Green - You could live a long time: are you ready?

Lyndsay Green is a pioneering sociologist and researcher who has spent her career helping people use communications technologies for learning. Motivated by her aging parents and family, she has now turned her research skills and knowledge of new technologies to find out what the baby-boom generation should be doing to ensure its members have a successful old age. Green is a highly sought-after speaker and moderator at national and international organizations. The American textbook Computersand Information Systems calls Green an information agent of the future.

Praise for You Could Live a Long Time

If you, like me, are finally becoming aware of your mortality and are beginning to wonder if the final third of your life will either be a living hell or a fascinating road to the hereafter, then youll love the insights this perceptive pollster has garnered from her 40 remarkably wise elders mixed in with solid social science and lots of her own common sense.

MICHAEL ADAMS,

author of Fire and Ice: The United States, Canada and the Myth of Converging Values and president of Environics

The road to Crowd Invisible doesnt have to be littered with loneliness and boredom, as you will learn in Lyndsays book. Discover how others have found the secret to fun and fulfillment. The surprise is that it is not all about money.

VICKI GABEREAU

Throughout her career, Lyndsay Green has anticipated the next trend in communications and has been right there, imparting expertise and vision, most often to organizations which contribute enormously to the human capital of our whole democracy. Now shes doing it again by tackling the greying of the boomers.

MARILOU McPHEDRAN,

Principal, Global College, The University of Winnipeg

You Could Live
a Long Time:
Are You Ready?

Lyndsay Green

THOMAS ALLEN PUBLISHERS
TORONTO

Copyright 2010 Lyndsay Green

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any meansgraphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systemswithout the prior written permission of the publisher, or in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Green, Lyndsay
You could live a long time : are you ready? / Lyndsay Green.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-88762-527-5

1. AgingPsychological aspects. 2. Baby boom generationLife skills guides. 3. Older peopleLife skills guides. 4. Old ageSocial aspects. I. Title.

BF724.55.A35G74 2010 155.67 C2009-907222-X

Editor: Katherine Ashenburg
Cover design: Sputnik Design Partners Inc.
Cover image: Jupiter Images

Published by Thomas Allen Publishers,
a division of Thomas Allen & Son Limited,
145 Front Street East, Suite 209,
Toronto, Ontario M5A 1E3 Canada

www.thomas-allen.com

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council for its publishing program.

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada.

We acknowledge the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporations Ontario Book Initiative.

We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for our publishing activities.

10 11 12 13 14 7 6 5 4 3

Printed and bound in Canada

This book is dedicated to my own role modelsmy parents Joan and Stuart Green, my auntsJean MacLachan and Joy Anderson, my uncleCecil Anderson, and my mother- and father-in-law Joan and Bill Intven.

Contents

My heartfelt thanks goes to the forty elders who were extraordinarily generous in sharing the experiences and advice of a lifetime. They are Warren Allmand, Sydney Bacon, Bob Breadon, Beth Breadon, Doris Connell, Maurice Cowper-Smith, Marion Dewar, Edra Ferguson, Dorothy Fetterly, Madelaine Field, Dick Goldbloom, Ruth Goldbloom, Alan Grant, Phyllis Grosskurth, Andrew Hazeland, Jane Heffelfinger, Margarite Hunt, Ida Ker, Marjorie Koller, Muriel Laing, Laurier LaPierre, Mary Large, Flora MacDonald, Helen MacLean, Jenny Mansfield, Margaret McBurney, Bob McMullen, John Meisel, Maureen Molaro, Pat Morrow, Wanda OHagan, Gertrude Robinson, Blair Seaborn, George Shaw, Anna Sirek, Ricardo Smith, Sadie Stern, Claire Taylor, Jim Westcott and Nancy Westcott. A special thanks goes to all those who helped me identify these terrific role models, including Barb Emery, Marie Morgan, Coleen Quinn, Andrea Shaw, Janice Skinner, Jeannie Thomas and Gail Valaskakis. I am extremely grateful to the following people who reviewed the manuscript and greatly improved the book with their knowledge and insights: Suzie Cunningham, Susannah Dalfen, Barb Emery, Vince Gilpin, Gerri Grant, Ann Kirkland, Biff Matthews, Marcia McClung, Maureen McEvoy, Elizabeth Moody, Sean Moore, Susan Oldfield, Judy Parker, Dr. Guy Proulx, Suzanne Robinson, Ben Singer, Judy Steed and Lillian Zimmerman. I received valuable ideas for publishing, marketing and distributing the book from many people, including Catherine Allman, Sara Angel, Anne Carlyle, Janine Cocker, Bronwyn Drainie, Pamela Earle, Ross Mayot, Marilou McPhedran, Helen Walsh and Grace Westcott. My publisher, Patrick Crean, and editor, Katherine Ashenburg, have blessed this book with their expertise and enthusiasm. And, it is the unstinted love and support of my husband, Hank, and daughters, Lauren and Andrea, that makes all things possible.

You Could Live a Long Time:
Are You Ready?

I HAVE sometimes thought about what I might do if I found out that I had only a few weeks to live. One of those times was after the sudden and untimely death of a dear friend. But I am beginning to realize that there is a much tougher and probably more likely scenario. I might have a long life. Before jazz musician and composer Eubie Blake died at the age of 96, he mused, If Id known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself. Blake died over a quarter of a century ago, so his surprise was quite plausible. But I wont be able to make the same claim. I know that the average life expectancy is rising dramatically and I fit the longevity profile. Im already 60 years old; I have no major health issues; and I come from long-living stock. So, barring a killer disease or an accident, I am likely to become oldmaybe even very old. Around me I see some people living out their elder years with great satisfaction, but many others would have wished for a shorter life sentence. What makes the difference? Is there something I could be doing now to make it more likely that I live wellright to the end?

To answer these questions I decided I needed some guidespeople who are now in the country of the aged and are mastering the landscape. My goal was to gather the accumulated wisdom from these successful seniors and use their insights to compile a guide to what lies ahead. I would use their tips to prepare for the future. To find the guides, I canvassed friends and acquaintances and asked them to recommend people over the age of 75 who were their role models. When I asked people for suggestions, my criterion was simple. Who do you want to be when you grow up? Some people could not name a single older person they felt was a role model. Some had been traumatized by experiences with elderly relatives or friends, and could only come up with negative examples. But finding the role models didnt take long, and with input from hundreds of people, I selected forty men and women between the ages of 75 and 100 who were living in seven cities from one end of Canada to the other.