The Golden Years; Fifteen Minutes I’Ll Never Get Back!: Based on True Events of the Perils and Comedies of Aging.

By Sally Ph.D.

While the golden years contain many endearing times, they also seem to be full of modern conveniences that overwhelm many seniors to the point of distraction. These years are also full of frustrations due to our aging minds and bodies. It is only with a good sense of humor, the ability to laugh at ourselves, and a lifetime full of humorous memories that we can hopefully and cheerfully survive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9781514413852

Sally Ph.D.

Dr. Sally Dandridge is a retired school psychologist of thirty years, with many years’ experience as a music teacher, principal, high school counselor, substitute teacher, and missionary. Her degrees are a BS in music education, an MS in guidance and counseling, and a PhD in counseling psychology. Born and raised in Washington, DC, she has lived in the Midwest, Northwest, Southwest, and in Costa Rica. She has written a humorous novel based on her experiences while living in Costa Rica as a missionary, two unpublished novels, along with several professional manuals involving counseling children. She has sung and played in many community choirs and orchestras. As the mother of five grown children and three stepchildren, she enjoys twenty-two grandchildren and thirty great-grandchildren. Now a widow of four years and living her golden years to the fullest, she lives in the Phoenix, Arizona, area where most of her children live. She continues to write, travel, and facilitate church activities.

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Copyright © 2015 by Sally Dandridge, Ph.D..

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Rev. date: 10/06/2015

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Contents

Chapter One Electronic Necessities

Chapter Two The Horrors of Advanced Technology

Chapter Three Things Not So Electronic

Chapter Four One Hundred Years from Now, It Won’t Make Any Difference!

Chapter Five Help! I’ve Fallen and I Can’t get Up!

Chapter Six The Brighter Side of Aging

Chapter Seven Keeping the Things We Love Most

Chapter Eight A Tribute to Gene

Chapter Nine Enjoy Life Anyway!

Chapter Ten I Remember When …

Chapter Eleven Then There Was the Time …

Chapter Twelve A Few Words of Wisdom

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the following friends, family members, and consumer-product makers, for making this book possible.

To my daughter Sally, thank you for the clever drawing for the book cover. Who knew she could draw? To my daughter-in-law Sima for her edits and technical writing skills. To my son Mark for reminding me of how many memories there were in his youth that were not mentioned, and how the situations actually occurred! To my daughters Cathy and Lois for sharing in so many of the talked about memories. To my granddaughter Lexie for being the loyal and creative granddaughter who appreciates me the most for my electronic inadequacies (and for my toes, which is another book altogether).

I’d like to send my beloved husband Gene (may he rest in peace) a thank you for adding the laughter and love in so many of the later stories in my life. Thanks too, to all the family members who have given me encouragement and suggestions to add to this book, and for making me realize that I am not the only one with frustrations for what this technological age has brought.

I would like to thank my daughter Lisa for her endless hours of editing and wordsmithing the book while still continuing to love me for the grammatical mistakes. It was her inspiration and idea to suggest that I write this book after an especially long and frustrating bout of electronic exacerbations sent to her in an email. She told me THAT is your idea for your book!

My acknowledgements would not be complete without actually thanking the electronics involved in this process. Finally, thank you to my son-in-law David for his endless hours of keeping me up and running in my house of electronic, technological, and mechanical gadgets. He’s the real genius, and his handyman-extraordinaire status is one I could not function without.

FORWARD

It all began when I read somewhere that The best part of old age is that it is short! That, combined with my daughters trying to find something worthwhile for me to do with my spare time. I am a school psychologist with a Ph.D., who finally retired about three years ago, after retiring three times previously. It was necessary to keep working in order to pay the taxes on my retirement! I also have a degree in music and I have been a widow for over four years. I just turned eighty-four and it seems I am still here! Somehow, none of the ideas forthcoming were very appealing to me. Even my friends couldn’t picture me sitting around playing board games with a bunch of other old people!

Write another book, they said, decidedly, and friends seemed to agree. I can usually come up with a humorous tale about my life for Facebook or in family e-mails, so I thought, "Why not?" I have to say that, other than a bad back and a cartilage-free right hip which slow me down a bit, and a little minor congestive heart failure, I appear to still be of mostly sound mind and have a lot of energy. My memory is still decent and I only forget little things, like the name of the street where I live. I do have a life with friends, family, scores of grandkids and great grandkids, and I am responsible for much of the music in my church.

Still, I allow about two days a year where I permit myself to become depressed. Even this is unacceptable to my daughters, especially daughter Number Three. I must admit, I never dreamed I would live to see the advanced advent of the Electronic Age. If there is one major thing that could keep me out of Heaven, it will be my reaction to the unpardonable things electronic that cause me to completely lose my cool. I am sure many other old-timers can relate. There are also things, besides technology, that make a senior’s life extremely difficult at times. This book is dedicated to the afore-mentioned old timers and those they love.

The most difficult part of old age is that we cannot do what we used to do, without even thinking about it. I am referring to things like opening a jar, running (literally) down to the mail box, or getting out of a chair! It is especially excruciating when dealing with modern technology. I hope I can bring to light some of these daily experiences in ways that portray a lively sense of humor that can surely get us through to the end. Additionally, my account may bring back a few wistful memories of The Good Old Days as well. Here goes!

CHAPTER ONE

Electronic Necessities

Phones with High I.Q.s

I don’t know about you, but I grew up with a very large, black rotary telephone hanging on the wall, that the family shared. Imagine! I recall its main use, as far as my brother was concerned, was to amuse himself on rainy days by calling the drug store asking, Do you have Dr. Pepper in a bottle? Following a response of Yes we do. reply, he quickly responded with, You mean thing, please let him out at once! This is just one of the simple ways we amused ourselves back in the day.

Twenty some years later, on a farm in Missouri, we had a ten-party line, meaning our five children were limited to ten minutes each- per night on the phone. Imagine that? On a party line one can listen in to all of his or her neighbor’s conversations and even interrupt them on occasion. One such time included me telling a friend about another friend whose new baby weighed seven pounds and five ounces. A voice zoomed in with, "No, it was seven pounds, nine ounces!" The more people joining in on the line, the farther away became the voice with whom you were conversing.

When the cordless phone made its valuable appearance into the telephone market, it was marvelous … except when you couldn’t find the darn thing. Then came the magical cell phone that you could actually take everywhere with you, and yet could still be lost! I will admit,