A VEGETARIAN THANKSGIVING

Though I am not a very good cook, many years ago I learned to roast a turkey and provide a Thanksgiving feast with all the fixin’s.  In spite of the work, it gave me a lot of pleasure.

My partner, rather unfortunately for our social life, is a vegetarian. Most of the time I am happy to be a herbivore (with occasional sneaky forays to a burger joint), but it does lead to some problems around the holidays. If we join others for dinner, someone is likely to beg him to “try just a little turkey,” or to lecture him about protein, rather than allowing him to eat the side dishes in peace.  Usually we manage to travel somewhere far away from friends and family at Thanksgiving and Christmas.  We feast on squash, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, and other traditional foods, skipping the turkey.

One year, though, we wanted to take our chances on the family Thanksgiving gathering, just so we could visit with them. We packed up the Winnebago View and started out for southern California.

The sky was cloudy, and the weather forecast was for possible showers. As we drove, clouds gathered above us, thunder rolled, and lightning flashed. Within an hour or so, rain began pouring down. When we could no longer see the freeway, we decided to pull off and sit out the storm. Luckily, just then we saw a sign pointing toward a county park. I have forgotten what the park itself looked like; it was probably just a large, grassy area with some picnic tables and restrooms. More importantly, it was a safe place to stay comfortably for a while.

The rain went on and on, until we realized there was no way we could reach  southern California that day. Calling our hostess, we explained our situation and said we were not coming after all.

Being RV owners, we had of course brought plenty of food with us, so we sat at the dinette table eating a simple meal and listening to music as the rain lessened. Then we looked out the window and saw a huge flock of wild turkeys running across the grass toward us. Some were displaying their plumage in peacock fashion, others were having beak-to-beak encounters that reminded us of teenaged humans. They were having a wonderful time, enjoying their freedom rather than gracing someone’s Thanksgiving table.

It was the best Thanksgiving a vegetarian could want.

THE FOGGY, FOGGY COAST

Coastal fog from the Pacific Ocean can be romantic and mysterious. Many times I have walked the streets of San Francisco at night, when fog was rolling in from the ocean, and foghorns were sounding. It was thrilling, like a scene in a Dashiell Hammett mystery. The romance wears off eventually, though, with overexposure.

Recently we visited Patrick’s Point, a scenic spot on the coast south of California’s Crescent City. The campground was overpriced ($35 for dry camping), like campgrounds in all California state parks.  I was disappointed with the park until we went out to gaze at the Pacific from Wedding Rock, a high rock with an easy trail winding up to the top.

Waves crashed against the rocks below and sent spray high into the air. The views up and down the coast were magnificent, justifying the high cost of our camp site. (A couple of girls tried to persuade us that they had reserved our site on the Internet. Knowing the sites were first come, first served, we threw them out. Later we noticed their tents in a site where some young men were camped, and heard laughter, so apparently we didn’t do them a disservice.)

The brochure describing Patrick’s Point mentioned that most of the year the area is “shrouded in fog;” as we were there in October, when the days are sunny and clear, we saw it at its best.  It must be a sad sight during the summer tourist season, when it would be both crowded and foggy.

The Pacific coast in general is a foggy place. My late husband and I lived in Daly City, just south of San Francisco, for four years when I was in grad school, and became all too familiar with fog. In spite of Malvina Reynolds’s snide song about “ticky-tacky little boxes,” Daly City was in many ways a pleasant place to live, but the fog made it almost unbearable. Mildew constantly grew on the shower curtain and any other place it could thrive. We could see only a few blocks down the street.  In winter the fog was cold; in summer it was sometimes hot and muggy, but usually cold and muggy. Worst of all, the fog was depressing, like that in the song “Foggy, Foggy Dew” that Burl Ives used to sing. If I had had to live there much longer, I’d have gone around the bend.

HOMECOMING

Many years ago the Pulitzer Prize winning poet Phyllis McGinley wrote Sixpence in her Shoe (1964), celebrating the joys of home and family life. The book would have been received warmly in the fifties, but at the time it was published the women’s liberation movement was underway. Women readers and reviewers were more receptive to Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique and Helen Gurley Brown’s Sex and the Single Girl than to McGinley’s book, and she suffered a great deal of criticism from academics and fellow writers.

Though out of sync with the national  women’s mood at the time, McGinley’s book was a persuasive, well written argument for cultivating traditional values. Young women of today who grew up hearing the complaints of us old feminists would probably find it more appealing than we did.

I especially recall McGinley’s comments about falling in love with a house. That may explain my sudden recent purchase of a home. I had just sold my house in Placerville,  which had never been more than a pied à terre, and planned to be on the road in the RV for a long time.

But then my Realtor called to tell me about an “adorable” little house in Pollock Pines, just a few miles from my companion’s off-grid home,  that had just appeared on the market. I drove past the house and was hooked. She was right—the house is adorable, and is surrounded with enormous pines, redwoods, and dogwoods. Built in 1970, it has the charm of an older home and the conveniences of a recent one. It even has the ideal kitchen—not too small, not too large, and arranged in an efficient U shape—with a greenhouse window where I can grow some herbs and flowers. I made an immediate offer that the owners accepted. In just a week escrow will close, and I can move in.

I am not a good cook, and that is unlikely to change. But, baking some cookies or other simple foods while listening to music will be enjoyable in this kitchen. There is a small, hospitable-looking front porch where I can sit and chat with neighbors. Books (not only those on my Nook, but also books printed on real paper, with underlining and a few coffee stains) will be everywhere.

Finding the right balance between a career and other “outside” interests and family life has never been easy for any woman. Though I am somewhat embittered by my own experiences in the workplace, and am very much a feminist, I also cherish the domestic life.

This is not a rejection of the RV life. I will continue traveling as long as I can! Travel is one of the great joys of life, and probably I will have only a few more years to indulge in it comfortably. But, now I can also look forward to returning to this home, where I can enjoy the satisfactions of domestic life.

FIFTY YEARS OF MEDICARE

In 1961 I left a lowly job in medical research, and went looking for another one.  An ad for “research assistant” posted by the American Medical Association looked promising,  so I answered it.

