>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made with a message from the World Health Organization.

Ageism, it said in a 2021 global report, can change how we view ourselves, researchers said that the basis, or I should say, the bias of ageism, the bias of ageism can affect how we think, how we feel, how we act toward ourselves and other people.

And that can be a barrier in creating a more equal world.

93% of 2000 American adults between the ages of 50 and 80 report experiencing some form of everyday ageism.

In a recent study that includes internalized ageism, the negativity that surrounds it has defined how some people think about themselves.

But here's the reality, at least the way some people see it.

If we're lucky, we will all live to older ages.

So how can we push back against ageism?

There are health benefits to doing so.

Research shows it can make us feel younger and can help us live longer and stay sharper.

My guests this hour have studied these questions in various ways, and in many ways.

They live by example.

They're here to share their wisdom.

We think this is going to be a remarkable hour.

Let me welcome our guests.

I'm going around the table, and I don't usually mention our guests.

Ages, but my first guest is 100 years old.

Kitty Wise, who is a former program coordinator for friends of the Rochester Public Library and a longtime community volunteer supporting the arts in Rochester.

Welcome.

Thank you for being here.

>> Thank you.

Thank you very much.

>> Next to Kitty is Dr.

Pat Ward Baker, a former financial advisor.

Big part of the reason we're here today.

And Pat, I got to ask you, your age, 90.

>> 94, 94.

>> How are you doing these days?

>> Great.

Great.

And I'm going on 95 in May.

>> Well, welcome to the program.

Across the table is the young lady on the program today.

Mary Rose McBride vice president of marketing and communications for Lifespan.

Welcome.

>> You can say my age.

>> Okay.

>> 6767.

>> Welcome to you.

And finally, we have Margaret Joynt, who is a former attorney.

I got to ask your age.

>> Oh, I am 96.

And in April, in one month I'll be 97.

>> 97.

Coming up here.

Welcome.

Happy early birthday.

Thank you for being here.

So let me just start with this, doctor Pat Ward Baker.

Why are we here?

What inspired you?

Not that.

Well, a couple decades ago, to really look into kind of these questions and.

And what do you want us to be able to take from this kind of conversation?

>> Oh, well, what amazed me when I was an investment advisor to find that my clients were actually maybe even a little more worried about getting old than they were about losing money.

They were there to have investments for themselves, but they really were concerned.

So I thought, I've got to find out about this.

And that's when I took off and went back to school to find out stuff about aging.

And that's, that's, that's what motivated me.

>> You went back to school and well, you got a PhD.

At what age?

>> Gosh, I think I was about 76.

76 years old.

>> That's when most people get a PhD, isn't.

>> It?

>> I think so.

>> Well, I'm really looking forward to to talking to Pat this hour.

Mary Rose introduced us to these women.

And I want to know when you first met them.

>> Pat was one of our honorees at our celebration of aging back in 19.

Oh, sorry, 2012.

She was one of our what we called.

Then our second half hero honorees.

And that's how I got to know her and love her and become her friend.

And really, she opened my eyes to this whole ageism journey because she did the research about people who are 85 and older and how resilient they were.

And you know, we've just stayed in touch.

>> Well, the event that's coming up here, you mentioned the celebration of aging.

Lifespan has the 2026 celebration of aging coming up.

Thursday, March 26th, that is what is that nine days from now?

>> A week from Thursday?

>> That's right.

it starts at noon at the Rochester Riverside Convention Center.

Keynote speaker is a young man named Ernie Hudson, played Winston Zeddemore in Ghostbusters.

He's just 80 years old, so much younger ladies.

but he is going to talk about his own experiences there and people can still attend the event.

Is that right?

>> for a couple more days.

Yeah.

Oh, boy.

>> How do they do that?

>> Call us at Lifespan 244 8400.

>> Well, so you mentioned how remarkable it is to to meet people who are.

And again, I don't want to overdo the.

Wow, you're so sharp.

But I mean, look, my reference point right now are my parents who are in their 80s and you know, they're doing okay.

But I think one of the things that's hard for me is I think about my two sons and they'll never know my dad the way I knew my dad growing up.

And my dad gets frustrated with memory loss, things like that.

So we have you brought three women today?

Is it mostly women who are doing.

Are women doing better than men?

I honestly.

>> Wonder women.

live longer.

Yes, obviously still live longer than men.

but I think what sets these three ladies apart is their attitudes about longer life.

So the research shows that people with great attitudes about aging live on average seven and a half years longer, taking into account comorbidities and chronic disease and age and education.

If you have a positive internalized viewpoint about longer life, you will probably live longer.

That's what the research shows.

And that these ladies are shining examples of it.

>> 97, 94, and 100 at the table today and Pat Ward Baker, we're going to get all your stories here.

