Baby Boomer Generation

Okay, Okay, I’m Getting Older. I Get It.

| Linda DeMers Hummel

I seem to be repeating stories. Even when I take a second to ask myself, Have I already told this person my adorable story that took place thirty years ago? Either I don’t wait for my own answer, or I can’t remember if I did or not, so I launch into it, because, really, it’s my best story of all time: I joined a health club the year after giving birth to my last baby when I was in my early thirties. One morning, as I was walking to my aerobics class, all the way across the entire gym floor, I noticed men looking at me and nudging their friends.

I was getting a lot of attention, just by walking through the club! This was terrific. Men were noticing how well I’d whipped my saggy postpartum body into shape. I was naughtily delighted at how much they all seemed to want me.

When I got to class at the far end of the building, the instructor came rushing over to me, saying, “Oops, you’ve got toilet paper coming out of your leotard, and it’s dragging behind you!”

Lately when I’ve told the toilet-paper tail story, I see a little impatient nodding going on, because my listener has heard it all before and is trying to save me the trouble of finishing.

I believe I’ve now told this story to everyone, though I can’t be sure, so I’m going to keep telling it, just in case.

This happens, too: I’m driving in a perfectly orderly and cautious way and come to a four-way stop sign. A young dad in his SUV is already there, waiting. He spots me and begins waving that I should go. It seems like a panicky wave, like he can’t trust me. Like he wants to save his kids in the backseat. I want to open my window and shout, “Hey, I’m still an excellent driver!” But those were my father’s words to the Police after he mowed down an entire hedgerow in front of their condominium in Florida. So I do go first at the intersection, but I also give the SUV dad a little thank-you wave, showing off I can still do two things at once without hitting the fire hydrant on the corner.

There are more signs that I’m not, shall we say, the young bloom I used to be.
I never run out of anything. Ever. My days of trotting next door for a cup of flour while I’m in the middle of making a pie crust will never happen again. I stock up on everything, even things I will never use if I live to be 100. My heirs can count on inheriting economy packs of toilet paper and a subscription to The New Yorker that will expire in 2045.

When I have to bend down, I always look around carefully to see if there isn’t something else I should be doing as long as I’m down there. I hope the cheerleaders from high school also have to do this now.

I’m not sure I’ll ever remember to cough or sneeze into my elbow because every time I feel one coming, I still hear my mother saying “Cover your mouth!”

I’ve never taken a selfie. I reject that word on principle. It’s quite enough that I’m of the generation that established the School of Epic Self-Importance. I don’t need pictures taken at bad angles to remind me that I’m the center of the Universe.

And somehow I totally missed the demise of phone booths. One day they all just seemed to have disappeared from the landscape. This happened while I wasn’t looking, which troubles me.

In his later years, every morning and every evening, my grandfather wrote down the weather in the little boxes of the free calendar he got from his newspaper boy. I’m happy to report I’m not even close to doing that. But the world does seem to be spinning so much faster than it used to. And I’m not ready.

For anyone keeping score, the weather was miserable today. But I don’t remember what it was like yesterday because I don’t keep track. I swear I don’t.

Why My Wedding Wasn’t on TV

| Linda DeMers Hummel

Weddings need themes these days. I know this from a TV show I’m addicted to where brides compete with each other for a honeymoon. As guests, they score things like food, dress, and venue. Then they get to be interviewed and tell where the other brides dropped the ball.

Sometimes they’re riled up about having to wait too long at the bar for the signature drink. Sometimes it’s the bride’s dress that sagged at the bottom or didn’t have enough bling. Bling is big.

I’m most obsessed with the theme part. It allows the bride contestants to walk into a reception area and moan “I don’t see enough of her winter wonderland theme.” Or, if the bride has been successful, one of them might say to the others, “You can really see how she carried off her peacock theme.”

