Dr. M. E. Hecht - Two Old Broads: Stuff You Need to Know That You Didnt Know You Needed to Know

Two Old Broads

2022 Whoopi Goldberg and M. E. Hecht, MD

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Published by Harper Horizon, an imprint of HarperCollins Focus LLC.

Book design by Aubrey Khan, Neuwirth & Associates, Inc.

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ISBN 978-0-7852-4165-2 (Ebook)

ISBN 978-0-7852-4164-5 (HC)

ISBN 978-1-4003-3515-2 (B&N edition)

Epub Edition September 2022 9780785241652

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022934024

Printed in the United States of America

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To my sine qua non, D.

There are no words; you already know them.

We dedicate this book

with care and respect

to all Old Broads,

of any color, creed, or disposition,

whenever and wherever they abide.

Theyve survived the past, handled the present,

and so, by example,

offer hope to generations yet to come.

They say, Sixty is the new forty. And our response is: Why cant we treat sixty as sixty and be proud of it?

WHOOPI GOLDBERG AND DR. M. E. HECHT

F orget putting those of us over sixty on a shelf. Forget the terms old lady, elder, over the hill, granny, and geriatric. Were with Aretha Franklinits time we Broads got some r-e-s-p-e-c-t.

Here, we (Whoopi Goldberg and close friend Dr. M. E. Hecht) share stories and commentary about stuff you didnt know you need to know as we age.

Two Old Broads is a funny and informative book that speaks directly to women ages sixty plus and those of you who have not yet attained the advantage. We invite you all to laugh and feel proud as we offer thoughts and insider information on how to navigate some of the complex issues of this time in lifewith no apologies.

A book like this is just what the doctor ordered. With one of us (Whoopi) writing as a woman in her sixties and one of us (Dr. Hecht) writing as a woman in her nineties, we dish truths and tales, each sharing our Broad experiences that show wisdom, spirit, intelligence, humor, sensibility, and most importantly, our collective, extraordinary Broadness.

Whoopi and I have spent many holidays together. The last time we were together was Christmas Day 2019, and when most of our party had gone home, we went on talking into the small hours as old friends do. Aging was a large part of our conversation, and thats where we hatched the idea for Two Old Broads.

Whoopi Goldberg (Whoop to me) is a household name, but Im not sure many of you know much about this Broad: me, Dr. M. E. Hecht. So, please, let me introduce myself.

I was born in 1929 in Baltimore, Maryland, home of the best oysters and steamed crabs and the Orioles. My family was in the department store business, and, due to the smarts of my grandfather, we survived and prospered during the difficult 1930s.

My father was just young enough to be drafted for WWII, and he was assigned to the US Army Quartermaster Corps in Savannah, Georgia. I was shipped off to a girls boarding school, the Shipley School in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. There, I received top-level schooling focused on English lit, history, and various languages.

After four years, I left Pennsylvania to return to my hometown, Baltimore, and got into off-off-off-Broadway (otherwise identifiable as local theater)at least the technical side of it (lighting, stage management, stage design, etc.). Then I moved to New York City, where, in between working on real off-Broadway productions, I earned a BA from New York University. My summers were spent with what was then a flourishing summer theater group. To give you a sense of how well attended and high caliber these performances were, Im going to drop a few names of the actors I worked with. Those of you over age sixty will glom these: Cesar Romero, Bea Lillie, Madge Evans, Nigel Bruce, and Gloria Vanderbilt.

Then followed an MA from Yale Universitys theatrical school. Again, I was still focused on the technical aspect of theater. This led to several years working on Broadway as an associate producer with Alex Cohen.

One day, at the age of thirty-two, I decided to change course and go to medical school for the same apocryphal reason people give when they decide to climb Mount Everest: because it was there.

I graduated in 1966 and went into the practice of orthopedics. As time went by, I had the pleasure of two innovative experiences. In 1982, I founded a second-surgical-opinion group for patients considering elective (versus emergency) surgery. I later headed up one of the early established ambulatory surgeries for Mother Cabrini Hospital in NYC.

Upon retirement from the active practice of orthopedic surgery in the 1990s, I started to write. In the beginning, I wrote medical articles and books for patients; later I wrote fiction. If I had to summarize my career, I think you might agree that it could be described as checkered. Ive been around the block three times or so.

Back when I was coming into my Broad years, people didnt talk about aging. Numbers were all-importantif you were a certain age, people thought they knew all they needed to know about you. Both Whoopi and I hope that as you read the pieces herein, youll find that numbersin and of themselvesare pointless. Its what you know, think, share, and imagine that make a really great Old Broad.

Whoopi, as Im sure you know, has had an even more varied and successful careernot to mention her life experiences. We both hope that sharing about the things weve learned or done will strike you as helpful, even practical, but above all that youll appreciate our light-handed insights here in Two Old Broads.

When Dr. Hecht and I first talked about this book, there was no COVID-19, there was no quarantining in place, kids went to school, people were cranky, you-know-who was still in the White House, and our mouths were just starting to drop at the audaciousness of politicians.

Well, now its been nearly two years since the pandemic started in the US, and were seeing the craziest of crazy things happen and left wondering why its so nuts right now. If youre over fifty, youre probably trying to figure out what the eff is going on. Because all of the things that your folks told you when you were younger (e.g., dont lie, dont cheat, or else you will be scorned) seem to be gone.

And I think a lot of our crotchetiness is because it feels like none of those things were true in the first place. People lie, and nobody seems to be upset about it. Nobody is saying, Hey, Im scorning you. I dont like a liar because I cant trust you. Or how about cheating. Nowadays, when people cheat on a test or plagiarize, there seems to be no consequence. And I think this bothers people, yet they dont know what to do. So they just suck it up, keep it in their stomachs, and walk around stoically.