It turned out to be my first editorial job , and certainly was the strangest.  I had fallen down the rabbit hole into an unreal world.   At weekly staff meetings, one dormouse-like little old man always fell asleep after the first few moments. Another man invariably came up with bizarre suggestions for editorial projects, a bit like the Mad Hatter.  Every Friday we had a farewell party for whichever coworker was making their escape. One of the secretaries, who  looked scarily like Morticia of the Addams family, sneaked around on rubber-soled shoes and seldom spoke to anyone.  Another secretary began making odd statements about conspiracies going on in the organization. For a long time people simply assumed she had uncovered something sinister in the course of her work, but finally one of the M.D.s in the department realized she had a brain tumor.  Altogether it was a weird place.

 From today’s point of view, one of the oddest characteristics of the AMA was their rabid opposition to Medicare. The costs of medicine for the elderly (and everyone else) were becoming unaffordable, but the AMA officials insisted that passing Medicare legislation would doom the country. Actor Ronald Reagan, who in a few years would be the governor of California, made a film for the AMA in which he proclaimed that passage would lead us down the path to socialism (almost equated with Communism at the time). In the Journal of the American Medical Association ( JAMA) and its other journals, AMA officials insisted that it would destroy the high-quality medical care Americans were receiving.  Luckily for all of us, President Lyndon Johnson made it a high priority, and Medicare became a reality in 1965.

Can any sane American now imagine life without Medicare? Even the most right-wing Republican is likely to rely heavily on it after the age of 65. Conservative opposition today has more to do with cutting the budget for it, which  would be bad enough.

My late husband went through numerous hospitalizations and surgeries before dying of heart disease and diabetes. In his last few years his medical bills came to more than a million dollars. Being a Navy employee, he was well insured; but even with the help of Medicare and a good Medigap plan, the financial cost was enormous for us. We used up our retirement savings, and after his death I had to sell our home. But I have survived and continue to live decently, if frugally. Without Medicare I cannot imagine what my life would be today.

LIVING WITH UNCERTAINTY

Most people seem to have settled down by the time they reach their late seventies. They are either happily staying in homes where they have lived for years, or they are reluctantly moving into some sort of assisted living.

Not me. I am selling the Placerville home I bought only a few years ago, and have not yet bought another one. The reasons are mainly financial (this house was meant as an investment, and has no emotional connections for me), but I seem doomed not to remain anywhere more than a decade.

Where would I go if I left the Gold Rush country? Back to the San Francisco Bay area? I loved that area, and miss it in many ways. Living there would mean constantly  hearing about the Big One arriving at any time, though. After living through the Loma Prieta quake in 1989, I don’t care to repeat the experience.  That area  is also extremely expensive. Back to Chicago? Nah! Again, Chicago is a wonderful place, with incomparable museums, but the winter weather is simply dreadful. Having lived in California since 1980, I doubt that I could survive a Chicago winter now.  Back to Michigan, where I was born and still have some friends and relatives?  And where every summer brings the threat of tornadoes?  Leaving California seems like an unlikely option, even with the continuing drought and the danger of wildfires.

Of course, I can always stay with my companion in his off-grid home.  I am there much of the time now, and enjoy the forested surroundings, but need some of the modern conveniences provided by lots of electricity. The older I become, the harder it is to live off the grid. The hard work is starting to overwhelm my companion, also. It may be easy to persuade him to move.

Or, we can continue to travel in the View. For long periods we can tour scenic and cultural areas, with occasional stops at libraries and coffee shops where I can get my Wi-Fi fix.  I do need some sort of permanent address, if only for storage space and for a place to rest up from traveling. (Perhaps one of the RV resorts where I might buy a small home with an RV pad?) For the next few years, at least, traveling as much as possible seems like the best option. Traveling in an RV is never boring or overly certain; each day brings some new adventure.

As the old saying goes, Nothing is certain but death and taxes. I am not immortal, and the IRS has been dunning me for taxes they say I owe. Everything else is up in the air.

ATTICUS FINCH, REVISED EDITION

Harper Lee’s just-released novel Go Set a Watchman continues the story of Jean Louise (“Scout”) Finch and her father, Atticus. In Lee’s Pulitzer Prize winning To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), set in Alabama in the 1930s, Atticus was a heroic lawyer who stood up to the local rednecks by representing a young black man who was falsely accused of rape. (The book’s popularity was soon ensured by the movie, starring beloved actor Gregory Peck as Atticus.) In the new book Jean Louise and the readers see an older, flawed Atticus who joins a local citizens’ council that opposes the NAACP in the fifties, toward the beginning of the civil rights era.

Many readers who have loved To Kill a Mockingbird for half a century, and revered Atticus, have been horrified. (Reviews of the new book have been mixed, but the quality of the writing is another issue.) Online and in print, comments like “Atticus was a racist” have appeared. In the novel, the adult Jean Louise herself reacted violently when she came home from living in New York and realized what her father was doing. Her love and respect for Atticus were severely threatened. It seems likely that Lee’s relationship with her own father, on whom Atticus was presumably based, was endangered also.

Though I never confronted my own father as sharply as Jean Louise did, during the sixties and seventies we had some prickly disagreements about civil rights. Like Atticus, he was an intelligent, fair-minded man who treated all people equally, but his background and education simply doomed him to an intolerant outlook. Born in 1908 and growing up in a conservative, mainly white, area of the Midwest, he never was exposed to other races and religions as a child. Though college-educated, he never accepted the sameness of blacks and whites, or of Jews and Gentiles. I feel sure that if he had not died in the seventies, he would have become much more liberal. (My mother, who was also born in 1908 and died only a few years ago, had become nearly as liberal as I am by the time she died.) This is not just wishful thinking on my part: my father was anti-Semitic also, but when I married a Jew, his attitude changed quickly. Simple exposure can work wonders.

It is easy to judge people who lived in the past by current standards. History textbooks today are more judgmental about George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, for example, than they once were. However, individuals and groups of people are continually changing. In the fifties, many well-intentioned people had attitudes about race, homosexuality, marriage, and other issues that would seem quaint, if not actually evil, today. We need to try to understand them as products of their environment.

There is a genetic aspect, also: Though in some circles it is politically incorrect to state it, it is obvious from sociobiology that we have some inborn prejudices. Cleaving to the group that resembles us must have had adaptive advantages early in human evolution; so, try as we may, it is hard for those of every race not to distrust or even fear other groups. Understanding prejudices must not lead to agreeing with them, of course. It is important to recognize our prejudices and to strive to overcome them rather than denying they exist. As different groups intermingle and intermarry, tolerance seems to be increasing, but complete acceptance will still take a long time. In the meantime, we need to use education and legislation to lessen ignorance and to protect minorities.