When my boyfriend and I decided — over a bubbling casserole of mac and cheese on a Tuesday night in 1974 — that we would get married, there wasn’t much to it. He hadn’t bought a ring. Why would he when I could use my grandmother’s just-fine engagement ring she’d given me for my college graduation? And it almost fit, so there was that.

I called my parents, announcing the date we picked out, giving ourselves five months to plan everything. This would be unthinkable in today’s wedding world, where you have to book a florist two years in advance. Plus I didn’t have a binder (or seven) that I lugged around with all my DIY ideas for place cards and cake toppers.

My mother’s first question: “Are you sure you’re ready to get married?” It was a ridiculous question, because at 24 I was sure of everything, and I wondered how she could have missed that.

She sort of sighed at the end of our conversation and said, “Well, I guess you’ll have to come home soon so we can get the details arranged. We should be able to get it done in a weekend.” She said this with the tone usually reserved for “The dog had diarrhea on the carpet.”

The call to my future in-laws was even less lukewarm. I’m guessing here, since there was no speakerphone in those days. I could just see my boyfriend’s mouth turning down slightly as he listened to them tell him he was making the biggest mistake of his whole life (I’m assuming). Then every few minutes he’d spot me, still looking at him intently, and he’d try hard to turn his mouth upright. Once or twice he gave me sort of a half-assed thumbs-up sign, but I knew he was lying.

On a suggestion from friends about where to have our reception, my mother got an appointment at the Riviera. It seemed decadent because it was in the section of Massapequa we called, “the rich part of town.” It could accommodate 125 people, and we had 120 on the guest list. The catering director gave us three menus to look over. My parents had been saving for my wedding a long time, long enough that even though it wouldn’t be the truly white wedding of their dreams, a buffet would not do.

The Riviera people told us, “Everyone uses the Buddy Guy trio.” From the photographs, the trio appeared to be a sweet group of older Italian men who knew their way around the “Hokey Pokey.” My mother took out her checkbook. We were in business.

We stopped by a florist and ordered a bouquet for me, corsages for the mothers, and flowers for my matron of honor. She was going to wear a multi-colored dress she’d worn for someone else’s wedding. When he asked about shades and hues, I said, “Anything you think will look nice.” He didn’t drop his chin the way florists of today would at hearing this crazy talk. And among the roses were a few carnations, which would have dropped my overall score on TV. I just know one of the more critical bride contestants surely would say, “What? Carnations in a bridal bouquet?”

Our last stop was the photographer. We overlooked the yellowing pictures and plastic lilacs on the dirty ledge in his storefront window. My mother knew someone who knew him. “I heard he’s nice,” was her complete report. He seemed happy for the business.

My mother and I conquered the complete planning of my wedding in six hours. It would be years later, looking at the photo album, that I’d notice a few details I might have put more thought into. And be glad camera crews and competing brides hadn’t followed me into the reception hall that day.

I stayed married for 22 years. So I’d like those brides of today with their penguin-themed receptions or the ones who have to have everything covered in chevrons and twinkling lights to give me the credit I rightfully deserve. Two decades count for something, even if there were a few carnations in the mix.

“Hi, Kid. This is Miss.”

| Linda DeMers Hummel

My daughter’s favorite story is one she calls “Daniel’s Rock.” A far cry from Frosty the Snowman, it is one I can count on being asked to recite as Christmas approaches. It begins when she’s picked up the small rock that sits on the southeast corner of my desk and has nestled herself in my lap.

The opening words never change. “The last time I ever saw Daniel, he gave me this rock and told me about his boxes. It was a long time ago, before you were born.”

Daniel entered my life when I was a teacher. Before entering the room, he leaned against the doorjamb of Room 202, where I taught 5th grade. For a moment, he just eyed all of us. Blond bangs obscured half his face. His sneakers and checkered shirt were too big for him. His jeans had rips in the knees.

He had made his entrance in the school of a quaint lakeside village. Slate walkways, brass mailboxes, Williamsburg-colored shutters.

