- We felt that bringing people to nature was helping to create peace with oneself, peace with nature, and peace with others.

- I feel ageless more or less.

And then I realized that other people look at me like, oh, this old lady and stuff.

- What were the circumstances of your being homeless three times?

- And you couldn't drive the tractor 'til you could start it, and so I can remember tugging on that wheel.

- On that darn wheel.

(energetic music) (lighthearted music) Welcome to "Getting Dot Older" the new TV series where Americans over 50 share intimate personal revelations about aging.

I'm your host, Roberto Mighty.

This series interviews people live and online and asks everyone the same questions, like question #3.

"The one thing I want to do before I die is..." And question #23, "I am most ashamed of..." You can answer these questions on our online survey.

So join us, stay tuned on TV, and I'm looking forward to hearing your story, online.

(upbeat music) In our Boomer Passions segment, Anthony and Maja take urban kids to the woods.

Nalan describes her dream job.

Judy writes books and cares for her family.

Carolyn experienced the unthinkable.

Viewers share revealing answers to our survey.

And our boomer quiz is about the original "Mission Impossible".

(lighthearted music) My next guest came to the US from overseas.

Like many people over 50, she's a part-time caregiver for a loved one, but her situation is a bit complicated.

- Yeah, my parents are actually from Turkey, but I was myself born in Germany, and then later on I immigrated to the States and live usually in the States, but I'm taking care of my mom in the wintertime, right now.

But I will be returning in about two weeks or three.

- I see, and where does your mom live?

- She lives in close to Istanbul, I will say, because it's a small town, nobody knows it very well.

- I was curious about Nalan's journey from Germany to the USA.

- I was almost 37 when I immigrated to the States, but I was visiting the States earlier on, like when I was 26 I started actually to come to the United States, studied a little bit, and then my sister was living there too.

I have a twin sister.

She was the one on the photo with the motorcycle.

She's next to me there.

So we were also a little bit like missing each other.

So I would come there for longer periods and I had a business visa.

- Nalan has careers in real estate and investing, but her dream job came as a bit of a surprise.

- I was always interested in national parks so I wanted to become a national national parks officer.

So I tried to find out which way to do it so I can do it as fast as possible but I had to wait until I become an American citizen first.

I didn't know that before that.

- Nalan has always loved nature.

Nalan why were you attracted to the idea of being a national parks officer?

- Well, I was always an environmentalist back in Germany.

I was rooting for the Green Party, so I was very interested in nature and I think America does a really good job in that regard.

I mean, the first national parks were in the United States so that was something that really attracted me about the United States, especially in the Western states.

Lot of the land is actually federal land, and I like that a lot.

- So basically Nalan came halfway across the world to become a US park ranger, but she soon came up against an obstacle that many of us have also experienced.

- So I wanted to work in the national parks.

So I did a course for a national parks officer, law enforcement, back then, but I was already too old to actually be hired like permanently or something.

At least seasonally I had a little bit of a chance to work a little bit seasonally and I would like to go back to the national parks, but when you get older, there's like age restrictions.

- I wondered about Nalan's previous work experience.

- And I had previously worked in emergency medical services in Germany.

So I thought maybe I can combine that, but whatever I did in Germany wasn't accepted in the States I had to restart everything.

Even though I'm not like a controlling person or something like that.

But the idea to protect the land and everything sounds great to me.

- We're going to keep in touch with Nalan to see how her quest to become a park ranger is going.

Meantime, she's fallen back on her business experience.

- But right now, I'm actually doing just, my second thing that I like to do, like investments with real estate and I went a little bit also into crypto.

Before that I was heavily investing in stocks and stuff.

So this is something that I can always do, you know, anytime.

- What about you?

What's your dream job?

A job you'd love so much you'd do it regardless of income.

Does it involve being out in nature or is it something else?

Please write and let me know.

(upbeat music) - We're using nature as a tool for youth development and they realize that their world is a lot bigger than they thought.