 

DEATH WITH DIGNITY

 Brittany_Maynard had everything to live for. Newly married, the beautiful and intelligent young woman should have looked forward to a long, happy life with a husband and children. Instead, she was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and told that she would die within a year. She began her painful journey toward death, having seizures, severe head and neck pain, and stroke-like symptoms. At some point she decided not to continue in agony, but to die on a date of her choosing, shortly after her husband’s birthday.

Brittany lived in California, where she could not commit suicide legally. Instead of dying peacefully in her home as she wished, she and her husband had to move to Oregon, which allows physician-assisted suicide. (A physician supplied the aid-in-dying medication she would need, but she would have to administer it herself.)  Though she was fortunate in having that choice available, moving away from her parents and friends must have severely upset her already tumultuous life. She spent some of those last few months working with the Compassion & Choices group, which helps the dying and publicizes the difficulties they face in carrying out their decisions. Her video is familiar to most of us now.

The publicity about her death led to a California legislator’s introducing SB 128, a bill that would have made Brittany’s kind of death legal in California. Many of us (a large majority of the Californians polled) are in favor of death with dignity, and thought the bill would pass easily, but it was quickly defeated by religious and other groups who represent themselves as being in favor of life. They trotted out the usual arguments about possible miraculous recoveries, not letting temporary depression cloud a sick person’s judgment, and so on. It was sickening to read their smug remarks.

I do not want to hear any pious comments about waiting until “God called her home,” implying that it was sinful or stupid for her to end her life on her own terms. What kind of people are these who deny a dying woman the right to end her painful life a little early? Has any person who has watched a loved one die slowly and in agony want to condemn anyone else to that kind of death? We need to pass some version of SB 128 to ensure the right of Californians to escape unnecessary suffering from terminal illnesses without having to move to a more compassionate state.

WRITING VS. RV TRAVEL

Writing and RV travel should go together like ham and eggs. When we bought the Winnebago View, I thought we could travel from place to place with frequent stops at libraries or museums where I could do research; we would spend our days sightseeing; and I would do my writing in the evenings and on layover days. That plan didn’t work, for obvious reasons I should have foreseen. After a day of driving or sightseeing, I have little energy left for writing. Even this simple blog has suffered; my weekly posts have become monthly or occasional.

Do other writers on the road have this problem, or is it just me? Am I too lazy or too old to continue the writing that has been so important in my life? I have known other writers who went on writing well into their nineties, and I should be able to follow in their footsteps.

Even at home, I can no longer maintain the routine I had during many years of freelance work. Housework that seemed so easy when I was younger (or, better, that was often taken care of by a cleaning service) now seems too hard to manage, and my small income doesn’t justify hiring household help now. So, housework too often takes the time that should be spent on writing.

For about fifty years I wrote and edited materials for science education, especially in human ecology. It was occasionally frustrating to work with certain authors or publishers, but on the whole the life was very satisfying, and often it was joyful. I never wanted to change careers.

There have been too many advances in the sciences for me to continue writing competently in that field, though I still avidly read Scientific American and other popular science magazines. I need to do my writing in another area, but what new niche can I find? Many others write more ably than I can about the RV life, travel destinations, and so on. My memoirs were written years ago, and I have no wish to repeat that cathartic experience. The two whodunits I wrote were simply dreadful. What is left?

Perhaps I will go on writing indignant letters to the editor, and posting blogs, about environmental issues that require only superficial knowledge of the science behind them. Heaven knows, there are plenty of those issues—fracking, oil spills along the coasts, women’s right to choose reproductive freedom, wasted resources, GMO’s. In some cases I may even be able to expand a letter or blog post to a magazine article. However this turns out, I need to continue to continue writing in some form about issues that I find compelling. In spite of all the damage humans have done, Earth is still a beautiful planet that must be saved.  In the words of the old Quaker  hymn,

Through all the tumult and the strife
I hear the music ringing;
It finds an echo in my soul—
How can I keep from singing?

OUR CROWDED PARKS

When we visited Canyonlands National Park in southern Utah recently, we failed to make a campground reservation. After all, it was May, surely too early for the hordes of tourists that drive into the parks in summer. We forgot to note that we were arriving just a few days before Memorial Day, a very popular time. (Indeed, on Saturday the entrance to nearby Arches National Park was closed by the state police, for the first time ever, because backed-up traffic onto the highway was so hazardous.) So, we spent two nights out on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands before scoring a campsite inside the park. Even then, only my partner’s disabled placard made it possible. We spent three wonderful days in Canyonlands.

For such a huge park (527 square miles), Canyonlands has surprisingly few campsites, possiby as the result of an attempt to protect the park’s fragile desert environment. The two campgrounds have a total of thirty-seven sites. Early every morning, RVers and tent campers circle every loop, watching like vultures for people who are vacating their sites. (No reservations are possible; it is a first come–first served situation. For the elderly, getting up at dawn to drive into a park and then compete for a site can be very difficult.) Fortunately, other campgrounds can be found near by in Dead Horse Point State Park, the BLM’s Horsethief campground, and other spots.

One effective way to avoid disappointment is to travel before May 15 or after September 10, when children are in school, and families are less likely to be on the road. Even then, though, it is becoming harder and harder to travel and find stopping places for the night.

In just the past few years, national parks have become much more popular for a variety of reasons, including Ken Burns’s TV series. As a parks enthusiast, of course I am happy to see this trend, even if it makes my life more difficult. To be sure of having a campsite, reservations for the most crowded places are essential. Barbara Parker, who with her husband has been a host at one of the Yellowstone campgrounds for several years, has written in an online RV forum about her pity for and astonishment at people who arrive in mid-summer with no reservations and expect to camp. They cannot stay, and it is a far, far drive out of the park! When we went to Yellowstone (after Labor Day) a few years ago we found a riverside spot just outside the park that had nice pit toilets, but finding it was just dumb luck.

As we refuse to lock ourselves into a schedule when traveling, the need for reservations is a pain. In the West, where the BLM has vast public land areas, we can simply pull off the road and stay overnight. There is always Wal-Mart, too. As a last resort, private RV campgrounds are common nearly everywhere. So many of them are either too expensive or slumlike that we scarcely ever use them.

