First considerations

Although I’ve been working with older adults as a nurse and counselor for quite a few years, in starting to think about this column I decided to go through my files to see what folks in the 60 and over age group are up to these days.
Last October I found a story from Omaha about a 68 year-old man who fought off two teenage robbers, one of whom had a gun. As impressive as he was, a year before that I read about a 73 year old grandfather in Kenya who killed an attacking leopard – barehanded! They might have been a good match with R. E. Johnson, a 76 year-old retirement home resident in Davenport Iowa who was arrested for fighting in the smoking area of the home – with an 81 year old woman.
I wonder if Johnson might have been represented by Allen Stewart. Stewart graduated last fall from law school in Australia, after his 91st birthday. Mr. Stewart finished the 6 year program in only 4 ½ years stating “time is of the essence.” He might have seemed precocious to Nola Ochs in Kansa. She took a break from studying for her final exams to celebrate her 95th birthday n 2006.
The serious side of the legal issue came up in the summer of ’06 for Lena Driskol in Georgia. The 79 year-old defendant couldn’t get a jury of her peers while on trial for killing her boyfriend. The exemption age is 70 in her home state and the panel ended up with an average age of 30. Feeling comfortable with sitting in judgement on an elder was one of the barriers in selecting the jury.
The trial of Leticia Garcia in Arizona this January didn’t present that challenge. Mrs. Garcia was arrested on her way to Bingo in Tucson for having 214 pounds of marijuana in the trunk of her car. I will refer to Mrs. Garcia in a future column on gambling since that was her motivation for running drugs. Remind me to leave James Wilson out of that one- he won $254 million on Powerball this year. He’s 84 but his wife is only 79. I guess that’s a happy couple.
Speaking of married couples, there’s Nobel Prize winner Chen Ning Yang in China. He’s 82 but engaged to a student who might be reflection of himself- she’s 28! They don’t hold a candle to Muhammed Mesa in Malasia and his wife. He’s 33 and she’s only 104! You might suspect someones being taken advantage of though, it’s his first marriage but she’s had twenty husbands before Muhammed.
And we saw Elsie McLean on TV in April- at 102 the lady golfer hit her first hole-in-one. George Blevins in Richmond Indiana bowls rather than golfing. He’s been practicing… for 93 years. At 100 years old he has a 151 average. That might not impress Esther Meley in Centralia who rolled a 244 game at 94 years old, but then Esther is legally blind!
So I undertake the task of writing about my elders, without assuming they are elderly. With respect, affection and perhaps a drop of fear.