Maggie's Farm

"Why Can't a Woman Be More Like a Man?" In the case you're discussing, men are, as always, the protectors, and women are the exploiters. It shouldn't be that way, but it often is. Yes, there are good folks and bad folks on both sides of the question. But, speaking as one of the elderly, generally it's the women who want to put us elderly into nursing home storage units, and the men who are more willing and patient, wanting us to retain some at least of our dignity and stature.

My grandmother lived with almost all of her nine children at one time or another, after her husband, my grand-dad died. She was an important figure in my life, and in the lives of her other fifteen grand-children.

Now that we, my husband and I, are in our eighties, his children are trying to put us into storage. Fortunately, we saw this coming and have still got savings enough to live in our little house until God takes us home. And the greatest blessing of all is the younger folks whom I've been "adopting" for the last 30 years, who are rallying around when we need them.

So, John, be of good cheer. There are good people as well as bad out here in America. Unfortunately, our present condition, into which our foolish President has dumped us, seems to have deepened the fissures in our societal life to the extent that large groups of Americans are almost solely focused their own lives and don't want to protect anyone's quality of life except their own.

Marianne