This country’s state and national parks still have the features that make them so appealing, and they are the last habitats for some threatened or endangered species. What is the solution to the crowding? Some legislators (including mine, unfortunately) in the House of Representatives feel that more campgrounds and other facilities (such as skating rinks) should be opened up “for the people,” as if conservation is elitist, but I feel that would be a serious mistake. We must preserve our parks, where much of the natural environment remains, and where visitors can learn about archeology, paleontology, ecology, and history in unmatched fashion. If we lose these priceless places, or convert them to theme parks, we can never get them back. Yes, I will be irritated when it is hard for us to find a campsite. In the long run, though, preserving the parks trumps anyone’s personal wishes.

 

CRONE WISDOM

Now in my late seventies, I have been around the block a few times. I can’t pretend to have learned everything about living the good life, and too many things I spent a lot of time or money on are no longer useful, at least for me. For example:

• Learning how to perform a hysterectomy on a Drosophila.
• Reading with the Evelyn Wood method.
• Spotting typos in galley proofs of hand-set type.
• Learning WordStar, WordPerfect, and several other obsolete word-processing programs.

 

Some other things I have learned, though, have continued to serve me well, and seem important enough to pass on:

• Taking notes in Pitman shorthand.
• Baking with a solar oven.
• Doing basic housework for sanitation (but you don’t have to eat off the floor).
• Balancing a chemical equation.
• Doing simple statistical tests to evaluate medical claims.
• And so on.

More importantly, I know the importance of friendship, and appreciate my friends more than when I was younger. Though I am an introvert who prefers spending much time alone, I have learned to place a higher priority on friendship than on accomplishment or education. (Many years ago I told a close friend I was too busy writing a paper to go for a walk with her. When she committed suicide a week later, I felt partly to blame.)

Another important lesson I should have learned when young is that drinking alcohol does not increase happiness. For me, as for many people, the first glass of wine does lead to relaxation and peacefulness; but it too frequently leads to a second glass or more. Being an editor in the sixties meant taking authors to dinner, working at National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and other conventions where our textbooks were advertised, and otherwise being in situations where drinking was encouraged. I have a low tolerance for alcohol and should have avoided it altogether; instead, I did a lot of silly or stupid things while under the influence. When I went back to grad school later, and became a freelance author and editor, I switched to drinking wine (especially the inexpensive Trader Joe’s “two-buck Chuck”), but began a habit of ending every work day with a glass or two of wine.

That much wine sounds harmless, and for many people it is healthful, but I realized it was more than I personally can tolerate. Occasionally I would mention my concern to a doctor, and invariably got the “That much wine is good for you!” response. So, I went on with mild but daily drinking. It helped me ease the pain of becoming a widow. I’m not sure what the final effect would have been. Only when I met my partner in 2005 did I have to face the issue. He is a teetotaler who feels strongly about drinking, and I knew I might lose him. So, I stopped. It was a little hard at first, like giving up on an unreliable friendship, but now alcohol holds no appeal for me at all. Why did it take me so long to learn such an important lesson? As the saying goes, "We grow too soon old, and too late smart.”

 

THE END OF GRIEVING

 

During the past year, some of my old friends have been widowed. It is saddening to watch them go through the early stages of grief--denial, anger, bargaining, depression--and to be helpless to offer them little but my affection and sympathy. Though I know that in time they will reach the final stage of grieving, acceptance, they are not ready to believe it. Nor should they. Each widow needs to experience the process herself.

April 28 will be here soon. On that date twelve years ago—a lovely, sunny day with all the promise late April brings--I took Harold to the Alameda ER where he had been treated successfully many times. Two hours later, he was dead. I stumbled out to the car in a pouring rain. Like my own life, the whole world had changed.

That first year was the hardest, and when April 28 came around again, I seemed to relive all the events of his death as I lighted a yahrzeit candle in his memory. The idea that I could ever accept life without him seemed impossible.

Over the years since, of course it did happen. Not only did I reach acceptance, but am whole again. This year as always I will burn a candle for him, smiling at the memory of happy times in our thirty-two years of marriage and feeling grateful that healing did occur. L’chaim! To life!  

 

THE HIGH COST OF DRUGS

Like most elderly people, I take several medicines every day--for hypertension, arthritis, and other ailments--and hate to think what life would be without those drugs.

Recently I learned I have pancreatitis, a painful disease caused by a sluggish pancreas.  Just getting the diagnosis took several months, so finally learning the source of my pain was a great relief, especially when some samples of Creon (pancreatic enzymes) helped greatly. Then my doctor broke the news that Creon (manufactured by Abbott Labs) costs up to $10 per capsule. No generic version is available. As I need four capsules a day, this drug could cost me nearly $1200 a month, nearly my entire Social Security income! I do have a good Medicare Part D insurance plan that would lower the monthly cost to about $240, but even that is a lot of money for me. I do not qualify for Medi-Cal or other subsidies; the government thinks I have too much money, which I find amusing. (Most of my retirement savings were spent long ago for my late husband’s surgeries and hospitalizations—his bills would have come to more than a million dollars without Medicare--but that’s another story.)

In desperation, I plan to order Creon from a drug company in Canada. That is a clunky, slow process, and possibly a risky one, but it looks as if I can get my medicine for about $50 a month. At this point, that actually seems like a bargain.

Considering the enormous amounts that pharmaceutical companies spend on advertising (in JAMA and other medical journals, as well as those irritating TV ads), I think they can well afford to make needed drugs more affordable. Luckily, my illness is not life-threatening, but many people endanger their lives by cutting pills in half, delaying having prescriptions refilled, and by other cost-saving actions. When will Big Pharma and the government wake up and realize they may be killing the geese that lay the golden eggs?

MARGARET MEAD, MARRIAGE, AND ME

Many years ago I read one of cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead’s books (I think it was Blackberry Winter) and found myself amused by her comments on marriage. She thought women should marry three times in their lives—as Mead herself did—the first time for the innocence and passion of young love, the second for a home and stable family life, and the last for having the right person to grow old with. Being young and idealistic at the time myself, I thought her advice was extremely calculating. Now that I am elderly, I understand her wisdom. Though I did not intend to follow in her steps, my life has turned out much as she suggested.

When I was only twenty-one I married my first husband, who had been my college sweetheart and seemed like an ideal marriage prospect. We had a lovely wedding in the college chapel that seemed like the prelude to a long, happy married life. Seven years later we were divorced. Neither of us had been mature enough for the responsibilities of marriage.

