WOOF: 50 Women Over 50 -- Dorothy Height

Wednesday's R 4 WOOFers!

And today we're honoring a fearless female the world lost last week at the young age of 98.

A woman who helped pave the way for women of all colors and creeds.

A woman who in the 60s organized "Wednesdays in Mississippi" to encourage dialogue between Northern and Southern white and black women in an effort to ease racial tension.

A woman who was instrumental with the YWCA until she was 60, and president of the National Council of Negro Women into her 80's.

A woman who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. and at the age of 25 met then-First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McLeod Bethune, founder of the NCNW.

A woman whose life changed when she was told by Bethune that the council needed her. She wrote in her memoir Open Wide the Freedom Gates, "I remember how [Bethune] made her fingers into a fist to illustrate for the women the significance of working together to eliminate injustice."

In 2003 the President of the United States awared this lady the Congressional Gold Medal on which her words were inscribed: "...I am grateful to have been in a time and place where I could be a part of what was needed."

In memory of Dr. Dorothy Irene Height (1912-2010)
(Photo: David Kohl / / March 13, 2008)
To read more on Dr. Height's life and accomplishments, click here.

***************

For more Women Only Over Fifty thoughts & stories:

WOOF available through Amazon and Echelon Press!

Buy New WOOF Download Companion

Accentuate The Pawsitive!

Happily Ever After

A few weeks ago, I saw a small sign that I just had to buy. It read: "It Is Never Too Late To Live Happily Ever After." Being a WOOFer who got a second chance at love, it spoke to me and that little wooden plaque now makes a statement from my living room wall.

It occurred to me that the plaque could be meaningful to a lot of women over fifty. It not only represents another chance to share a lifetime of commitment, those words also ring true for the woman who has embarked upon a second career, found satisfaction volunteering or discovered that she is truly content being single. I think it would be fitting for my sister, also. At the age of fifty, she adopted a child from China and now--ten years later, she is very happy that she took on the role of motherhood for the first time in her mature years.

We all need to remember that we are never too old to live happily ever after.

Melinda

WOOF: 50 Women Over 50 -- Rita Rudner

The list is endless. Women Only Over Fifty (WOOFers) who lead vibrant, meaningful lives and just seem to get younger every day.

Rita Rudner .

The name of her website says it all. www.ritafunny.com

Sure, she's made her profession (and millions) being hilarious, but ya gotta give the woman credit for making us all laugh with nary a cuss word.

She's known for such quips as:

"Before I met my husband, I'd never fallen in love, though I'd stepped in it a few times."

"My mother buried, three husbands, and two of them were just napping."

"In Hollywood a marriage is a success if it outlasts milk."

And our WOOFers' Favorite

(in fact we used it in our book Women Only Over Fifty!):

"I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult."

Be sure and check out her website to find out more about this talented and savvy woman over fifty...who is definitely STILL a puppy at heart!

***************

For more Women Only Over Fifty thoughts & stories:

WOOF available through Amazon and Echelon Press!

Buy New WOOF Download Companion

Accentuate The Pawsitive!

Eye Of My Heart - Barbara Graham - A Review

I have the distinct pleasure of reviewing Barbara Graham's New York Times Best Seller, "Eye Of My Heart," a collection of 27 writers who reveal the hidden pleasures and perils of being grandmothers, recently released in paperback! But, first, here's a little insight into the author/editor.

Barbara Graham Bio:

Until my granddaughter, Isabelle Eva, was born in 2006, I had no clue just how complicated—and full of wonder—the role of grandmother could be. But when I turned to the place I always turn to for wisdom—books—I couldn’t find anything literary that addressed my alternately joyful, perplexing, painful, amusing—but always profound—new status. And so Eye of My Heart: 27 Writers Reveal the Hidden Pleasures and Perils of Being a Grandmother was born.

I have been working as an essayist and journalist for twenty-five years. Some of the magazines in which my articles have appeared are: O, The Oprah Magazine (where I’ve been a contributing writer), Time, More, National Geographic Traveler, Food & Wine, Glamour, People, Redbook, Self, Tricycle, Utne Reader, and Vogue. I’ve been very lucky to have met editors who share many of my preoccupations—children (and now grandchildren), death, insomnia, food, impossible mothers—and they invite me to write about these subjects.

I trained as an actress and in my twenties I began writing plays. My work has been produced at theatres around the country and in Europe, and published by Dramatists Play Service. Two plays, Jacob’s Ladder and Camp Paradox, were produced Off-Broadway in New York City at the WPA Theatre, and another play, Polishing Silver, was commissioned by the Actors Theatre of Louisville. I have been playwright-in-residence at Trinity College, Hartford, and a resident fellow at the Millay Colony for the Arts.

