How time flies when you’re having fun (and getting on in years)

My neighborhood’s main street, 1963.  The yellow fruit stand is gone but the hardware store still stands and is busier than ever

Early last week, someone hung a flier in my apartment building’s lobby for an Open House at the local senior center (a converted Lutheran church about a block up the street from the trolley in this old photo).  It was for Thursday May 11 from 12-2pm, and said if the weather was permitting it’d be held outside, with representatives from different aging & healthcare agencies, craft booths, a cookout & one hour “dancercise” in the parking lot.

If you know me by now, this sort of thing isn’t exactly my bag—but I DO spend too much time alone and it DID say it was open to people aged 60 and older, so on Thursday I shrugged my shoulders and off I went.

I almost turned around when I got there--there was a LOT of people, 75-100 total (and in years too, I’m guessing).  I haven’t seen this many older people since the early 1990s, when I worked as a software developer for the Allegheny County Dept of Aging; they used to hold annual Senior Festivals downtown where we all volunteered. 

And now 35 years later…  I still didn’t feel old enough to be there.   Fortunately, I had an ‘inside connection’.  My friend Elisa (who I worked with at Aging 35 years ago) and now works as an administrator at this same center.  She gave me a brief tour of the place, and a couple sheets of paper showing their Activity Calendar for May and their monthly lunch menu.

Lunch is served Monday-Friday at noon and there’s no charge, but you’re asked to donate $3.00 if you can. 

After the tour, we went back outside and feasted on grilled hot dogs and chips, and the softest cupcakes I’ve ever eaten in my life.  (It turns out they came from ‘Scoops’, a special bakery and ice cream shop in Pittsburgh.)

Various people introduced themselves, and several members and people who ran the place seemed very encouraging about me joining. 

(It seems they only have a handful of male members, compared to the women.)

I hung out with April (a 70 year old art instructor from the local community college) and swapped life stories as we watched 50 seniors sweating to the oldies.  I later told my friend Elisa “there’s something very appealing about that April woman” and Elisa said “She’s a widow, you know!”

Before I knew it, 2:00 was here and it was time to go.  They asked me to come inside and register as a member, I said I needed some time to think about it.  But when I woke up Friday morning I knew I shouldn’t procastinate and went back to the center and signed up.  Then I had some coffee and another one of those wonderful cupcakes, and hung out and chatted with some of the other members for awhile. 

Here’s what gives me pause.  I’m not quite ready (and I don’t know if I ever will be) to go to this center on a daily basis and sit in the big meeting room and talk and read the paper.  They have an exercise room, but I have one here too.  They do have weekly art and exercise classes, and occasional lectures and bingo twice a week, but none of that strikes my fancy, exactly. 

What they DO have which I’d like is weekly outings.  You have to sign up to ride Access (free for people 65 and older, $1.25 if you’re 60-64) and it’s for all sorts of things.  This Wednesday it’s for dinner at Pizza Roma, an Italian restaurant in the North Hills.  Next week it’s for a visit to the Heinz History Museum.  There’s no discounts for these outings (the museum is $15.00 per person) but I’d love to do both, have ready transportation and wouldn’t have to go alone.

If I use the center for these outings only, I feel a little like I’d be taking advantage of them and my sixtysomething age to go on these excursions, but they kept insisting “you do as much or as little as you feel comfortable doing” so… we’ll see.