In my early thirties I married again, with a more realistic view of what the future might hold. At first we argued often—our personalities were very different—and we even separated for a while, but gradually we achieved a good, stable marriage. Though we were unable to have children, we always had a much-loved Scottish terrier, and usually a cat as well. Over the years we grew closer and closer as we shared happy and sad times. When he became extremely ill with diabetes and heart disease, I was happy to be his caregiver. He died after only thirty-two years, and I grieved for a long time.

Now, in the autumn of my own life, I have had the great fortune of finding the ideal man to grow older with. We would not have appreciated each other at all years ago, partly because I am nine years older than he is. He was a free spirit of the sixties, and at that time I was a very serious textbook editor. We had little in common then. Today, he is the perfect companion--a retired science teacher who is as passionate about the environment as I am, and who also enjoys travel and reading. We both have some health problems, and help each other cope with them. Though we have everything we need, our lifestyle is simple and frugal. Departing a bit from Mead’s plan, we have not married for insurance reasons.

So, in retrospect I have to admit Mead had the right idea. In an ideal world, a couple might go through her three stages together, but longer life spans, divorces, and deaths make that impossible for many of us. In our messy real world, a woman is very lucky if she can find the right three men at the right times!

THE VIEW FROM THE TOILET WINDOW

 

Returning to California from a long cross-country trip, we stopped in South Lake Tahoe for the night. Affordable campgrounds were already filled, of course. Fortunately, we had heard of a casino that allowed RVs to stay all night in their parking lot (probably with the hope that the drivers were unlucky gamblers). We went to the casino and were directed to a narrow spot at the back of the lot, between two behemoths with running generators—not the sort of sylvan spot we ordinarily look for, but it was free, and we were tired. We backed into the space and went to bed.

The next morning we looked out through the windshield at the parking lot, shuddered, and began getting ready to drive off. As I brushed my teeth, I happened to look out the bathroom window, and was delighted to see a lovely evergreen forest behind us, with no casinos or vehicles in sight. Just the sort of view we wanted!

Since then we have seen many beautiful views from our toilet window. Sometimes they are just part of an entire vista to be seen all around us, but often we find them deliberately. It’s part of the strategy of choosing a site—if we must back into the site, as is usually the case, then we make sure that the view behind us is enjoyable. Even if we must stay in a crowded campground with RVs on each side of us, we can usually find a way of framing a decent view in the toilet window. Often it is just a matter of choosing a site at the outer edge of the campground, which also leads to having a quieter, less crowded site.

In the Tuolumne Meadows section of Yosemite National Park, we had a view of the campground host’s rig from the front window, which was less than inspiring. From the toilet window, though, we could see Mount Dana. Not only is the mountain a beautiful sight, but my partner had hiked to the top of it back in the seventies. He can no longer do that much hiking, and seeing it in this way brought back some happy memories.

We paused for a while on the Beartooth Highway in Wyoming to have a picnic lunch and to look at the myriad alpine wildflowers. Soon some bikers appeared outside the toilet window. Though we don’t enjoy the sound of motorcycles, we could hardly begrudge them the pleasure of enjoying the spectacular mountain scenery.

When my plane landed in Winnipeg after an emergency return to California, Thane was waiting for me in the View. He had spent several hours at the airport museum (the museum had a uniquely accessible Lockheed Electra that he was able to tour), and watched one plane from the toilet window.

The day we visited the Hoover Dam in Arizona was rainy and windy, not a pleasant time for standing outside taking photos. Fortunately, the toilet window provided a good view of the new bridge over the dam, lessening the time we needed to brave the elements outdoors.

So, at the end of a road trip, it is depressing to put the RV in the garage and look through the toilet window, where the only view is of shelves laden with paint cans, broken appliances, and other assorted junk. And that helps gives us the motivation to take to the open road again.

 

BOOK CLUB ESCAPE

After moving to El Dorado County I wanted to meet some people with similar interests, as I had done in previous places. This turned out to be harder than I expected, partly because I don’t really fit in here. I am a San Francisco Bay liberal; the majority of people here are conservative Republicans, Tea Party members, NRA supporters. I am a Unitarian; the closest Unitarian church is an hour’s drive away. Though that might be all right on Sunday mornings, it is in the evenings that conspiracies are hatched and friendships are formed. (I can no longer drive after dark.) Most Sierra Club hikes are too strenuous for me. Having worked for fifty years, I had no intention of looking for a job! The closest library branch needed volunteers; I tried that for a while and enjoyed it, but our travels make it hard for me to commit to any schedule. That also eliminated many other possibilities for volunteer work.

We spend much time in the library anyway when we are not traveling, and one day I noticed that the county library has a book club that meets once a month in the morning. That made me hesitate. My picture of book clubs has always been of uneducated readers reading lightweight books and making inane comments, or of members using the club as an excuse for gossiping about local events and drinking a lot of wine. However, I was getting desperate for intelligent companionship. (My partner provides a lot of it, but I was eager to meet other women.) So, I attended the next book club meeting to see just how bad it was.

It was a pleasant surprise. About a dozen intelligent people gathered to discuss that month’s selection. One of the librarians, Tamela Entrikin, was the leader. She had thought carefully about the book and, like a skilled teacher, encouraged us to comment without dominating the discussion herself or letting us wander too far onto other subjects. Tamela gave me a list of the books to be read in coming months. While I had read a couple of them, the rest were unfamiliar titles or books I wanted to read. Traveling would not be a problem, as members often cannot attend for various reasons. Thanks to my Nook, I could even download books on the club’s list and read them while traveling.

That was three years ago. Since then I have enjoyed getting to know the other members and reading many of the books. Though of course some have been on topics that did not interest me, in general I have liked rediscovering old favorites or being introduced to unfamiliar authors. If not for the book club, for instance, I probably would have not read Marja Mills’ The Mockingbird Next Door, which led to my interest in the Harper Lee mystery. (My last post gave the details.) Our reading Olive Kitteridge introduced me to Elizabeth Stroud. Being a retired science writer, I have been disappointed that we read too few science-related books, but you can’t have everything. I can find those books on my own.

Perhaps the greatest benefit, though, has been meeting compatible people. El Dorado County, though a cultural backwater in some respects, does have a friendly, knowledgeable community within it. I am grateful to have found it.

THE MYSTERY OF HARPER LEE

For me, the quest began with my book club. Someone in the group suggested that we read Marja Mills’ The Mockingbird Next Door, the story of Mills’ living next door to Harper and Alice Lee in Monroeville, Alabama, as she gathered material to write about Harper for a Chicago Tribune article.

