Senior moments: Part I

Recently I’ve been driving Miss Cathy around to a few of the senior centers in the area because she expressed some interest in what they had to offer. Of course she didn’t just come out and “say” she wanted to go. Mom’s way of “asking” was to tell me how her sister-in-law, my Aunt Dorothy, who I’m related to as a cousin on one side of the family and a nephew on the other (hey, country folk…..what can I say) really “enjoys” the senior center in North Carolina where she lives and all it has to offer.

After listening to her I read between the lines, the same way I do whenever she asks, “do you like Popeye’s chicken?” (she knows I don’t). But, that just means that “She” does and she wants me to go get her “two pieces and a biscuit”. So I interpreted her chatter about Dorothy the same way, as interest in a senior center and I was right.

Unfortunately, I had thrown out all my brochures and research in a moment of disgust after keeping them for more than a year “just in case she changed her mind” and wanted to avail herself of all that was available to her as a senior.

When I first moved here I collected everything I could get my hands on about “what to do with an old person”. Back then I was eager to please and enthusiastic to share my findings with her (suffice to say it’s an entirely different story these days) my enthusiasm has waned and what I find is mostly apathy.

Back then she told me in no uncertain terms that she had no interest in being in a room full of “old folks” as she called “them”…which led me to wonder who the hell she saw when she looked in the mirror every morning.

But, the times, like underwear, do need to change and it seems that now she was ready for something new.

I was giddy with the prospect of getting her out of the house (even if it was for just a few hours a week) but I was unprepared and not knowing how or where to begin. But, not to worry, after a few clicks on the all-knowing Google I found what I needed and we were off.

I decided to sidestep the quaint facility that was located in Miss Cathy’s solidly middle class neighborhood for another more affluent area. So, our first stop was the Bowie Senior Center less than 10 miles away.

Tom Wolff aptly named this group of moneyed movers and shakers in his native New York the Masters of the Universe so this would be their Washington DC equivalent. If you’re searching for a place to park an old person better there be BMW’s and Lexus’ in the parking lot and not Civics and Ford Focus’s.