Daniel told me his last school had been in a neighboring county. “We were doin’ peaches there.” Before that it had been an hour south, he told me matter-of-factly, as if he’d given this little speech plenty of times. “We were doin’ onions then.”

And then, maybe because of all his practice at this, he simply smiled and became — because he had no time to waste — a part of the class. If he saw anyone snicker at his unfortunate wardrobe choices, he did not show it. Until the afternoon kickball game, the boys eyed him suspiciously.

Daniel led off the first inning with a strong kick that earned him an effortless home-run jog around the bases. With that came a modicum of respect.

Next it was Charles’s turn. He listlessly approached the plate. Charles was the least athletic, most overweight child in 5th grade that year. After his second strike and accompanying eye rolls and muffled groans of the class, Daniel edged up and spoke quietly to Charles’s dejected back.

“Forget them, Kid, you can do it.”

Charles warmed, smiled, pulled in his chest and then struck out anyway. But it was that precise moment — oblivious to the social order of this jungle he had just entered — that Daniel gently began to change things. He taught by example only. By November, we would all be gravitating toward him. He taught us how to call a wild turkey. How to tell if fruit was ripe before you bite into it. How to treat each other, even Charles. Especially Charles.

He still didn’t know any of our names. He referred to me as “Miss,” when he needed to. He called every other person in the room “Kid.”

The day before Christmas vacation arrived that year with the class bearing gifts for their teacher. My style never varied much from year to year. I’d open the department store box and spout some effusive appreciation, always worrying that there would be a few kids whose parents couldn’t engage in this ritual.

Daniel stood off to the side, attempting a casual pose. He seemed slightly confused. Neither of us understood why I needed another silk scarf, but I pretended to.

That afternoon, he walked to my desk and bent low, close to my ear so only I would hear him.

“Our boxes came out last night,” he said without emotion. “We’ll be leavin’ soon.”

As I caught on, my eyes filled. He countered the awkward silence by telling me about the collection of boxes his family had accumulated over their years of transience.

“We got them good, sturdy ones,” he told me. “That way you don’t have to go to the liquor store for new ones. That way you’re set.”

A boy of few words, he went on at length until I swallowed hard and regained my composure. Then deliberately, and with great style, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a gray rock. He pushed it gently across my desk until it sat directly under my eyes.

Still blinking away tears, I was unsure what exactly I was looking at, although judging from the ceremony involved, I sensed it was something remarkable.

Without moving his eyes from mine, he said, “It’s for you. I found it this morning. I polished it up special.”

And the end of the story is always the same, too. “He’s a grownup now,” I tell my daughter. Together we wonder aloud where Daniel is now, what he looks like, and what kind of a person he has become.

It will be years before she realizes the story of Daniel’s rock is as much about me as anyone else — the lessons learned by the teacher. From the boy who lived month-to-month out of boxes, who never even knew her name.

“Do the end,” my daughter says. And she places the stone in my hand. I touch it gently, just the way it was given to me.

“Hi, Kid.” The same words every year. “This is Miss. Merry Christmas. I hope your boxes are finally gone.”

The Dumpster Fire Dates

| Linda DeMers Hummel

So far on this blog, I’ve only mentioned the dates that went awry. One reader, who is also a writer, has told me that my dating years are not quite the literary gold mine I’d been thinking they were. He’s become bored. Others have commented that sometimes these tales make me sound — shall we say — a little uppity.

One more. Just one more, I promise, and then I’ll get on with the rest of the story.

The truth is many dates were magical. I had relationships. With good men. But no one I wanted to live with or marry. There was no second husband at all — ever — waiting in the wings.

But I still think I’m a laugh riot when I get on a roll about the dating years, so indulge me just once more. Here they are, in abbreviated form.

