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We’re not exactly the bourgeois bohemians to whom Huey Lewis and the News were alluding in their “Hip to be Square” anthem. However, we pride ourselves on being square yet in the know or hip up to a point.  We’re good researchers and reporters who read a lot. We loved subscribing to People magazine years ago, so we could keep up on the latest celeb gossip and palace intrigue, then about the threesome: Prince Charles, Princess Diana and Camilla.  Through the years as we aged, our interest in celeb-oriented publications waned. We’d pick up a copy of People at the...

Let history be a guide to life lessons in the future. A great idea but what if history had the facts wrong, and we could rewrite what happened? Then what? Today, everyone is rewriting history, from taking down politically incorrect statues, rearranging art in museums to reflect greater diversity and renaming sports teams, colleges and galleries in museums.  History has made mistakes. We read in the newspaper and hear on the news about how new scientific methods, including DNA, have been used to exonerate prisoners, who sometimes have been incarcerated erroneously for decades. How might their lives have been different...

When Margaret’s husband died in his late 60s, she lived through a crash course in burying a loved one. He wanted to be buried in the St. Louis zip code in which they raised their family. She met this request, and found a cemetery across from their children’s elementary school with the perfect aisle plot since he loved an aisle seat on an airplane and in a movie theater.  But eight years later, when she moved from the Show-Me State to the Big Apple (New York City) to be closer to her sisters and older son, she felt she was...

Valentine’s Day, the Hallmark-inspired “Day of Love (with a big ‘L’),” is when many of us in a relationship spend it looking googly-eyed at our romantic partner over dinner and a bottle of bubbly. There are also the de rigueur gifts exchanged: candy, flowers, lingerie, jewelry, good wine, perfume or a romantic night in a hotel. But why not aim your bow and arrow in a different direction this year and make the target more inclusive? Those who aren’t in a romantic relationship may only see red on Feb. 14, and not in a good way. They may feel left out. We...

  How do you plan for those “what if” moments as we age?  We admit that we’re firm proponents of living in the moment. However, there are some issues we have learned as we age to plan for now, including our estates, health proxies, wills and housing, especially in case we become ill, lose mobility, eyesight, hearing or worse, our memories.  It’s good to have a detailed road map rather than deal with these issues in a crisis and have someone take charge, who may not know our wishes.  A few of us, all 70-plus, had a dinner table dialogue...