Let me start with Pat, who, as we mentioned, received Lifespan second Half Hero Award back in 2012.

And here you are now.

You were born in a small community north of Chicago, and you told five, eight, five magazine that you grew up in the 30s and 40s, and by the time you were 10 or 11 years old, the Second World War was on.

Everything around you felt rigid.

Wives were staying home.

They hosted tea parties.

They just talked and shopped.

And you said that you kind of hated that, that you wanted something different than that.

Why?

>> Well, I did, and I think that I'm talking more about feminism in that regard than I am about ageism.

But it's similar.

I used to feel like that was a very stifling situation.

The woman's role was enormously defined and quite narrow and mostly social, and it just bored me.

Even when I was ten and I said, I've got to get out of here.

And I went up on the, the the well place where people play golf and thought about it at night a lot.

And I decided that I could play the piano because I started playing it when I was five.

And I said, okay, I'll be a pianist.

It was the best thing I could think of.

So I decided, okay, I'm going to Eastman School of Music and become a pianist, world famous.

And so that's what I headed for.

And that's what I did.

I went to Eastman School and became a piano major.

It was a piano major.

And I thought, this is going to get me out in the world.

And then I decided it really wasn't because unless you're, you know, phenomenal, you have to be pretty good to get into Eastman School.

But I wasn't, you know, phenomenal.

So I said, this is not going to do it.

So I switched into the university and I did a whole basic kind of education.

And then I did a master's in philosophy.

How I thought that was going to help me, I don't know.

>> And so what did you end up doing?

>> I ended up my father was good at investing.

And at one point he took me aside and said, okay, I'm going to teach you how to do this because you're going to need it later in your life.

And then he gave me a little bit of money that I was probably around 20, and he said, go and make all the mistakes you can with investing, and that'll be a good way for you to learn.

So I did, and so what happened one day when I realized that I had to make a living, my brokerage firm where I had the account called me and said, we like the way you think.

Would you like to work for us?

And I said, thank you, God.

The timing was totally unbelievable.

So I said, I can probably make that down there in about a week.

So I tried, you know, a little bit hard to get.

So anyway, I did, I started in a local brokerage firm and I was just like the only woman I found out when I went later and institutional sales where I was telling the selling to banks, insurance companies and stuff like that.

I was only one of 12 in the whole United States who were in that field as a woman, as a woman.

So we were really strange.

I mean, we were just the one guy who wanted to hire me or I wanted him to hire me.

He said to me, well, you have all the education, you have all the experience.

but you're a woman.

He said that to me.

I said, yeah, right.

He said, the guy I will call the institutions that you would cover as a broker and see if they mind.

So he took two weeks and he called all these institutions, banks, insurance companies that I was going to cover.

And he said, they don't mind as long as it has ideas.

So I decided it had ideas.

>> So I said, you can come down today.

So that was how I got going.

>> You're really good at this.

If you.

If only you weren't a woman.

>> That's right.

Yeah.

Wow.

Oh my God.

>> But you know, I was kind of used to it.

And I just thought, you know, I know what I'm doing.

You need me.

And so I didn't feel scared.

And I was very fortunate in that regard.

>> Did clients treat you different over the years because you were a woman, not not a male advisor?

>> I don't think so.

And I don't think the men treated me any different either.

I think the point is, just like the guy had said to me, if I have ideas, that's what they want.

What am I supposed to do here?

How am I supposed to not lose?

How am I supposed to make money?

And I obviously knew what I was talking about.

And so this thing is.

>> Oh, these poor headphones here.

so producer Megan Mack is going to pop in and help headphones I love, but I went, I went to ask Mary Rose about this story.

I mean, I think it, it feels in some ways quaint now to think about a career like this and telling a woman you'd be one of only a dozen in the United States.

I don't know if the men are gonna listen to you.

in a sense, that's a sign of progress.

How do you see that?

>> Well, it's a sign of progress, but it also, I mean, ageism, sexism, ageism is the new sexism, sort of you know right.

And she was told you're a woman.

Too bad these ladies are sometimes told or think or are.

Imagine that they're invisible because of a certain number.

They've reached a certain number in their life, and it has nothing to do with their experience or their aptitude or their ability to do anything.

Ageism is solely based on a number, nothing else, and it's completely wrong to discredit women via feminism or sexism.

And it's completely wrong to discredit older people just because of a number.

>> Because of the age.

So we're going to talk to all of our guests about how they've experienced that.

But I think common.

Well, I'm curious to know, Pat, in the work that you've done in highlighting these stories, these kinds of stories.

Are there common threads?

Are there common themes among the people that you've met who are feel really sharp and vibrant at past an age that maybe people around them expected?

>> Absolutely.

And they have certain characteristics that I was looking for.

What, what why is this?