Sam, who, halfway through dinner, started calling me Wendy. I had a panicky moment. I was a pro by now, and I’d entered the restaurant, looked at the man waiting who looked expectant, said, “Sam?” and he said “Yes, hi!” and we began our date, as I’m sure we’d done many times according to the rules of the midlife online dating ritual. The second time he called me Wendy,  I was thinking there might be two Sams at this restaurant and this was the wrong one. But my anxiety was premature. He came back to calling me Linda right before his phone rang. And he took the call. On speaker. For a good ten minutes. From a woman who called him Sammy Baby.

Pete, who never took a breath. He would look like he was going to take a breath and give me a hint that maybe I should speak. But then he’d tap himself on the side of his head and say, “Let’s see. Let’s see, let’s see, what else can I tell you about myself?”

Charles and Tom, who spent most of our dates spewing venom about their ex-wives and letting me know all about their screaming fights and standing their ground in front of cars in driveways and protective orders. These men needed a dating coach. I actually excused myself to the ladies room during one of them, hightailed it to the parking lot and left before he could get my license plate number.  He seemed like the type of person who wrote down license plate numbers.

Larry, who got to the restaurant ahead of me on our first date, and had the hostess place a bouquet of flowers on our table. A large, expensive, Queen of England bouquet of flowers. He had great hopes for it going well apparently. He led off with a story about how his sister died of kidney disease because his father had refused to be a donor. (Now that’s a story that makes you hope you’re invited to Sunday dinner soon.) As we parted ways after dessert he asked, “How about going out this weekend?” When I said I didn’t think so, he looked at the flowers and said, “Shit, what a waste of $75.” I wished he’d taken them back because for two days I looked at them and all I could think about was his sister.

Henry, who emailed me after our dinner. It began, “I hope you won’t be offended by this,” at which point you know you’re about to be offended. “I don’t see it in the cards for us. I’m still thinking I can get a woman who will look bangin’ in a thong.”

There was John, who still lived with his mother, and slept in the bedroom where he achieved puberty.

Then there was George, who still lived with his wife.

And Ian, who apologized for leaving his wallet at home. Twice.

And when I list all those dates in one place like this, I think maybe I’m descended from Pilgrims even though my name is not Alden or Standish. I think I must have come from people who spent months sodden, starving, and all full of Scurvy, wending their way across the ocean on a leaky wooden boat. Between lung-crushing coughs, they said things like, “Hoist the sails! Give thanks!” Tomorrow will be better!”

I sat down at every date, thinking the man across from me might be The One. Or as my ancestors probably said, “I’m sure we’ll see land any day now!”

A Date with Ben and His Hair

| Linda DeMers Hummel

In our first email exchange, Ben made a point of letting me know right away how many miles a week he ran (50) and how many pounds he could bench press (I forget but it was a lot for a man his age, he told me). Usually stats like this weren’t the way to my heart, mostly because when a man started with details about his health regimen it could only lead to the line I got once: “Uh, you know you could stand to lose a few.”

But Ben’s physical fitness blah blah blah and his loyalty to kale, which was ahead of the times, was coupled with concise, solid prose that didn’t make me wince, and — trust me — that didn’t happen often.

Who knows, I thought as I waited for him at a Baltimore bistro, Maybe this is the night. I spotted him down the street, or the person I thought must be him. There’s that expectant look I came to recognize, kind of the opposite of Bitchy Resting Face. When you’re meeting a date, you make a concerted effort to look open and smart and terribly lively as you walk toward the restaurant. There’s always a great chance your date has already spotted you in the crowd and is going through that initial checklist we all keep with us on dates.

Ben’s body looked great from what I could see of it though I wasn’t much into bodies as my main point of attraction. But from afar, his hair seemed to be too black against his white (SPF 300 sun-screened) skin he took great care of. (Another conversation).

I swallowed hard as he got close enough and we identified each other and we smiled in the universal, silent dating language of “I am not a hoarder,” (him) and “I am not Kathy Bates in Misery.” (me)

Once we were seated I got to catch my breath, and I was grateful for the stirring rendition of Ben’s morning run around the reservoir (heron sighting and phenomenal weather).