Harper, of course, is the reclusive author of To Kill a Mockingbird, the Pulitzer Prize winning novel about racial prejudice and social classes in small-town Alabama in the thirties. Until going into assisted living several years ago, Harper divided her life between a New York apartment and the house in Alabama that she shared with her older sister, Alice. (Alice died late in 2014, at the age of 103; Harper is 88.) Alice, a practicing lawyer into her nineties, was the first sister to meet Mills, and they rapidly became friendly. According to Mills, both granted her extensive interviews, told her many things off the record, and knew she would be writing a book. She went to local restaurants with them and met their friends.

Mills’ book captivated me and made me curious about Harper herself as well as about To Kill a Mockingbird. For some reason I had never read the book, though I had seen the fine movie with Gregory Peck starring as Atticus Finch, a courageous lawyer who defied the restrictive customs and bigotry of his town by defending a black man who was accused of raping a white girl.  (Finch is based on Harper and Alice’s own father.) So, I got the book from the library and read it along with The Mockingbird Next Door. Better late than never—it is wonderful.

For about fifty years readers have wondered why Harper never wrote another book. She has been somewhat vague about her reasons, alluding to her abhorrence for publicity and her feeling that she had said what she had to say in Mockingbird. Those reasons make perfect sense to me, but few others (including Mills) are satisfied. There have been many questions about her, many intrusions into her privacy.

In 2011 Harper denied authorizing the Mills book, saying Mills had befriended her elder sister and then taken advantage of Alice’s kindness. The story grows murky at that point. Harper had a stroke in 2007; did her personality or memory change, making her turn against Mills after encouraging her to write the book? Some acquaintances have said that she is greatly changed since the stroke; others,  that she is as sharp as a tack.  Was Harper so weary of publicity that she reneged on an agreement at the last minute? Or, did Mills actually write far more about the Lees than they intended?

Last week another surprising twist in the story appeared. Go Set a Watchman, a manuscript that Harper wrote before Mockingbird, has been discovered. It is similar to Mockingbird, but written from the adult viewpoint of Scout (Atticus Finch’s daughter).  Her editor at Lippincott, Tay Hohoff,  persuaded her to revise the manuscript so that it is told from Scout’s point of view as a child. Some massive changes must have been needed! Harper has issued a statement (through her current publisher, HarperCollins, which is rushing the book into print) expressing her delight that it still exists.

Tonja B. Carter, Harper’s attorney, says the manuscript came to light as she was going through papers in her office—the office where Alice had formerly practiced. According to Mills, Alice was organized and disciplined, but Harper was not. Alice handled Harper’s legal and financial affairs for many years, and no doubt dealt with Lippincott. If Hohoff had returned the Go Set a Watchman manuscript to Harper, Alice would likely have ended up with it. Thinking Harper might one day regret not writing another novel, Alice might have prudently set it aside in a file to be opened only after her death. The timing seems suspect to me: Alice died in late 2014, and the manuscript had turned up earlier that year. Someone may have assumed Alice was going to die soon and opened the file a bit early.


All of this is my speculation as a veteran mystery reader, of course. I have no connection to the Lee family, and no inside knowledge of the situation. (I did live in the Yorkville area of New York in 1970, when Harper was living there also.) But, what a mystery story! We may never know why Harper chose not to write another book. I rather hope that she has confided her reasons (assuming they amount to more than what she has claimed) to a friend or to a secret journal that can be opened after her own death.

LAUNDRY: A MUNDANE MOTORHOME MATTER

If any part of traveling in a motorhome requires some creativity, it is the laundry problem. Some people try to avoid going to Laundromats, which surprises me. Googling for “RV laundry” brings up millions of sites, mostly ads for washing machines and dryers that can be installed in RVs.

Are they serious? In our Class C Winnebago View, every cubic inch must be carefully used. I cannot imagine spending hundreds of dollars on appliances we (an older couple with no children) need no more than once a week when we are traveling. Even for families with children, having a washer and dryer on board seems like a bad idea.

Some of the ideas for frugal washing en route are quite amusing, if not very practical sounding. Some RVers put their dirty clothes in tightly sealed containers of water and detergent, then let the motorhome’s movement slosh the laundry around. After rinsing, the laundry must be wrung out by hand, then hung on a clothesline (providing the campground allows it, and if the travelers are not spending the night at Walmart). Is this a good way to spend part of a vacation?

Some items are too fragile to be washed safely in many machines; others are made of wool or other fabrics that must be washed in cold water and dried flat. Must even the spoiled RVers in Class A behemoths travel with clothes that need special care?

Altogether, my reaction is, Suck it up, people! Think like a European: Don’t wear white or pastels. Take a few sturdy, washable clothes that can go anywhere, and keep them as clean as possible. (This works best with well-made clothes from L.L. Bean and other reliable sources. Cheap clothes will usually let you down.) Take lots of underwear, though. It takes up little space, and always having clean undies will make you feel good.

When you need to do some laundry, find a Laundromat or campground laundry. Have your own supplies of detergent and fabric softener to keep down the cost, and a paperback book or e-reader for entertainment. You can often use two or three machines at once, shortening the waiting time.

We have actually enjoyed most of our Laundromat visits. Often there is a coffee shop or library near by, sometimes with Wi-Fi. Chatting with locals can be a way of finding out about an area. Once we took turns shopping in an antique shop next door. If nothing else, laundry time is a break from driving, and a chance to walk for a while. With a little creativity, you can make wash day part of your explorations on the road.

 

 

THE MEDITERRANEAN DIET

When I visited Spain in 1971, among the many things I enjoyed was the food. Gazpacho, paella, flan, huge salads, fresh fruits, sherry, sangria—they were all wonderful. Some were new to me then; others were familiar. Pastries were tempting, too, but having recently lost weight with the Weight Watchers program, I stayed away from them.  I was less sensible when it came to wine, and drank too much of the cheap Rioja that was served everywhere. It did not agree with me.

A few years later, biologists Ancel and Margaret Keys wrote about the health benefits of what is now called the Mediterranean diet. The Keyses based their research on observations of people in Mediterranean countries who were healthy in spite of eating high levels of fats as oils. Physical exercise is also considered an important part of the traditional Mediterranean way of life. The diet lowered a person’s blood level of cholesterol and blood pressure, leading to less heart disease. Ancel Keys died in 2004, a few months before his 101st birthday. Margaret died a few years later, at age 97. It appears that their personal diet contributed to a long life span.