One word I like to use is resilient.

Now, what I mean by resilient is you, you run into something horrible and you bounce.

It doesn't even take a minute.

You bounce.

You're thinking, what am I supposed to do about what shall I do about this?

What's my next step?

How do I get out of it?

How do we fix it?

People who who live long seem to have that skill.

They don't.

They don't feel like the world is after them or their age is after them.

Or some of these, you know, catching up with them.

And no, they just feel, okay, how do I solve it?

I call that resilience.

And I think that's a major characteristic of the people that I studied.

And they knew how to say no.

I mean, they didn't feel like, you know, somehow I'm, I'm a, I'm a I'm an ornament in the world.

I'm so old and people want to see me and stuff.

So then you get invited to a lot of things and they knew how to say, no, I'm busy.

I'm busy.

I've got things I'm doing.

This is not I'm not sitting around being old.

I'm being who I am.

So I was really impressed with the people I studied.

>> Well, I'm.

It makes me think of Mary Rose, a piece that I read in 2014 in the New Yorker called This Old Man.

It was written by Roger Angell.

He's one of the great long time sportswriters.

He lived past 100.

But he wrote that piece when he was 93, and he wrote the piece from the perspective of someone who was living in society at an age, as he wrote, in which a lot of the younger generations had expected him to either be passed by them or not, contributing work by then.

And the invisibility that you have to deal with, especially when a lot of your contemporaries have passed away.

The struggle with that.

So as I get ready to hear these other stories in the room, what do you ask us to do in society to combat ageism for for people who might maybe not, not think of themselves as ageist or actively malignantly trying to to cause harm, but might be kind of working through the stereotypes without knowing it.

>> Well.

There are so many different there's about four different kinds of ageism.

So there's internalized ageism, how we all feel about aging ourselves as we grow older, have more birthdays.

There's institutional ageism when you can't get a job and you're 60 and you still want to keep working or need to keep working, there's intentional ageism.

When you can't buy a birthday card for somebody who's 50 or older without totally ageist text.

And within that birthday card.

so there are so many different kinds and it just takes, you know, we want to bring awareness to how we view and think about the different types and how it impacts ourselves mainly, but also society as a, at large.

So in Monroe County, about 26% of residents are 60 or older.

So more than 1 in 4 of us walking around is 60 or older.

That's never happened in the history of our country county before.

so we cannot ever discredit a quarter of the population.

It's just not right.

>> Well, let's turn I'm going to get Margaret Joynt story here going to be 97 in just a few weeks here.

And how do you feel these days?

>> I, I feel wonderful and I, I have to tell you, the last five years in my life have been full of joy and fun.

And and I have time to read that I didn't have before when I was busy, I, I had I, my son used to say, I've read the first page of more books than anybody else because I didn't have time to finish a book.

And now, now I read a lot and enjoy life so much.

And I belong to two book clubs and two bridge clubs and two social clubs and two clubs that read read papers.

They do research to do papers, and that's.

I've just had time to have fun now and I think I do want to bring up what Mary Rose was just saying about the feminism and sexism and all of that, but racism is, has, has is so much worse than ageism, but they all will say, I've become invisible.

Somebody comes in and there's one black person there and they're talking.

If they're white, they talk to the white people.

And then just kind of invisible is a terrible feeling.

And I think when people get older say if you live in a neighborhood and, and there are a lot of young people, do the young people pick out the older one to invite over?

It's, it's, it's an invisibility.

And it's similar.

I can see having talked to black people about that for, for a lot of ages, that's what we want to correct.

And how can we change ageism is what we're here about.

And I think I want to mention the medical, which is not been mentioned yet because the medical research has if we go to an annual physical every year, we're going to live longer and women are a little bit more easy to convince that that's going to a doctor every year than men is very important.

>> Way easier than men.

>> Yes, yes.

And so what.

>> We want to do is, is it's the internal ageism.

When I think, oh, I'm going to be 65, my company is firing me just because I'm 65.

And when I'm 75, I'll have just as much get up and go as creativity comes.

and so a 75 year old, depending on the individual.

Now what we've been talking about, how do you get that attitude, that resiliency, and how do you learn that it's individuals are so different as we know, some people collapse, collapse when they're 65 because they don't have that internal drive to enjoy life.

And I think I've learned that from Kitty, how she's a star because she's, she, she, she, if you talk to her, she's got 100 interests right now, right now.

And and we don't talk about the other things.

Like all my friends have died.

Well, that's a terrible thing.

I mean, we life, life and death, that's part of life and death.

And so we talk about the new friends we've made and the enjoyment that we've had.

So so we want to correct that.

And that's Mary Rose's job.

>> Well, I think you're certainly helping with that.

And let me let me also ask about how you viewed your career, your former attorney.

>> Yes.