I needed time. Because of what was happening on the top of Ben’s head. There lay a synthetic black hairpiece — a credit to an enduring salesperson somewhere who sold him on a dream. This person had fit this shiny apparatus onto Ben’s bald skull and said, “There, sir! I challenge anyone to think this isn’t your actual hair!”

I could not look away no matter what I did. I kept thinking, Make eye contact! Make eye contact! but I knew I wasn’t. Then he sneezed and I watched as it slid a tiny bit to the left. I realized in terror it was not glued down or whatever it is you do to those things. If it moved another half inch, I was prepared to go to the Ladies’ Room and, on the way, find our waiter and send him back to the table with a big heads up for Ben.

This didn’t happen. I eventually made some eye contact, but I’ll admit it might have been fleeting. We split the bill and he walked me to my car. I was thinking, Poor Ben, pretending he has hair. I was wondering if we’d end with a little hug, which was a nice to say, Not in this lifetime, but thanks for a dinner I didn’t spend in front of the TV or talking to my cat.

Instead Ben cleared his throat rather officially and said, “Here’s what I think. It’s just best to be honest at these awkward moments. I had a very nice time, and I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I’m just not that attracted to you. There’s no chemistry here and I have to admit it.”

It was fair to say, that on the dating front, I was now 0 for 2. A less optimistic person might say I was more 0 for 2 than any human being had ever been since dating was invented. But not me. I had a date lined up for the next night. And his name was Bud.

[Up Next Week: A Date When I Got to Be Dorothy Parker]

A Date with Nathan and the Elephants

| Linda DeMers Hummel

Nathan was the first date I’d had in 26 years. Based on his emails, I was pretty sure it would be magical. He was brilliant and literary. He’d gone to Harvard and worked — in a somewhat vague capacity — for a think tank in Washington, DC. I pictured him spending his days lounging with other think-tanky people on leather chairs in some opulent office on Massachusetts Avenue. From what I could glean, he doled out advice for less-smart people somewhere, and that was plenty good enough for me.

His emails contained perfect spelling, and this seemed important to me, as if bad spelling were a character defect I wanted to avoid in a man. His messages were didactic in spots, but then he would write, “I really like fun. I want to be part of a fun couple.” I sent him my telephone number. He called when he said he would. We talked for a while. He didn’t seem like a serial killer.

“Shall we meet at the zoo then next weekend? That might be worth a giggle,” he said.

I shuttled to the back of my head a few red flags that had surfaced during the call. For a man who’d grown up in Michigan, he had quite a British accent going for himself. I could tell he didn’t think I was funny. And I am funny.

I was game. “Baltimore Zoo or Washington Zoo?” I asked.

Was that a snicker? I believe it was. Nathan was clear he didn’t actually ever leave Washington, which he called The District. He suggested we meet at the Elephant House, and added, “It’s the National Zoo.” But he wasn’t finished. “And, by the way, the name of yours is the Maryland Zoo,” he added, just so I’d know I got both zoo names wrong.

Traffic was horrible, and then I missed the exit for Connecticut Avenue. I was almost 45 minutes late. I didn’t want him to think I’d ditched him, so I ran for the Elephant House as soon as I parked.

There he was, at the entrance of the smelly building, jacket slung over his shoulder. Black hair, very tall. Eyebrows that had merged together to form one serious, knitted line, probably years ago.

“So have you ever been to our zoo?”

I hadn’t.

“How about our Smiths? Our Hirshhorn? Our Corcoran?”

We kept walking, and Nathan kept talking and taking credit for Pierre L’Enfant’s life work. The history of the zoo, the pandas by name. He knew a lot about the llamas, too, which didn’t surprise me. He was like the Chamber of Commerce with a unibrow.

Nathan had planned ahead — lunch at a restaurant within walking distance after we’d seen everything the zoo could teach me. My feet hurt in my ill-advised shoes. He’d chosen a place known for its wine list, which sounded like a great idea at this point. But it also felt like we were walking to Philadelphia.