(energetic music) (energetic music continues) ♪ Oh can't you see that look in my eye ♪ ♪ We're running out of time ♪ ♪ Running out of time ♪ ♪ Can you hear it when I talk to you ♪ ♪ There's something going on inside ♪ ♪ I don't know ♪ ♪ I don't know ♪ ♪ What I got to do ♪ ♪ I don't know ♪ ♪ I don't know ♪ ♪ What I got to say ♪ ♪ I don't know ♪ ♪ I don't know ♪ (lighthearted music) - Here's a viewer survey response from David who became disabled at the age of 42.

Here's his answer to question number 12.

"I am unlike my parents in that..." David says, "I am unlike my parents in that I am more accepting of the diversity of mankind."

Well said David, and thank you for sharing.

(lighthearted music) My next guest was raised by a strict family that believed in hard work and no excuses.

I can relate to that.

This makes Carolyn's journey all the more poignant.

- So where are you from originally?

Where did you grow up?

- I grew up in Hartford, Connecticut.

- Oh, it's New England.

- East Coast.

- Okay.

All right.

Excellent.

That's a nice town, Hartford.

- Yes, it is!

It's totally different from Dallas, Texas.

- (laughs) Is that where you are now?

- This is where I have been for the past 35 years or so.

- 35, okay, you're a Texan.

Carolyn told me about her move to Texas at the time she had two young sons.

I wondered how they figured into her relocation.

What was your situation when you left 35 years- - Okay at that time I was divorced and I had my own place and I had my own business and my boys came first.

I needed to work where I could be home when they got out of school, so I started a daycare.

- Oh.

- I started a daycare two days after I was fired from a job.

I had already did all of the work for the daycare and I didn't know that I was gonna get fired, but two days after I had my first two children.

- Your first two clients?

- My first two clients, yes.

- Carolyn sounds like a resourceful, resilient person.

I was curious about her background and she mentioned that she'd been a teenage farm worker in Connecticut.

And how old were you when you started working on the tobacco farm in Connecticut?

- I was probably 16 or 17.

I didn't work long because again, I got fired, I got fired a lot.

(both laughing) - Why were you fired?

Now I gotta say, it's kinda hard to get fired from working a tobacco farm.

(laughs) - No, no it's not see, I have, I was born with a congenital heart condition.

- Oh.

- And I had surgery when I was 12 to fix it.

So when they told me that it was fixed, I believed I could do everything every other child could do.

Before that I could not play like the kids.

I could not run like the kids.

I couldn't do anything.

So I tried to do everything else every other kid could.

And I played basketball, volleyball, I went to dance club, I did track, I did everything I could I could do.

But my exertion level for everything was a lot lower than other people.

So I got fired cause I couldn't keep up with the work.

- Looking at her lovely home and fashionable clothes.

I was surprised to hear that Carolyn had picked tobacco as a teenager.

But then she mentioned a much bigger surprise.

- Okay.

I have been homeless three times.

- Now, you know that homelessness is a big issue in our country and I think, again, I can just see your background there and it looks very elegant and all that.

So I'm surprised to hear that.

What were the circumstances of your being homeless three times?

- Part of it was my ignorance to some things.

One time was where I thought that I was hearing from God and I wasn't.

And another time was when somebody that held my income in their hands retaliated against me to the point of me becoming homeless.

- Hmm.

Now how old were you when these things happened and were your children with you at that time?

- Fortunately my children weren't with me, the second and third time, the first time they were with me.

But the second and third time, they were not.

And I swore that I was never going to be homeless again.

That I was never going to be late on a bill again.

I was gonna do whatever I had to do.

- We'll hear more about Carolyn's journey from being unhoused to having a home in an upcoming episode.

But I want you to know right now that she says her sons, the kids who experienced homelessness with her when they were young are all grown up and doing fine.

However, according to the "PBS News Hour" homelessness among seniors is getting worse.

Are you or someone you know experiencing homelessness?

Did it happen to you in the past?

What were the circumstances?

(lighthearted music) Here's a viewer survey response from Judith who is concerned about mobility issues.

Here's her answer to question #2.

"When I was younger, I used to think...", Judith says, "When I was younger, I thought I would spend the rest of my life in an institution and I would try to find a corner and sit and knit, so I would not bother anybody."

