A Great Senior Role Model

Senior citizens have to deal with a lot of stereotypes that attempt to define them as weak, helpless, dependent, ailing, and somehow less than competent. Especially In this youth-oriented culture, as people get older, they have to contend with the changing perceptions of the people around them.

Luckily, as I was attaining young adulthood I had a number of older role models that served to inoculate me from the conventional view of aging. One who had a particularly strong influence on me was Helen Shedd. Sixty-eight when I met her, she was an editorial assistant at Yankee Magazine. She lived alone, she drove herself everywhere she wanted to go, she maintained an excellent and respectful relationship with her adult children, and she had a keen sense of humor and a dry wit that was wonderful.

She also had a sense of adventure. One day she suggested that I accompany her and a college friend of hers up Mount Monadnock, a popular peak in southwestern New Hampshire I did so that Saturday, climbing a fairly demanding trail from the Jaffrey side of the mountain up to the peak and then back down. I showed up at work the next Monday barely able to move, literally having to drag my twenty-five-year-old self up the stairs from the first to the second floor. I limped into Helen's office to see how she was, and she beamed at me.

"We had so much fun," Helen said, "that we went up again the next day from the other side!" Apparently she had been up the mountain dozens of times, once in high heels "just to provide it could be done."

I'm fifty-five now, and every time someone younger than me-or even my age-tries to impose an ageist stereotype on me, I think of Helen Shedd. And then I think, "Eat my dust!"