>> So my father was an attorney for 40 years.

And when he.

>> For how many years?

>> Just about 40 years.

>> Oh 4044.

Oh.

>> It was his identity in many ways.

Yeah.

And when he retired, his firm asked him to retire based on an age that exactly that you described.

That's the rules.

He actually came on this show just over a decade ago, and he talked about how he was the opposite of my mother, my mother.

To this day, she's in her 80s and working, and she says, she says, honey, someday I'm just going to wake up and no one's going to need me.

And it's going to be great.

Well, my dad, the first day he retired, he said, I woke up today and no one needed me.

And it was terrible.

And he felt lonely and he felt isolated.

And he understood, I think, pretty quickly that his identity was his career.

I think.

I don't know how you feel about this.

I think that is more common in men still.

Do you feel that way?

>> I can't speak for other people, but I I unlike Pat didn't want a career, didn't look forward to when I went to college.

I had no idea I was going to go to law school.

I also majored in philosophy, and I went, I this was in Chicago, so I went to the HR committee in the city and I firm in the city.

And I said, what job do you have for philosophy.

>> Majors?

>> We got a lot of philosophy study in.

>> This room here.

>> Not a lot of jobs to show.

>> For it.

No.

Well, if they tell.

>> You he didn't say try to teach it.

He just.

said., go to the Jane Bryant.

secretarial school.

>> Oh, God.

>> I thought I didn't go to college for four years to go to secretarial school.

>> You know.

>> And so I thought I really wanted to go to law school.

And I went to the University of Law school then and was admitted to the bar there.

But after I moved here, this is the great story about Rochester, New York.

My favorite class of all in law school was trial work, and I knew that litigation would be what I would love.

And so no law firm in Iowa City, Iowa, had a woman in it.

They, they you could I could get a job in a bank or something, but no litigation that.

No.

>> This was the 1950s, 60s.

>> I graduated from law school in 53, and there were no women there at all.

When I moved here in 66, the women lawyers had taken over and there were a lot of women lawyers in the in litigation.

And I could just walk in.

I was so thrilled.

So I, when I had raised my children, I, I I did a law clerk work and then I did I did all court appointed work for children and the elderly because that so, so it's exactly the opposite of what your father felt.

I thought, wow, I can, I can make a difference because the elderly and children need good lawyers and not just, you know, people who look at a paper and say, oh, I've got that case today.

You know, so, so I had to take the New York bar to practice.

So I'd been out of law school 23 years and I took the New York bar.

So I started as a lawyer.

Your dad was so for finishing about the time I was starting.

>> That's interesting.

but let me also ask you, you both, both of our guests have described their careers so far, have described the sexism of the 1950s that told women there's very limited roles for you working in this society.

Do you think?

Let's turn it to ageism.

Do you think it is appropriate for companies, for law firms to have age cutoffs, to say you can't be a partner past a certain age, you can't be an attorney past a certain age.

>> That's that's a really difficult question because there are people like your father who don't want to quit, and they're very good.

My goodness, the 65 year old lawyers that were in litigation with me were were sharper than they were when they were 35, a lot.

>> Sharper and more experience.

>> More experience.

>> Yeah, sure.

>> So I, I think it really should be optional.

If it is optional, you want to bring young lawyers, a big law firm.

I can't speak for big law firms, but they need to get young people coming in.

Sure.

And I had a very good friend who, who was let go at age 65, from a different field, not from law, but he had worked at the United States government in that field, and he was brilliant in his field.

And he lost his job and felt exactly like your father, that his identity was in law.

My identity, hopefully, has always been being a mother and a lawyer is kind of the side thing.

I was interested.

>> So one other thing for you before we turn across the table.

Kitty Wise who is the matriarch at the table at 197 years old?

Well, 97 soon.

Margaret's going to be 97 in about a month.

Mary Rose McBride is the young person at.

>> The.

table and.

>> Pat Ward Baker is 94.

And the reason we're talking about their ages is because ageism tells you that a lot of women, a lot of people in their 90s, are not viewed as you know, equally able to contribute to work to, to go out for conversations, to be invited over to a neighbors.

And we're trying to combat that.

So I, I want to ask you one other question about this before we turn to Kitty here, Margaret.

And I'm thinking about the ways that in many ways, we, we think that there has to be this balance that you just mentioned.

Young people have to have opportunity.

So recently we had a conversation on this show about a local political race, a 33 year old town councilman, Nate Salzman in Brighton decided to challenge the incumbent supervisor from his own party, Bill Maley, who apparently in that race was the old guy.

Although Bill is a bright young 70 in this room.

>> Yeah.

>> But you know, Nate Salzman respects Bill Maley a lot.

He's worked with them.

But he also said that there are times where young professionals sometimes can feel blocked by the establishment.

