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Our Families - Our Lives. Write-Link Project
Laura C.
Creative Writing Bio In comparing young people to the elderly generation, quite a few stereotypes
come to mind. True or not, they generally color the way people of a
certain age are judged. Adolescents are gregarious, social creatures
about town, while seniors are lonely hermits, who stow away in dusty
houses with crews of cats. The youth laugh and play while the elderly
frown. Teens are as focused on the future, on moving out and moving
on, as old people are on the times long past, acting as constant nostalgia
acts. As popular as these seemingly all-encompassing stereotypes are,
there are those that refuse to prescribe to them. Doris, a member of
the Ypsilanti Senior Citizen Center, is one of those people.
She describes herself as independent and having her own life, which
is easy to believe when speaking with her. She was willing to give information
about her past and would answer all questions, but it was obvious that
the past is not something that interests her. Instead, she prefers to
talk about her current life, one that is full of activity. Doris is
an active member of her church and participates in Friends of the Library
and shut-ins, as well taking care of her mother and playing with her
two grandchildren. She tells of a friend of hers who simply hides behind
her social husband and never does anything. A life like that would never
appeal to someone like Doris.
Her favorite topic of conversation is the Senior Center, and all it
has done for her and her mother, who also attends. She happily chatters
about the activities and things there are to do at the center, which
at first seems almost boring. The point of the interview is to discuss
her past and childhood, and all she can think to say is how much she
loves the bingo? But soon it becomes apparent that she is showing a
key side of herself in this conversation. In her mind, the past is done
with. She has "done everything I wanted to do" and since moved
on from that, and is now living for the moment.
That is not to say the past has had no bearing on her life. In fact,
it's easy to make connections between the life she had, and herself
today. To start at the beginning, Doris was born in Mississippi, on
a farm. She lived approximately 700 miles away from her aunts and uncles,
and grew up with both grandmothers dead. This left her immediate family,
including her four siblings, with nothing but the countryside and the
neighbor's children to occupy their time. Around the age of 8, her family
moved to the comparatively crowded town of Ypsilanti. She attended and
graduated from Roosevelt High School in the 1950s.
Doris describes life back then to be much simpler than it is now. A
half a century ago, kids had more innocence, more naivety, and had a
better sense of manners and courtesy. She was heavily involved in her
church youth group, so of course her own peers weren't involved in much
nefarious activity. But even teenagers as a whole were better behaved.
Her description of their nights is an exact copy of the rosy sketches
of the fifties seen in movies and books. Get-togethers back then usually
involved nothing more serious than popcorn and Kool-aid, playing board
games on someone's back porch. Hayrides and roller-skating with the
church boys they all dated constituted a good night out. As far as rebellion
goes, even sneaking one beer out of their parents' refrigerators was
considered a big deal. She told a story about a Halloween party she
attended in 9th grade, where boys where boys were passing out cigarettes.
She tried one but, remembering her lack of allowance, realized she couldn't
support a habit anyway. From there, she made the decision to not smoke.
Doris and her friends didn't do much by way of bad things, and that
was fine by them.
As soon as she graduated high school, Doris went straight into the
workforce, which she says at the time was blossoming. Jobs were available
everywhere in the late '50s, with teacher unions just starting up and
the automobile companies growing by the minute. Doris landed a job at
a telephone company, one which she would keep for the next thirty or
so years. Most girls at the time were getting married right out of high
school, but she decided to go the other direction, not being exactly
sure what she wanted to do with her life. Being able to have her own
career and make her own money gave Doris the independent and proactive
spirit she carries with her today.
This strong sense of self came in handy when she had to raise her only
son as a single mother, after a divorce which she declined to comment
on. For about nine years the two of them lived alone, and Doris decided
early on that she would not let him be a lonely, in addition to only,
child. She always forced him outside and played with him. Her tomboy
side came into effect at these times, and she was not afraid to get
dirty herself when playing around with her son. She firmly believed
that "boys should be boys". Her second husband, who lived
under a domineering mother until he was thirty, was jealous of his stepson.
Because of her husband's childhood, Doris knew she would allow her son
to grow up and move on with his life, and that his freedom was necessary
to his happiness.
The clean and simple living Doris was familiar with was soon challenged
when her son began to grow up and get older. She knew very little about
drugs herself, so when her son experimented with marijuana in high school,
she admitted to struggling with it. How could she deal with something
she barely understood? He also rebelled in a slightly less serious manner
by growing his hair long. In the fifties, boys were expected to have
short, neatly kept styles, so his shaggy locks drove her crazy. Being
35 now and having two kids of his own, Doris says he now appreciates
and understands her traditional way of living more.
Although she is one for living in the moment and not looking towards
the past, Doris does lament certain things about modern society. To
her, some aspects of the fifties seem unfortunately lost. In addition
to teenagers and children being more respectable back then, the idea
of being a woman was entirely different. Women were expected to wear
hats and skirts in public at all times, especially at church. They cooked
at home often, before the advent of drive-through and fast food restaurants.
When women ceased that, they simultaneously lost a certain sense of
femininity. Though it's doubtful that Doris believes women should be
slaves to their home and kids, she does miss the idea of womanhood attached
to those things. Women should be proper, feminine, and have doors opened
and chairs pulled out for them. She finds no shame in being that stereotype
of a woman.
Another thing she misses is the sense of community. Though she is obviously
an independent lady, the one thing Doris adores above all else is building
connections with the people around her. Comparing growing up in rural
isolation to being surrounded by friends at the Senior Center, Doris
clearly prefers the latter. It's easy to see from the enthusiasm with
which she speaks of her current lifestyle. She feels like families and
neighborhoods used to be tighter-knit. Nowadays, nobody is invited over
for dinner; no kids are allowed to roam around the neighborhood after
dark - all because nobody trusts each other anymore. The loss of those
seemingly old-fashioned ideals like community and trust are ruining
society as a whole, which saddens her.
After seeing and speaking with Doris, one would hardly classify her
as a senior citizen. She is active, social, and has an infectious laugh.
She doesn't love everything about modern society, but she is definitely
embracing with more enthusiasm than most seniors around. If more people
like her were in town, it's doubtful that the idea of the elderly as
most know it would perpetuate. If there ever was a one for breaking
that stereotype, it's Doris.
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