The diet’s popularity grew slowly, with opposition from various sources, but by the 1990s it had become widespread as a way of losing weight and lowering the risk of heart disease.

• It is high in olive oil, nuts, herbs, spices, fish and poultry, legumes, fruits, vegetables, and unrefined cereals.
• Moderate amounts of low-fat dairy foods (mostly cheese and yogurt) are allowed, along with eggs and wine. (Keys himself enjoyed espresso as well.)
• Little red meat can be eaten as part of the diet.

All of this seemed very familiar to a former Weight Watcher. I was already used to eating lots of fish and poultry, drinking two cups of skim milk a day, and eating lots of fruits and vegetables. The diet is no trouble to follow in general, as the foods are appealing and satisfying. I occasionally fall off the wagon and have some Moose Tracks ice cream or chocolate candy, but climb right back on. Chocolate is good for the soul!

The Mediterranean diet can be easily followed by RVers on the road, too. Farmer’s markets, even supermarkets, now provide an abundance of delicious produce, local wines, and other heart-healthy foods that can be prepared in a galley. It is much harder in restaurants because of all the desserts, dinner rolls, and other refined foods that are part of nearly every meal. The only real problems I have are my partner, who is a vegetarian (I usually eat meat or fish only in restaurants, as cooking separate meals in an RV can be difficult); and staying away from wine, which I love but which conflicts with some of my medicines. Fortunately, wine is an optional part of the diet.

 

THE UPSIDE OF GROWING OLD

Everyone is aware of the downsides of growing older—the physical deterioration, the loss of short-term memory, medical and other financial issues, and so forth. But researchers are beginning to find that there are advantages to aging, too. Articles on the Web refer to improvements in the “middle-aged brain” over the teen-aged brain, for instance. (They often ignore what happens as the “middle-aged brain” becomes the old brain, though.) Even for the elderly, improvements are demonstrated in calmness, happiness, and finding multidimensional answers to questions.

I hope the research is right. Heaven knows, we aging people need all the encouragement we can get. For myself, I take these results with a grain of salt and a sense of humor. Here is my own list of advantages of growing older:

• I can take an afternoon—or morning or evening—nap without apologizing.
• No one expects me to do anything more athletic than walking.
• When I forget a name, I can simply shrug and say, “Senior moment!”
• I stopped dyeing my hair a few years ago. Whom was I trying to kid?
• I can add a column of figures without using a calculator.
• I will never again cook dinner for more than six people.
• If I take a class, it will be for my enjoyment. There will be no grade or report card.
• Driving my RV does not make me feel ridiculous.
• Having seen some of the alternatives, I no longer fear sudden death.
• Flat, comfy shoes.
• I can parallel park, and can drive a car with a manual gearshift.
• Social Security and Medicare may last through my lifetime.
• I can flirt shamelessly with young men without seeming like a cougar.
• Alumni events no longer seem like competitive sports.
• In restaurants, I can choose simple foods I enjoy rather than overspiced, overpriced “fusion foods” or other trendy items.
• I remember when TV was worth watching, with Ernie Kovacs, Alistair Cooke, and Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca. And the old radio programs, such as Fred Allen, Jack Benny, and the Inner Sanctum.
• Senior discounts, especially the National Parks Golden Age pass.
• People hold doors open for me.
• When the newest word-processing program comes out, I do not have to learn how to use it. I learned each one, starting with WordStar in the eighties. Enough, already!
• When I play my old vinyl records, I can feel part of the current retro trend.
• There is no pressure to go upscale; I can happily continue to downsize.
• I enjoy the AARP magazine.

Being young had its moments, but so does being elderly. For everything there is a season.

 

Advantages of aging, aging brain,

RURAL LIFE, AGING, AND THE WEB

About fifteen years ago I wrote Recollecting the Forties, a small book about my childhood in rural Michigan in the 1940s. Looking back in 2000, I judged rural life rather harshly. I had never been able to romanticize country life as some writers do, and felt in general that urban life was preferable. As soon as I graduated from college, I happily moved on to a city. For the next fifty years, living in Chicago, New York, and San Francisco, I took advantage of urban delights.

Today my attitude has changed. It has been several years since I moved away from the San Francisco Bay area, and there are few things I miss. Living in the Sierra Nevada Mountains seems exciting enough at this time of my life (and in fact, the Wild West atmosphere here sometimes is more exciting than I care for). The ethnic restaurants that once charmed me in San Francisco appeal to me less now than ordinary Midwestern foods from years ago. I still love the museums that can be found only in cities, but frequent travel in a motorhome makes it possible to visit them without being limited to those in one area. Many years of concerts and theaters were enough; now I am content to watch Netflix movies or DVDs from the library (which are also considerably cheaper than live entertainment!), and to listen to recorded music.  Books—hardbound, audiobooks, e-books—are all easily available from the local library or through interlibrary loan. I can write or edit more easily than I would have dreamed possible in the pre-computer years..

Much of what I can enjoy today is made possible by my computer and e-book reader. Luckily, the World Wide Web is available almost everywhere. When traveling in our motorhome, I can access it in libraries or coffee shops. Some campgrounds have Wi-Fi also.

Older adults like me are statistically less likely to use the Web than younger people who have grown up with modern technology, but our use is growing rapidly. When the population ages further, we will change the statistics. As with any unfamiliar skill, training is essential. For those of us who have no grandchildren, many senior centers and libraries offer classes that help new users learn to navigate the Web. Though education and affluence are important factors in computer use, as prices continue to drop, most people of all ages will become more likely to go online.

The Web can’t do everything for us. I miss the Unitarian churches that seem to be found only in cities, and e-books are not as satisfactory as real books in many ways. Convenient as email is, it does not have the permanence and appeal of stationery and handwriting.

There is also a down side to the Web, of course. It can be a tremendous time-waster, but so can television or trashy reading. Novice users can quickly stray onto sites where they may be scammed, and training needs to include cautions about that danger. All in all, though, the Web can make life for older adults much richer than it was in the 1940s.

INSOMNIA

One of the best things about retirement is being able to sleep late at least some of the time. For many years when I was in school or working, I had to get up very early even if I had gone to bed late.  As a result of being sleepy I often tended to eat or drink too much, and found it hard to concentrate. I would have been healthier and happier if I could have slept more. Like most students and office workers, though, I had no choice. Now that I am retired, I often choose to stay in bed!