Now, he's not saying that was intentional.

He's not saying it was malicious.

But he did say that across the country, there are a number of young, very talented people who sometimes feel like the older workers in various fields, whether it's politics or other fields, don't know when to sort of leave the stage and let the young talent come in.

But at the same time, what you're also describing is when you are still at the top of your game, how do we just say you're supposed to leave the stage just because you've reached a certain number?

So how do you find the right balance there?

>> That is a huge question for the head of the law firms here in Rochester, New York, or, or businesses or other things like this other man I mentioned in another field, I, I think it's a balancing.

But how we have to look at individuals and getting back to my wanting to connect ageism with Rachel, racism is that you have to look people in the eye.

Now, I, I don't know why I mentioned that neighbor thing.

It's more important to for young people don't realize they're being ageist.

They.

And, and it's amazing how many people don't realize they're racist.

When you hear what they say, oh, oh, I, I have to talk into the mic.

>> I guess that's okay.

>> What I, what I, I really want to say is that one of the way of correcting this is that people have to realize, look, that person in the eye, the, the person who has a little different color than you do or from a different country than you do, rather than looking right past them to someone who looks like you and I, I think that is one of the things that that we have to say that we are very interested in other people by looking them in the eye, and then you're able to talk to them.

So that's one of the things that we can help.

>> Well.

>> I to answer, I've avoided your.

>> Question because.

>> I don't know the answer, but I do think we have to look people.

And if you have the rule, then you have to fire them.

If you don't have the rule, you're going to have a lot of people who want to stay.

Being a lawyer in litigation until she she is 90.

>> Years old.

So.

>> Margaret, I don't think you dodged the question.

I think what you showed is there is more nuance here than just numbers.

And that if you look at individuals as individuals, there may be some people, and I think that this is a fact.

Some people at 90 are really struggling with all kinds of issues related to memory and cognition.

And some at 97 or 100 are sharper than some people you'd meet at 75.

So we aged.

We don't all age the same.

>> The nuance is there.

>> The nuance is important.

Yeah.

What do you think, Mary Rose?

Is that a fair way to describe it?

>> Oh, that's absolutely the right way to describe it.

I mean, there is no doubt that, you know, more years bring sometimes more bodily charge changes or physical mental changes, but not everybody is the same.

I think, you know, that's the message.

Not everyone is the same.

Not everyone ages the same.

Not everyone thinks the same.

So to to pigeonhole people based on a number because you're 80 or 90 or 65, whatever it is, is just the wrong way to think about it.

Think about, you know, I know there's a lot of, you know, at the national level, there's a huge, you know, topic of conversation about, yes, politicians not leaving.

And but again, from my point of view, all right, if you're 90 and you're physically capable and you have the wisdom and experience, you know, why not run for another term?

But, you know, you also have to accept that some people don't accept maybe that there are limitations or that you've become, you know, maybe your memory is failing a little bit.

So there's two sides to the coin.

But don't.

It's like, throw out the baby with the bathwater thing, right?

Don't throw out somebody just based on an age, just based on a number.

>> Sometimes I think it's easier just to set that number as opposed to doing the work of discerning.

>> Well.

>> It's the individual.

>> Yeah.

I mean, I guess airline pilots have to retire at a certain age.

I didn't know lawyers did because I thought they always worked forever.

But.

You know, it's, it's and here we have the baby boom generation.

The leading edge is turning 80 this year.

So, you know, they're between 80 and 60. and we have younger generations behind them, but we face the same thing as boomers coming into the workforce.

So it's, you know.

>> Well let me get before I get some feedback from listeners, let's talk to Kitty about Kitty's story, Kitty's former program coordinator for friends of the Rochester Public Library, a longtime community volunteer supporting the arts in Rochester, 100 years old.

How do you feel these days?

>> Well, first of all, I want to say I endorse all the comments of the other ladies here, and I would never I would never say that I had a big career.

I didn't look at it that way.

so my comments are, are slightly different.

I, I feel, I feel so fortunate in so many ways and I'm just constantly thankful for the kind of parents I had who always loved me and always encouraged me.

And I I grew up in a family that had music that was playing in the house all the time.

And, and we had interesting people who came in Indian chief when I was a little girl.

Scott Fitzgerald scholars, my parents had known Scott Fitzgerald as a childhood playmate.

And I just, I grew up with a feeling that the world had so much to offer.

And I'm forever grateful for that.

For my parents who had health problems, but both lived to be 95.

So I think there is something to genetics.

And I am very fortunate that I have been healthy.

>> I could go off on so many different tangents here.

We talk about lawyers because my husband was a lawyer and he, he grew up in a family of nine generations of lawyers.

And the, the lawyers, when Sarge and I moved here to be in a smaller community from New York City with with two little boys and later had two more children, we chose to move to Rochester for his law practice, where he.