When we finally got to lunch, the mere act of sitting down felt glorious. Especially since I knew there would be a glass of something earthy, with mellow tannins and a strong finish on its way. For the last five blocks, Nathan had been talking about his wine collection. I had no idea what tannins were but I was in favor of them floating down my throat. Soon.

As soon as the waiter passed out menus, my first-date jitters arrived. I like to stay ahead of worries, so I was already nervous about how the whole paying-the-bill thing would play out. I’d brought lots of cash, in all denominations, covering my bases. I knew most men were now comfortable splitting the bill, so I came prepared. If the bill had come to $350, I was still prepared, so I probably had nothing to worry about.

“What are you thinking about having?” Nathan asked, peering at the wine list. He was asking about my food choice, I knew, because I’d come clean I knew nothing about wine in bottles (although I was hardly a neophyte when it came to wine in boxes, my little joke that had dropped dead on arrival).

“I was thinking of the chicken and pasta.”

More looking at the wine list. More eyebrow. When the waiter came back with his pencil poised, Nathan seemed pleased that the waiter answered, “Excellent choice!”

It seemed like a lot of work just to get buzzed after a long day at the zoo.

Then Nathan leaned over the table and touched the top of my hand. It was the first physical contact beyond the awkward introductory hug we’d shared hours before at the Elephant House.

“So, Linda. . .”

A pause followed. It seemed to last a week.

“I have just ordered an expensive bottle of wine, and I will pay for lunch.” (Another pause almost as long as the first one.)

“But I don’t expect you to sleep with me on our first date.”

On my way home, as I exited Nathan’s Capital Beltway and Baltimore came into view, I was wondering how I was going to tell him. I thought, “Nathan, Nathan, Nathan. Not enough grapes in the Napa Valley for that to happen” was much too harsh.

This would be the first time — but hardly the last — that rehearsing exit lines would be a total waste of time.

It was a new world. Men appeared as words on a screen. They disappeared with no follow-up email, on their quest to be part of a fun couple. Which, clearly, I wasn’t ready for.

[Up Next Week: A Date with Ben and his Hair]

Online Dating in Your Fifties. What Could Go Wrong?

| Linda DeMers Hummel

For those of you following the chronology of my life on this blog, I’m going to skip ahead. You can’t do that when you’re actually in your life, though sometimes we wish we could. Zora Neale Hurston once said, “There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” I guess I’m leaving out a chunk of years that asked questions. Some of them were tough. They’re all in the book.

I’m skipping to 1999. I was finding my way in a new life, one I hadn’t prepared for. I found I could finally check off the box  “Divorced or Separated” when filling out paperwork without a little knot forming in my chest. I now had an ex-husband, and women seemed to be lining up for a chance to date him. I considered it God’s way of saying “Gotcha!” if my ex-husband became the most eligible bachelor in America, and I turned into an agoraphobic. And, dateless and alone, I defaulted to bowls of Rocky Road and game shows on TV. What if I ballooned up 600 lbs and made people go to 7Eleven and buy me cookies and frozen pizza because I couldn’t fit through the door anymore?

Realizing that wasn’t the life I wanted, I called my best friend and said, “You know this online dating thing everyone’s doing?”

Her exact words were, “Don’t do it!”

At first I wasn’t in love with the idea either, but I didn’t see any other way to find my second husband. I was sure he was out there, somewhere, and my job was to uncover him. And really, time was a-wastin’. If I wasn’t proactive, my dating window would slam shut soon. Then the best I could hope for would be one of those unions in my 80s in the nursing home with a sweet little man with shriveled-up testicles making me tea in the afternoon and getting me confused with his first wife.

I could already see the start of my Bitchy Resting Face showing up in photographs when I didn’t realize the camera was on me. Stuff was happening.I really needed to get a move on.