Judith, wow, that sounds rough and touches my heart.

So good luck and thank you for sharing.

(lighthearted music) My next guest lives in a small town in Iowa where she takes care of her family and spends her spare time working on her second book.

- I grew up on a farm about 20 miles from here, a small farm, and was very shy.

(laughs) I was a very shy farm girl.

I even went to country school for the first few years before I went to town school.

- In those days farm jobs were different depending on who you were.

- I was kind of a tomboy, I preferred being outside.

And working with the animals and I can remember I wanted to drive the tractor and so we had this old tractor that my, I think a nephew has it now.

And they made it so that, you know how they restored, that's the word, they restored it.

Anyway it didn't have any automatic starter.

You had to turn this one big wheel to get it going.

- Yep.

- And it had to, you had to get it going fast enough it would catch and then it would start.

And that wheel was big and heavy and you couldn't drive the tractor 'til you could start it.

And so I can remember tugging on that wheel.

(laughs) - On that darn wheel.

- Here's one reason Judy didn't aspire to have her own farm.

- Yeah, I loved the farm.

If I was a girl today, maybe I might, I would've maybe stayed and farmed, but that wasn't, it just didn't look good to me because the only woman farmer I knew was an old maid who took care of her invalid sister and they had a rundown dumpy farm.

And that was my only role model of a woman farmer.

- Judy told me about being teased as a child.

- There was kind of a prejudice when I went to school the town kids kinda looked down on the country kids, like they were dirty country hicks or something.

And that always made me, well we would, we went on the school bus then, so the country kids came off the school bus, and we would many times leave our over shoe boots, you know that might have mud and stuff on it.

We'd leave them there on the bus so that we didn't have to walk into the school with our muddy boots.

Those were the kind of things that happened.

And actually my father and my grandfather, my father's father, had each had a year at college, which was in those days- - Unusual, yeah.

- That was, you know, more than a lot of the town kids' fathers and grandfathers have had.

- After years of dealing with family health challenges the death of their adult daughter, and financial struggles, Judy is now the sole caretaker in the house.

Her doctor has prescribed medication to help calm her down.

Plus she has a non-medical solution.

You're about 79 years old, your husband's 87, you've become his caretaker, and now you're the only driver in the family.

And you are also the caretaker for your 56 year old son who has disabilities and there's no one else.

Is that correct, that there's no one else?

- That's true.

- So do you, I mean, you must worry about what if something were to happen to you?

- Yeah, I do.

Actually I was- - Oh my gosh, oh my gosh.

I can't imagine.

I can't imagine the anxiety.

Gosh darn it, you need more of those pills.

(laughs) - Well, I was, I had been neglecting myself some.

And so when I was to see my routine visit to my doctor and why we talk about what I'm, you know, doing to take care of myself.

So I told him, okay, I am making a pledge, I will go back and take walks.

I will take my walk every day until I see you six months from now.

- Judy has a lot of what we used to call pluck.

The modern word I think is resilience.

- And I have good friends I talk to on the phone and I have three grandkids now living here in town that are, they're all grown.

- And these are your son's children?

- Let's see, one is.

And the other two are the daughters that had died, that was her only kids.

So they're both here in town so I'm kind of mother to them too now.

- Oh my gosh.

Whew.

You have a lot of capacity.

Oh my goodness.

(Judy laughs) Judy is a longtime Quaker social activist.

You can find her first book, "Paradise Still Has Snakes: Seeking Peace in a Nuclear World", online.

She's currently working on an autobiography.

But what about you?

Are you a caregiver for a loved one in your home?

Is it a parent, a spouse, an adult child, or someone else?

What is that like?

(lighthearted music) For season two, we've conducted 39 new in-depth interviews with diverse baby boomers, coast to coast.

- And I told my mother, I says, and I'm crying, I says, "I almost drowned, I almost drowned."

This is the middle of wintertime, you know?

And she turns to me and she goes, "Well you didn't."

(both laughing) - I think in my elementary school there were maybe I think there was one other Asian family, I think they had two daughters.

