Shower

It IS All Hanging Out!

Don’t Ask—’Cuz I Won’t Tell

Downhill All the Way

Hanging On

Why Worry?

Acknowlegments

As I try to thank those who helped with my book, my whole life flashes before my heart. All the women, all the men, all the children who have made my life so rich, so full, so funny-to all of you, including those I haven’t met yet, I say thank you!

An especially big thank you to my husband Ron, who showed his enthusiasm for my writing by buying me new computers just when I had finally figured out the old ones-and who showed his courage by taking on the task of being my high-tech support system and publisher. Most of all, I thank him for his enduring love and sense of humor throughout our fun and funny life together.

Hugs and forever-love to my amazing editor and daughter, Kathy Dunnewald, whose diligence and faith never wavered-even though there were times when her patience must have.

To all my publish-before-you-perish-pushers gathered at the Writers Table of the Glen Arbor Art Association in Michigan’s north woods. And to my colleagues at the Denver Woman’s Press Club, whose membership requirements include the ability to drive dull care away.

To all of you who have shared in my laughter throughout the years-and caused some of it, too-I blow you kisses filled with gratitude.

To all you who will read my book, I thank you most ofall!

Dedication

To the Goddess of Laughter

You Each Know Who You Are!

Preface

My mother was ninety-two and in a nursing home because none of her body parts would do what she told them to. So I did her shopping for her. One day I bought a new dress for her and helped her try it on. I could see the hesitation in her eyes as I held a mirror up in front of her.

Hmmm…I don’t know, Lois, she said. I think it makes me look a little old, don’t you?

Now there’s a woman who knows how to push sixty behind her-way, way behind!

Doris, a ninety-eight year old friend in my water aerobics class, just got her driver’s license renewed-for six years!

Betsy’s widowed mother bought herself a red convertible for her ninety-second birthday.

And Marian’s eighty-eight year old, widowed mother refused to marry the ninety-two year old man she’d been dating because she couldn’t imagine spending her life with a man who didn’t play tennis or golf.

On the other hand, a friend warned me once, After sixty, it’s all just patch and repair, patch and repair. I find it hard not to picture her as a tire.

But, after all, if we’re willing to spend the time and money to patch our tires, repair our automobiles, and recharge their batteries, why not do the same for ourselves?

My birthday party napkin reads: Over the Hill and Picking Up Speed. Well, not me. I’m going over the hill with my brakes on. I don’t want to miss anything. After using all that time and energy to get to the top, I’m going to take time to enjoy the going down!

When I was running fast to keep up with the world, I saw panoramas, vast beauty, dramatic canvases. It was all so big that I could never see quite where I fit into the picture—even though I was standing at the center. But now I’ve slowed down just enough to know where I am. I am here. Right here. Part of the scenery. Part of the beauty.

And loving every moment.

Well…for the most part.

The Body Works

If there was one thing I did not feel like doing, it was standing nude in front of my son’s girlfriend.

The sign above the door said THE BODY WORKS. As soon as we entered the mammoth fortress and looked around, I knew I was making a big mistake. There were bodies, bodies everywhere. Male and female bodies. Sweating, heaving, bulging, rippling bodies. Gorgeous, self-assured bodies, all clad in designer outfits.

Kip waved goodbye and hurried off into a room filled with machines and pulleys that looked as if they’d been salvaged from the Spanish Inquisition. I saw my first-born fling himself-voluntarily-onto a rack-like torture device straight out of Poe and had a sudden vision of my son being returned to me in pieces resembling remnants in the bottom of a pretzel bag.

Laura hustled me into the women’s dressing room. We can change in here, Mrs. Perry. The Mrs. part made me feel every one of my years and each one of my pounds. As if things weren’t bad enough, when the door shut behind us, I gaped in awe at the myriad of young bare bosoms and bottoms, bobbing and stretching, prancing and preening.

I looked around for a locker in an inconspicuous place (preferably two blocks away in a dark alley). There wasn’t any inconspicuous place. Laura began peeling off her clothes with all the ease that comes with the self-knowledge of a beautifully toned, bronzed, sleek, youthful body. I felt like a stuffed panda with stretch marks. The more of me I tried to conceal by holding my towel in my teeth as I wriggled out of my clothes, the more of me flapped into view. I felt like a walking Reubens-his model, not the sandwich.

Laura slipped into a stylish mauve-and-grey outfit, while I struggled into my souvenir T-shirt, an impulse purchase from my trip out West. Laura smiled and waited patiently for me to slip into my orange tights. Unfortunately, I do not slip into tights. I Push and Shove and Heave and Grunt.

We have to hurry; aerobics class is about to start, Laura said, propelling me into a room containing six rows of fifteen bodies each. The outfits attached to those bodies looked like a hodge-podge collected from Goodwill rejects-except that each piece sported a designer’s name in a conspicuous spot. I seemed to be the only one not wearing a sweaty headband around a forehead draped by one of those lawn-mower haircuts. I glanced at myself in the wall-to-wall mirrors. From the rear, in my orange tights, I looked like a pumpkin on stilts. Worse still, my T-shirt said The Great Divide.

A riser at the front held a CD player, four speakers, and a woman instructor who looked like a tall sardine