Online dating had developed into an industry while I was married and going to PTA meetings. I was happy it had emerged as an alternative to bars and anything that had the word “single” attached to it. I liked that online dating was so organized and apparently brimming with men of all shapes, sizes, and denominations. It spoke to my strength — leading with a well-chosen paragraph and following up with some clever rejoinders before I had to ever get out of my pajamas.

The rest would figure itself out. I was to be able to say, “I’m still in my 40s!” and I went around saying it as much as I could. But in a few months that would not be the case and I’d have to find something else to say, something equally optimistic. Because turning 50 sounded — well, 50 sounded — ancient.

Choosing intriguing profiles on my computer screen, and then meeting men in restaurants so they could get a load of my charm. What could go wrong?

Back from “The Real World”

| Linda DeMers Hummel

Central New York has the same joke as Wisconsin and Minnesota. “We have two seasons: winter and bad sledding.”

It’s not true. Spring and summer are magical where I went to college, and that’s good because it helps you overlook the jolt you feel when the sleet arrives full force after Labor Day. I arrived back on campus in late June, relieved to be finished with the complexities of life in the city, and ready to tackle summer school. My roommate, Julie, wouldn’t be at our apartment until September, so for the first time in my life, I was living alone.

If you’d known me as a freshman or sophomore, and we happened to meet on campus that summer, you would have been able to see I was no longer the shallow coed who flitted from boyfriend to boyfriend. Mostly because I would have told you so. And for anyone who remembered my short-lived Power-to-the-People phase, I would not have screamed in your ear about Nixon’s war machine either.

I may, however, have been a little too full of unsolicited advice when it came to what I’d learned over the last year in New York City, or — as I called it — The Real World. Walking to class or in the grocery store, I found lots of people who knew me, and I never seemed to be at a loss for words. I noticed no one ever said, “Wow! Fascinating! Why don’t we go for coffee later and you can tell me more about how you’ve conquered the universe?”

Eventually, I came to recognize the bored looks on people’s faces and figured I had summer session to get my feet wet in a new style of shutting the hell up.

My apartment was a fraction of what had been an enormous house at the turn of the twentieth century, probably full of children and the small staff needed to run a proper home. It stood at the top of a hill on Prospect Terrace, a name just full of all the gilded-age optimism rich people had. This neighborhood was once full of business owners or the town’s best doctors and lawyers. The slate roof had long ago been replaced with something cheap, and now the paint was peeling, and the evergreens hugging the front porch were rangy and overgrown.

By the time I moved in the summer of 1971, the house was a conglomeration of apartments and single rooms for rent, with suspect wiring and kitchen cabinets bought at auction. I didn’t care if the corners were dingy. I didn’t care that it seemed I was the only one living in this three-story mansion, except in the middle of the night when the wind blew and the house groaned.

The first week went off without a hitch. How many times in my life have I said that? I went to my new classes, bought the books, and settled in. Nothing to it. I spent early mornings sitting on the steps off the back porch, drinking instant coffee in a handmade mug with a broken-off handle. I kept the music — usually Laura Nyro — turned up as loud as I wanted. I looked forward to afternoons hunched over my typewriter, making sense of convergent validity for my Child Psych paper, and I wondered why I hadn’t done it this way from the beginning.

After my first tests, I called my parents with the news. “I got an A on both of them!”

I’m pretty sure they misheard me and thought I’d won the Nobel Prize for Literature because their reaction was way over the top. The year I’d spent as a college dropout was tough on them. They would be overly thrilled at every increment until the first notes of “Pomp and Circumstance” rang out two years later and I marched into the field house in my cap and gown.

I started to wilt in Week 3 of this new life. How many times have I said that in my life? It was late afternoon, and I was reading the paper on the back porch. I’d gotten used to the silence from being the only tenant in a house with 20 rooms. But then I started thinking how nice it would be to share these summer nights with someone. And by “someone,” of course, I meant a man.