So we always stood out.

(energetic music) - [Roberto] Just for fun, every season two episode includes a new Boomer Quiz.

This time with engaging archival images and more questions to test our audience's boomer IQ.

(lighthearted music) For season two, we're also introducing exciting new action segments called Boomer Passions.

Each half hour episode will contain one of these original short films 2 to 5 minutes long about the hobbies, pastimes, and passions of Americans after retirement.

- Thankfully there's places like MSPCA.

- Father often work in restaurants from 3 o'clock on to midnight.

- To me time, it doesn't mean anything.

- [Claire] Susan, I have your groceries here.

- Ooh, I'm so happy with that.

(upbeat music) (lighthearted fun music) - I am here in Holyoke, Massachusetts, a once thriving industrial city, now post-industrial.

I'm here to check out an interesting program that is today teaching a group of high school students from this town all about nature.

Birding and leaving no trace.

This program is located in a town called Peru.

Let's check it out.

(upbeat music) - And I'm the co-founder of Eagle Eye Institute.

My name is Anthony Sanchez.

- [Roberto] Okay, and what is Eagle Eye Institute?

- It's an organization that's geared toward getting young people connected with the outdoors, giving them the opportunity most of the time, first opportunity to get outside and explore nature, and learn about nature.

- Hi, I'm Melanie.

I'm a PhD student at UMass Amherst.

I'll be doing a bird walk with you guys and some birding we can do here.

And hopefully when you go back to Holyoke.

(fast upbeat music) - The thing I like most today was just being outdoors with new people that enjoyed it and learning some new things.

- My name is Abimael Acevedo, I'm a math teacher at Holyoke High Dean Campus.

As a youth that grew up in Holyoke, I've never had the opportunity to go out into the woods.

So for these students here to have that chance, I think is really, really powerful.

- So my name's Tiffany Garcia.

I am from Holyoke.

So I was born in Puerto Rico, Carolina.

And once I turned 5 I had moved to Springfield and I moved in with my aunt and it was just me and my mom, my siblings, my two siblings, my brother and my sister.

So it was just us and my mom worked really hard all the time.

I don't go out much, like I didn't get to go out much into the wilderness and enjoy nature, and being here, it's like going back to my childhood moments, it reminds me of like just happy moments when I was younger and it's really refreshing.

(peaceful music) - So the lesson of the eagle which I tell young people about, first of all you need to have your wings.

And your wings are like your skillset, your talent, your education, and you need your wings to fly.

But an eagle doesn't just flap its wings, it soars on thermals of air.

These are opportunities that are presented to you in life.

So I tell young people take advantage of opportunities, like we have an opportunity here today with young people engaged in nature.

- My name is Alexander Kolozov, I come from Holyoke, Massachusetts.

And what I think about today is, it was pretty good today, that we went to go see different types of birds with a few, our instructor gave us a nice manual, and a pair of binocular so we can see the different types of birds as well.

And yeah, it's pretty good.

(birds chirping) - Well, when we got together, Anthony and I, we wanted to create more peace in the world.

That was our unified mission and we felt that bringing people to nature was helping to create peace with oneself, peace with nature, and peace with others.

- [Roberto] Anthony and Maja are so passionate about bringing nature to kids that they started this camp on a volunteer basis.

With time they realized that in order for the program to grow it would have to be funded.

So they formed a nonprofit to do outreach to local schools and community groups.

- And it's been really powerful to see students come, new students come, and old students return, and just see their growth after these trips and these outings that we do it really comes full circle.

They're learning skills, they're having fun and they don't even know it.

- We're using nature as a tool for youth development, to present young people with all of this, is mind blowing when they haven't seen it, and been in it, and they realize that their world is a lot bigger than they thought.

(lighthearted music) (energetic music) (energetic music continues) - Thanks so much.

Please go to our website and take our survey and let us know if you're interested in doing a video call interview with me.

I'm really looking forward to hearing your story online.

(lighthearted music) (lighthearted music continues) (lighthearted music continues) (lighthearted music) (upbeat music)