Austin, TEXAS, December 15, 2005 — When I went to play tennis this morning, we took a break after the first set. I took the opportunity to go to the rest room. One of my companions who is 75 or 80, called her mother to remind her to go have donuts. They were serving donuts and coffee at ten at her retirement place, a holiday treat or something. She kept saying loudly into the phone "Donuts!" even though she had her hand cupped over the phone. The guy behind the counter looked non-plussed. Then she was saying "Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes." as if answering a series of rapid fire questions or one question over and over. She said when we got back to the court that her mother was saying, "You aren't talking like you always do." Her mother is 105 or something.

Frankly my friend seems old to me. She

is, after all, probably old enough to be my mother. These ladies treat me in a motherly fashion. And yet this one still has her mother to look after. She goes to the retirement home almost every day and helps her dress and get to breakfast. One of the other ladies actually said the other day, "I think her mother is mean to her."

We are in that gap. Old ourselves. Himself is in that 'first year of booming' with Clinton and Bush. They will turn 60 next year. That sounds old to me!

And yet. We feel young. And certainly when we have our parents to compare ourselves to. FFP, like George W., has both his parents. And I have my dad.

When I was in the gym this morning, a guy a little younger than I got on the bike next to me. He swims laps often in the lane next to our water class.

"My dad brags to everyone that you say he is the 'inspiration to us all." I said.

"I'm not kidding. He is. Climbing in and out of the pool at 89!"

We went downtown tonight and stopped in on not one, not two, but three events. We just parked and walked the fifteen or so blocks to go to all of them and back to the car, bypassing the pandhandlers and looking at the spots, smart and not, that we will hopefully consider part of our neighborhood one day. We want to move downtown. But I blame my dad and FFP's parents, who are still living in homes which are closer to our house than downtow, for us not making this move. Maybe this is displacing the blame, but there you go. We are retired, not so young ourselves. But our lives revolve around our parents in subtle ways. Even though they handle their own needs (with a tiny amount of outside help) every day.

We are lucky, though. We don't have kids to worry about on the other side of the generation gap. The kids of the boomers somehow don't seem up to the task of taking care of older people. With exceptions, of course.

As we pounded around the sidewalks downtown going to parties I thought how we are able to easyly walk a long way navigating a lot of curbs, rought pavement, a dash to avoid a turning car. Not so our parents anymore. Canes are starting to be regularly used. Every curb eyed with suspicion. Of course, at 85, 89 and 90...it's not that surprising. Still they are in relatively good health and I can see me yelling 'donuts!' into the phone to one of them in ten or even fifteen years.

At the first party (a divorce lawyer's annual soiree at the Capitol view downtown office supported by sundering marriages) an acquaintance said on seeing me: "I saw my mother today!" I vaguely remembered that she was declining, had to move out of her independent living situation. He went on to describe a frustrating situation, a dementia, a fear of leaving her current living quarters in an assisted living place at all, even for a family Thanksgiving dinner. More and more the conversations of my generation are sprinkled with tales of what I call 'childing' (as opposed to 'parenting.') Indeed, I probably described our parental units' situation tonight. Mentioned how they were independent and yet you worry and occasionally have to do something. I know I told people that our holiday would be s-l-o-w. "When your companions are 85, 89 and 95, just a drive down our street to see the lights is exciting."

I often think about how I bought that house my dad is in in 2000 and how much harder it would have been if I hadn't, serendipitously, done that.

Other generations are rushing behind me, too. If I'd had kids, then they would be having kids, probably. I talked to my dad today. "I forgot to get something for Raj," he said. Raj lives next door and is not quite three. "You want to get him something?" I asked. "Oh, yeah," he said. "He's so much a part of the neighborhood." My niece's little ones (3 and 5) have a great grandfather. Amazing. (Of course, they are further away and we don't get to see them too often.)

All these generations, stretching across the better part of a century. Living together, trying to take care of each other. Of course, himself and I know: we only have each other to be concerned with our own dotage. But then: we didn't have kids having expensive weddings or moving back in to 'save money.' There is that.