An hour later, I heard something come up the winding gravel driveway. A pickup truck rumbled into view and cautiously made the right turn behind the house, toward the bank of garages that had once been a carriage house. Evan Callahan turned off the engine and jumped out.

“Greetings!” He said the word as he moved his entire forearm in a semi-circle.

He would be living here, too, in an apartment on the other side of the house from mine. His was a small studio he was going to share with a roommate, who wouldn’t be in town until September either. So now there were two of us, and I liked the idea. With creaking walls on windy nights, it would be nice to know I wasn’t alone. And now if I found mice in my kitchen, I’d have someone to kill them for me. The Real World hadn’t taught me anything about rodents.

I said, “I made some stew. Are you hungry?”

He’s About My Age

| Linda DeMers Hummel

He’s about my age. His white hair is long and full, but not so much that he looks like he never found his way home from a Grateful Dead concert. I see him walking through the neighborhood all the time.

Today he’s on the other side of the street, and my grandson and I are playing in the front yard. He hasn’t looked in our direction all summer, but now he says something I can’t quite hear.

“Excuse me?” I say.

He bounds across the road so he can repeat his first message, which may or may not have been purposely mumbled just so he could bound across the road.

He begins in mid-sentence. We figure out we both graduated from high school in 1968 and ask the usual questions about where we grew up, where we went to school. He asks about my grandson. “What’s his name? How old is he?”

Even though he didn’t plan this conversation (maybe) he has a lot to say. At some points he’s just lost in his own narrative. At others, his gaze lingers on me, and I wonder if he’s flirting. It’s so hard to know when hormones aren’t flying through the air like they used to.

But yes, I think the neighbor likes me.

“What’s your favorite band of all time?” he asks.

“Rolling Stones,” I say.

He approves of my answer and starts telling me about a movie starring Mick, something I never heard of because — truthfully — I stopped caring deeply about Mick a while ago. In the middle of his story, my grandson decides it’s time for lunch. The neighbor and I say our goodbyes.

Me: “I guess I’ll see you around.”

He: “I guess you’ll have no choice.”

I’m a little uneasy the rest of the afternoon, worrying he might be at his house now, thinking Damn. What an attractive woman. What if the next time I see him he pulls out a Rolling Stones boxed set from behind his back, or invites me to dinner?

A week later, I spot him in the supermarket, on the other side of the produce aisle. My grandson is in the shopping cart seat, facing me, and I pretend to be telling him something interesting about cucumbers because I don’t want to get the neighbor’s hopes up if he sees me. I don’t want to look available, if that’s the right word for the way you can look in a supermarket when you’re this old and getting your grandson in the cart seat is the most physical thing you’ve done all day.

I’m thinking to myself, Ugh, I have to let him know that I’m just not interested. But before I know it, he has seen me, crossed over, and is standing in front of us, grinning.

“Oh, hi there,” I say.

He smiles big. He motions to my grandson and asks, “How old is he?” I’m a little confused. “What’s his name?” he asks. Again, old news, but I tell him.

I realize it’s not that he’s a bad listener and has forgotten the details of our talk on the sidewalk. He has no idea who I am.

On the way home, with my grandson chirping happily in the back seat about the cookie the bakery lady gave him, I feel the need to reach deep into my memory box.

I was 23, at a wedding, seated next to a man from Greece. He was dark and tall and brilliant. We danced. I’d had a lot of wine and had suddenly remembered what a fabulous dancer I was. At the table, as we talked, he looked deeply into my eyes, and we took almost-drunk turns being fascinating.

Hours later — home alone and in bed — I heard little pebbles glancing off my second-story window. He was standing in my front yard, bathed in moonlight.

“We’re not finished,” he said, “I want to know more.”

I go over the story a few more times — savoring a detail here and adding a new one there — until finally I’m ready to take it into old age with me.

“How’s that cookie?” I ask my grandson. I’m happy the rest of the way home.