He, he could could have the kind of practice he wanted, which had some variety to it.

And he was in.

Came here with Harris Beach and was was then some other different smaller law firms.

But we were he was we were very aware of being in a community where we could be part of the community.

And I was an at home mother for many, many years.

But right in the beginning when we came here and I was in my early 30s, I did volunteer work and I happened to live on Village Lane, which was a lovely place to move with a lot of young people.

Most of the mothers were not career people.

So there were we helped one another, and I developed lifelong friends, and we would help look after one another's children, to free us to go and do something.

And I chose to do things that would bring me into areas that I was not familiar with that that I'm forever grateful for.

and I worked as a experimental case aide program at Montgomery Neighborhood at Baden Street.

And I visited a so-called hardcore family and got to know them.

My job was not to tell them what to do.

My, my job on this experimental program was to help develop some kind of a relationship with a certain family that had so-called hardcore problems.

And I would she would get to trust, trust me.

And I would bring the information back to a caseworker at Baden Street.

So I was not making decisions myself, but I got.

For me, this was this was an entry into understanding a world that was very different from mine.

And I had other experiences which led me to to have a view of other people.

And you were talking about race and ism and, and I had, I had a a chance to do a little temporary job and through, through this, it was collecting information about things that were happening all around in the county.

It was involving the pediatrics department, the U of R, this little study.

And I was collecting information and Montgomery Neighborhood Center had just opened its new center on Katie Street.

And I saw that they didn't have any preschool programs of any sort.

So I, I saw they had a little collection of books that came from the library.

And that was my key to thinking, there could be more than that.

So I organized an all volunteer group of women.

Some of them were teachers who had been teachers.

And we had a preschool program there.

which eventually was taken over and became a daycare center.

But that was to me, that was a wonderful experience because I was in a different environment.

So that was learning.

I also worked on a pretrial release, experimental project.

And which again, I was sort of collecting information for this project.

And I, I had to go and collect information from some people, such as two people I always will remember who were in jail.

And I, so I guess what I would say is that, that there's more to having a big, high powered career.

You can have.

And I'll talk a bit about my job at with the library, which has meant everything to me.

that you can be in a community and it's very important to connect if possible, with other areas and to meet people who may be not just like you, but to be interested in their experience.

I have met so many interesting people and I am very fortunate because I live in a neighborhood.

it's a third house properties that we have lived in in Brighton and, and I live in a neighborhood which has people of different ages.

And most of the women are working, but there are children and I love children.

And I, when I when I retired from, from my job as coordinator, program coordinator at friends of the Rochester Public Library I decided I wanted to do something to work with children and I became involved with the Rochester Philharmonic League, which is a support system for the Philharmonic, and that has added a great world to me.

The world of music and that world.

So there are many opportunities for you can make a difference without actually having a high powered job.

And so I want to get back to the children and in the neighborhood.

I have always enjoyed children.

I loved being a mother with my four kids.

I'm so proud of them.

And I enjoy talking to children.

So I would encourage older people, if they can, to, to, to, to get to know some of the children in the neighborhood.

I used to invite a child in a family to come over individually, say a six year old to, to read.

I have a huge collection of children's literature and I would have them come not with a brother and sister, but by themselves, because children often, if they.

If they have several siblings, they need that personal attention.

And they were there to become a friend with me and to become enamored.

I hoped of children's literature, which is forever interesting.

so back to the library.

I met Harold Hacker.

when soon after we had moved here and I wanted to do some, volunteer work and I met him.

And if you met Harold Hacker, you would not say no to things.

Mark Rutte endorses that.

Remember?

Harold and Harold Hacker was one of the people who started WXXI.

And I he, because of him, I became involved with the library as a volunteer.

And from that I became eventually the program coordinator for friends of the library.

And I had no job description of such.

So I was able, I was able to develop new things.

And I just loved the library.

And I would walk all around the library to talk to somebody, whether it was a maintenance man or whatever department, rather than calling on the phone.

So I would look at people.

Margaret eye to eye.

So I'm just very I'm very fortunate.

>> You've had this really remarkable life of all these varied interests.

I know you want to jump in.

>> Yeah, I think what I mean, what they've what sets apart these ladies is their continued curiosity about the world and about life.

They're all involved in different things and in different ways.

And they haven't they haven't given up on life or, or experiences.

I mean, just bringing them here today, when I suggested it, we all had dinner in November.

And when I suggested that doing this, they were like, oh yes, we want to do this.

it's, it's remarkable that you all have that.

Pat calls it resilience.

I'll call it curiosity.

That continued need and want to be engaged in life in the community and what's going on in learning.

Yes.

You know.

>> Well, let me just say here, it's already 1247.

