Over the Hill, You Pick Up Speed: Reflections on Aging

by Nardi Reeder Campion

From the heartbreak of giving up one's driver's license to the joys of geriatric dating, Nardi Reeder Campion brings her distinctive mix of wit and candor to the subject of aging. The eighty-eight-year-old author approaches the challenges of growing older with imagination and an undimmed zest for life, from exercises that improve one's memory ("for me, memory is the thing I forget with") to creative solutions to being carless in rural America (she does not recommend hitchhiking).

Campion considers with amusement both the things that change (society's attitudes toward sex) and those that remain the same (her own inability to use the f-word). She shares her love of tea and travel, her pleasure in family and friends, and her ongoing frustration at her penchant for losing items large and small, worthless and precious. And she introduces us to some notable people she has met along the way whose influence she continues to feel.

Whether inviting her retirement home neighbors to watch a belly-dancer or taking a long-dreamed-of trip to Paris and Normandy at eighty-six, Campion shows that aging can be both funny and fun. If you or someone you know happens to be aging, this book is for you.

144 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Patricia L. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked her short chapter on geriatric dating. Also appreciated her decision to stop driving. Mostly I enjoyed her bracketed comments (they suggested what she really thought about things).

[Charlotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

The columns were sweet and quickly skimmed. But her profiles were inspiring.