2013 - My New Old Self

Holiday cards – a parent’s version of Facebook?

Dec

23

2013

‘Tis the Season of Giving, and in Christmases past ‘twas the season to do this by sending Christmas cards. Sending a holiday greeting card was not something that could be done instantly. It required planning. You had to decide who you wanted to send the cards to and get their postal addresses. You had to ...

Madiba on aging well – plus Free Mandela memorabilia 2

Dec

20

2013

Most of us old enough to have known of Nelson Mandela from his early days in prison did not learn about him in history class. We had heard of this political activist and underground leader, but what we knew was distorted by South Africa’s state-controlled newspapers and radio. (Only in 1976 did the apartheid regime ...

Mourning Madiba: Antidotes to Media Overload

Dec

10

2013

This isn’t a list of Top 10 Antidotes to Mourning Madiba Media Overload, but just a few tips to help you cope during this remarkable period of history. Because it’s only going to get more intense during this week of memorials, culminating with the funeral of Nelson Mandela at his rural home on Sunday. The ...

Madiba’s plea not to wander at night looking for the kitchen

Dec

9

2013

Nelson Mandela certainly proved wrong the old saying about the good dying young.* We have had the privilege of watching one of the world’s most impressive human beings grow old and reach a ripe age. It’s not often that a leader inspires the world as Mandela did in his prime. That he continued to ...

The day they tell you: Granny, you can’t drive your car! (but we still love you)

Dec

4

2013

It’s said that in Florida bars catering for retirees a top pick-up line is: “I’ve still got my driver’s license.” Say you get lucky and someone very appealing is telling you, as per the Beatles song: “Baby you can drive my car – and maybe I’ll love you!” It would be a real downer to ...

Cherishing the Feel and Smell of Paper 1

Nov

22

2013

My New Old Self recently expanded from cyberspace into the world of hard copy. After launching a blog about getting older, I accepted an invitation to write a fortnightly column in a local newspaper. It was like coming home, to wake up and find the paper waiting on my doorstep, then to open it and ...

My New Old Self Debuts in Hard Copy 1

Nov

11

2013

My New Old Self launched a real world version of this online blog – with a column in the local newspaper. Can’t read a word of the column above? It was easy enough to make the blog-to-newspaper transition, but it’s harder to go the other way. A newspaper column’s dimensions are hard to fit ...

Old people should – die? Thanks, Google 1

Oct

29

2013

Google is like those annoying people who finish your sentences. You start to type into the search bar and before you finish the first word or two, it’s suggesting the rest of what it thinks you want to find out. It’s not mind-reading and it’s not suggestion. It’s called “auto-complete”. An algorithm that predicts and ...

Staying Spry at 60-plus

Oct

26

2013

See Granny Run. That’s my first response to sports competitions for seniors. Because there’s always a super-sporty over-achieving grandmother. The South African version of elder-sport is the Golden Games and a southern African granny is a gogo. So 81-year-old Katie Barendse was dubbed the Golden Games Gogo. I am in awe of the Golden Games ...

Relentless Celeb Photos Thru the Ages

Oct

21

2013

Photos of Gorgeous Celebrities Over 60 are not proof that women don’t necessarily peak in their 20s, as HuffPo says in punting its pix of aging female stars. They’re proof that you can run but you can’t hide from the Schleb Culture, no matter how old you get. We were bombarded by the impossibly big ...