We should have scheduled two hours with these incredible guests.

We have to take the only break of the hour.

We'll do it.

Now.

We're going to come back.

Our listeners have some questions for the guests, if you will take some from the audience here.

Our guests are talking about their remarkable lives, the way they the ways they have, I think, defied some of the stereotypes of ageism and the ways that we ought to learn some lessons about that.

We're talking to Pat Ward Baker.

Margaret Joynt.

Kitty Wise.

Mary Rose McBride from Lifespan.

Lifespan is having its upcoming event, which is the celebration of aging.

That is nine days from now, Thursday the 26th.

We'll come right back on Connections.

Coming up in our second hour, we head out on the road with two women who decided to pack up, leave home for extended amounts of time.

Christina Le Beau with her husband and daughter, traveling the country in an Airstream for years on end.

Alison Konecki with her husband, leaving the United States to travel the world for months on end, not spending a lot of money but experiencing more of the world.

What have they found?

We'll talk about it next.

Our.

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>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson what a remarkable hour we're having.

Let me work through your questions.

Comments.

We're going to try to move fast because there's a lot of wonderful feedback for for our guests today.

First of all, Tom, who is the bright young age around 80, he says, I'm enjoying this.

Our people often say to me, you look good for your.

>> Age.

Is that is.

>> That an insult he wants?

>> Is that an insult?

You say yes.

>> We don't say that anymore.

>> You don't.

>> Say, you.

>> Look good for your age.

We don't.

>> Say, hey, you're still working.

using that, still modify.

You're still skiing, you're still whatever.

>> No, why?

>> Why?

>> Don't say it.

>> So.

No.

Can't say you look good for.

>> Your age.

No, I love it.

Good advice for Mary Rosen.

Although it's not going to insult Margaret.

>> Margaret will take it.

You look good for your age.

So Mary Rose says.

We say things like, oh, you're still doing you're still working, you're still tap dancing.

Well, are you still tap dancing?

Kitty.

>> I do not have the spring in my foot feet that I used to.

I also used to be an avid tennis player, which brought me in touch with meeting a lot of different people.

I played on Tennis Club of Rochester, Top team tennis, and we'd go to different places, and I loved the people I met through tennis, and I had all my kids learn tennis if they wanted to.

They all did at some point.

But I decided because I was more or less a home mother for a long time, I, a lot of my choices were, were made in connection with the family, but I encouraged people to take up new things.

So at a time in my life when I was 50, I decided I really wanted to do tap dancing.

And I signed up for an initial crash course in for about three weeks.

And, and then I have wonderful Linda Goble as my teacher all these years after she had graduated from Brockport and I, I was I took tap dancing from Linda until I was 85.

And I absolutely loved it.

And I used to say I met so many people through my feet.

And the other thing is I. could.

I could always entertain myself.

And even today I can sit at the kitchen table.

I do not have the spring in my feet that I could dance.

I can sit at the kitchen table and I can go over some of the routines that we had, and my feet can do it.

I'm like a percussionist, so I can entertain myself, even though I have limitations.

And the other is what reading, reading aloud.

My husband and I, when we first met, we found we had children's books in common in our families.

Although I grew up in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and he in New York City and all our life together, Sergeant, I read aloud with our children and within one another, and he could have been an actor as well as being a lawyer.

He could have been a psychiatrist.

He had all these different things he did as his career.

But reading together, I got to know him.

I we, we laughed and cried together.

So reading in families and reading to children is just a wonderful thing to do at any age.

>> Pat, you want to jump in on that?

>> I never had any children and not deliberately, but it just didn't happen.

So I don't have the same perspective on children as you do, but, I admire it very much.

I think it's totally important.

what can I say about that age?

I remember one of the ways, you know, parents are liable to lecture you and tell you what you're supposed to do and not to.

And my parents, they were just totally exceptional in this way that when there was something we did that wasn't right, they would simply say, we don't do that period.

And it was so powerful.

It's just a very simple phrase.

We don't do that.

>> And you still remember some.

>> I still do.

>> There are a lot of things I don't do now.

>> Well, so I want.

>> To ask you about some of the things you, you maybe you do or don't do based on questions from listeners.

Jerry wants to know what our guests think about technology.

Technology has changed a lot in your lifetimes.

Okay, so briefly so yes, no question.

Do you have an iPhone or a smartphone?

>> Yes I.

>> Do, >> Yes.

yes yes yes yes of course.

Yes.

I mean.

>> You're better, you're better.

>> I mean, that's the way of the world.

do you use social media?

Jerry wants to know.

>> Yes, yes.

>> No no.

no no.

>> Yes.

Great.

Reluctant.

Yes.

Over here.

>> technology has changed life for the better.

Yes or no.

In your lifetime.

>> It has.

It's tough.