The joy of sleeping is occasionally interrupted by insomnia—typically for me at three o’ clock in the morning. I may toss and turn for an hour or more before going back to sleep. Surprisingly, I have insomnia more often at home than when traveling in our motorhome. This may be because I am more relaxed when away from the annoyances that go along with home ownership.

 As people age, we tend to go to bed earlier and rise earlier than when we were younger. However, insomnia interferes with sleep for many of us. Some of us wake up extremely early and are unable to go back to sleep. Worrying about problems may cause sleeplessness. In addition, age affects the type of sleep people have. The deepest, most restful sleep is called non-REM (rapid eye movement). The elderly tend to spend less time in non-REM sleep and more time in REM sleep, when there is more dreaming.

However insomnia affects people, it can leave them tired and irritable. They may find it hard to think clearly, may feel depressed, and even may be more likely to have falls and accidents if they are not well rested.

Over-the-counter or prescription sleep medicines may help, but they are a temporary aid for insomnia. Developing good sleep habits and treating physical or emotional problems that may affect sleep can lead to a permanent improvement. Sleep habits that can help include:

•  Provide a safe, restful environment for sleeping. Lock the doors and windows of the home, have a telephone and lamp within easy reach of the bed, and turn on nightlights in the hallways and bathroom. Don’t watch television there or read thrillers in bed. Have a pillow that supports your head and neck properly and enough blankets in cold weather.

•  Never smoke in bed. If a heating pad is used, be sure it is turned off before you fall asleep.

• Do not eat large meals or drink coffee or alcohol in the evening. Drink less liquid of any type during the evening if it makes you get up to use the bathroom at night.
•  Exercise during the day, not within three hours of bedtime. Try not to nap during the day if you have trouble sleeping at night.

•  In daytime, get out in the sunlight.

•  At bedtime, do anything nontoxic that you know will help you sleep: Drink a little milk, make a to-do list for the next day so that you will not lie awake thinking about things you need to do, or do whatever else you find effective.

For many people, these habits will help greatly. Some conditions, though, call for more extreme measures. If a medicine is causing insomnia, it may be possible to substitute another drug for it. Some disorders that interfere with sleep can be cured or alleviated. Anti-anxiety drugs are useful for some people.

One sleep-disturbing condition is apnea. The apnea sufferer stops breathing periodically during sleep, gasping for air and snoring loudly. During the day, apnea causes sleepiness. Left untreated, it can even cause hypertension, stroke, or loss of memory. Specialists in sleep problems can diagnose sleep apnea and treat it. The standard treatment includes a device that delivers what is called continuous positive air pressure (CPAP), which pushes air into the lungs during the sleep. Other treatments may use dental devices or surgery.

Other conditions that can cause sleep disorders are restless legs syndrome and periodic limb movement disorder. With restless legs syndrome, which tends to be worse at night, people feel sensations in their legs such as tingling, pins and needles, or crawling. Periodic limb movement disorder makes people jerk and kick their legs often during sleep. Medications for both conditions can be prescribed.

Anything that interferes with sleep should not be ignored. As Macbeth said in despair, "sleep knits up the raveled sleave of care," restoring us every morning.

(Much of this post is based on my reference book Geriatrics [Greenwood Press, 2011].)

HAVING SECOND THOUGHTS

Enjoying Yosemite's Bridalview Falls

A couple of months ago I had really intended to end this blog, and to begin another that would focus on aging. But then I thought it over, and realized that many of my Rovin' Crone ponderings are about my own aging and how I deal with it.
I hope to go on living in both a more positive and more leisurely way than when I was younger. To quote Studs Terkel, “Take it easy, but take it!” So, the Rovin' Crone is back.

Slowing down isn't always easy. In middle age we are under constant pressure to produce, to contribute, to achieve. Trying to live up to our own and others' expectations becomes a habit.


We owe ourselves some "harvest years," though. After a professional lifetime of writing and editing books for others to read, I am luxuriating in reading for my own pleasure and knowledge. Though I will always prefer "real" books, I have an e-reader that is very helpful when we are traveling or when the lighting conditions are poor. (Like many elderly people, I need bright light to read easily.)


Another way I am enjoying these years is traveling, especially to the national parks. For various reasons I saw only a few of the parks when I was younger, and now I am making up for lost time. Having a motorhome helps greatly; I always have a bathroom and kitchen near by!

TO EXPLORE OR TO SETTLE?

 
In a long-ago class in animal behavior, I learned that some animals—probably mice—have alternative alleles in their genome, variations that affect a facet of their behavior. Individuals that inherit one of the variations (“settlers”) tend to settle down and exploit their home environment; individuals that inherit the other (“explorers”) tend to move on and explore new territories. There are obvious advantages for the species as a whole: The settlers can make maximum use of their current environment; the explorers can extend the group’s range if they have the right adaptations for it. It is a good example of Darwinian selection.

Humans, too, seem to fall into these two broad categories. In U.S. history, some immigrants from Europe settled down on the east coast while others moved on to the Midwest. Later, some of the more adventurous went farther west. Eventually, some reached California, with the Pacific Ocean being a natural boundary. Today immigrants from Asia and Central America are repeating the pattern in the opposite direction.

I may be more the explorer type. After growing up in the Midwest, then trying but rejecting life in New York, I moved to California. I love this state, and actually settled for 25 years in the San Francisco Bay area before moving to the Sierras, but now it may be time to move on. El Dorado County has only limited charms, and there is still so much to explore.

When I go back to school reunions in Michigan, I am struck by the difference between myself and some of my old classmates. Some of them have stayed on family farms that were prosperous in the past, where their ancestors were important community members. Today large agribusinesses are taking over, and the family farms are disappearing. The “settlers” now find themselves struggling for survival in a much-changed environment.

Other “settlers” have been more fortunate. Not being tied to the land, they have thrived in their professions, established families, and been good citizens. Their lives have been more stable than mine, and possibly more rewarding. I sometimes envy them and wonder if my drifting lifestyle has been a mistake, but I don’t think so. Each place where I have lived has brought new adventures and new opportunities. My RV life has been the latest episode in a life that has sometimes been difficult, but has never been boring.

So, whether I stay in El Dorado County or not, I am going to move on in one respect. For the past two years, I have blogged as the rovin’ crone. Blogging has been a new and pleasant experience, but I feel I have little more to say about RVing. Probably I will begin a new blog soon, on other subjects and under a new name. When I do, a final post here will give the details.

Many thanks to those who have commented here or in emails! You have helped make blogging a rewarding pastime.