It's challenging.

I have to learn a lot of new stuff and I get irritated, but but I think it's changed my life for the better a lot.

>> Okay.

>> Kitty.

>> I look at it as mixed.

I think it has a lot of advantages, but I'm scared to death about the dangers and what's happening.

And I think just within the last two years we have become much more frightened because we don't know about A.I.

and, and A.I.

already is complicating the way I use my computer.

I feel like saying, get out of this for me.

>> I don't want you there.

>> I think people also need to keep in touch with language themselves.

Learn, learn vocabularies and.

>> Not just rely on the.

>> Machines.

There's so much.

>> There's so much that's available, but sort through what is really worthwhile or what is being dumped on you.

And it's certainly, certainly it takes up a lot of time in our lives.

It could be spent out there watching, getting involved in nature.

That's another thing.

So don't, don't let all this don't just walk in a world where you're not looking at what's happening around.

>> You or.

>> Bothering to talk to people at the grocery store.

I even like converse with the checkout person, make her job more interesting.

Look at people.

I have categories of people I look at in the grocery store.

How are people dealing with their kids in the grocery store?

There are endless interesting things you can see.

If you're if you're not always looking at a.

>> Device.

>> We're stuck on.

>> Our phones a lot.

>> Margaret hasn't made life better or worse.

Technology.

>> I don't know how we dealt without cell phones.

It's genius.

It's wonderful.

It helps travelers.

It helps everything.

>> We did.

>> We lived.

>> Without it.

I know we did.

>> But I love it even better now.

>> Yeah.

>> And I believe in science and research, in all engineering and medicine.

I believe in that very strongly.

And I do worry about A.I.

as we all do.

And we're so interested to see that they're taking those cell phones out of grade schools.

>> Yes.

>> I mean, this this we're dealing and we'll deal with A.I.

We've dealt with wars before, lots of wars and lots.

My two sons never had to go to war.

And I'll be ever grateful because I lived through I not World War One, but World War Two.

In Vietnam, when friends were having sons go to war.

And I'm so grateful for that.

So I think we will get through this.

And every age has its blessings.

But I, I am very grateful for technology.

>> Well, I'll say as we get ready to wrap here, I wish we had two hours.

And one thing that is clear from our guests is they have vibrant social lives.

They have vibrant interests, volunteering, community interests that has permeated their lives.

And if they had long work careers, their post work careers, and look at them now 100 years old, going to be 97, 94, 95 years old.

You would not know it.

Based on the stereotypes of aging.

It's been a remarkable hour.

Mary Rose McBride take us home.

What's coming up in nine days that you want people to know.

>> About Lifespan celebration of Aging?

Our 29th Celebration of Aging with Ernie Hudson, star of Ghostbusters.

So who are you going to call when you need help with aging life?

>> Lifespan call it Lifespan.

>> It's Lifespan dash r o c h Lifespan dash grok.org.

For more information on that, I, could we just come back sometime?

Will you all come back.

>> In a little while?

>> We'll just keep talking about the the wonderful wisdom that you all bring.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you all for sharing your stories.

>> I really appreciate it.

>> So much fun.

>> Thank you.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

More Connections coming up in just a moment.

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The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of this station.

Its staff, management or underwriters.

The broadcast is meant for the private use of our audience.

Any rebroadcast or use in another medium without expressed written consent of WXXI is strictly prohibited.

Connections with Evan Dawson is available as a podcast.

Just click on the Connections link at wxxinews.org.

>> Yes.

I know you said writer, I had you as a journalist.

I know you did.

Yeah, I guess I mean, I was that's what I trained as and that's what I was when I was in Rochester.

my writing lately is more Warsh getting there.

so I wasn't, I mean, that's what I trained as a journalist.

So yeah.

Seanelle Hawkins.

Just wanted to make sure that this isn't the sort of thing, you know, like a global.

Isn't it like travel, right.

because number one, Walz is a very serious problem, right?

So I just want to give a little Hannah Maier.

To appropriate.

Okay.

Sounds good.

So I want to ask you something.

What is the workspace in Jackson, Mississippi?

Is that maybe I should ask you to know and not because.

Because there's, I mean, people are loving everywhere, but it was it definitely felt like it had the remnants of the old cells and but just, and there's a whole thing about which this is not a, not for the radio, because it would just bore people.

But one of the reasons I say that so quickly is because I, I oftentimes go to yoga studios wherever I was and the, the yoga experience in Jackson, it's like they didn't know what to do with, with yoga.

They, they needed all the.

And it was very, it was a strange experience.

Dialogue on Disability.

Okay, just remind me, when you speak in your own mind for.

Okay.

Yeah, that's what I. Why?

This is because you did the whole thing you mentioned.

Should I hear anything in here yet?

No.

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