My early resume also includes (but is not limited to) stints as a nude model at the Art Students’ League in New York; cocktail waitress at the El San Juan Hotel in Puerto Rico; batik artist (for which I had zero talent) in Topanga Canyon; spaghetti western typist at a dubbing studio in Rome; and my personal favorite, publicist for an outpatient leprosy clinic at a hospital near San Francisco. Many of my jobs lasted only until lunch.

I have a son, Clay McLachlan, an exceptional photographer, who with his wife, Tamar, and my granddaughter, Isabelle Eva, the eye of my heart and the inspiration for the book, divide their time between Paris and Italy.



Author photo by Richard Mallory Allnutt

"Eye Of My Heart" review:

This collection of passionate, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes funny stories begins with a beautiful introduction by Mary Pipher who's own grandson, A. B. is the "somersault king of Nebraska."

Did I get your grandmotherly attention with that little nugget? All our grandchildren are special in one way or another and "Eye Of My Heart" brings out the compassion, joy and pain of being Nonna, Nana, Oma, Sooz, or Grandma.

Intriguing titles such as, How I Got To Be The Queen of England, by Elizabeth Berg, and The Owie Tree, by Sandra Benetiz makes this book a must read regardless of which path your grandmotherhood has taken. And, then Déjà Vu chronicling the fear, depression and resentment that Marcie Fitzgerald faces in raising her psychologically-challenged grandson, the son of a daughter, incapable of raising her own child.

In the title piece, Eye of My Heart, Barbara Graham faces the pain of separation from her two-month old granddaughter, Isabelle Eva, when her family moves back to Paris. Her Buddhist teachings helped her cope with the realization that she's "non-essential personnel" in her granddaughter's life. Many of us can relate to that uncomfortable, but sometimes freeing realization in the lives of our grandchildren.

In Roxanna Robinson's story, Nana, she comes to grips with the fact that she isn't in charge; she can adore without being responsible. She says, "It's like being told you no longer have to eat vegetables, only dessert—and really only the icing."

"Eye of My Heart" is pure icing. Chocolate fudge, at that!

To read more about Barbara Graham, click here for a recent interview.

To order the newly released paperback version of, "Eye Of My Heart" on Amazon

To read more about Barbara Graham, visit her website

***************

For more Women Only Over Fifty thoughts & stories:

WOOF available through Amazon and Echelon Press!

Buy New WOOF Download Companion

Accentuate The Pawsitive!

WOOF: 50 Women Over 50 -- Gloria Steinem

The list is endless. Women Only Over Fifty (WOOFers) who lead vibrant, meaningful lives and just seem to get younger every day.

In a recent interview Gloria Steinem was asked some very “old” questions. Ones the writer/journalist/activist has answered time and again over her decades-long feminist career. Perhaps the weariest of questions addressed Steinem’s physical attractiveness, and did she have concerns it played a role in her success.

Steinem’s answer underscored the mistake it is to assess women by the way they look, as opposed to attributes like “our heads and hearts.” She added that at 75, she’s still being asked that question. (The interviewer quipped if she were 75, she’d be thrilled. Steinem assured her she would not.)

Now, whether or not WOOFers share Steinem’s politics and/or feminist views, many of us may agree with the co-founder of MS Magazine on one point she raised, paraphrased here: As we age, the years bring with them a kind of freedom.

No more attempts at being a superwoman (a feminist myth she has tirelessly fought to dispel.)

No more guilt about what a woman should or should not do, think or be.

No more fear of growing up.

To some, it may seem Steinem has always embodied those qualities. One thing is for sure, she is forever a fearless advocate of women's rights.

WOOF salutes one of our generation’s change agents, Gloria Steinem.

***************

For more Women Only Over Fifty thoughts & stories:

WOOF available through Amazon and Echelon Press!

Buy New WOOF Download Companion

Accentuate The Pawsitive!

Eye Of My Heart - An Interview With Barbara Graham

WOOF is proud to bring you an interview with Barbara Graham, the author of Women Who Run With Poodles (how perfect for WOOFers!) and Eye Of My Heart...

"Until my granddaughter, Isabelle Eva, was born in 2006, I had no clue just how complicated—and full of wonder—the role of grandmother could be. But when I turned to the place I always turn to for wisdom—books—I couldn’t find anything literary that addressed my alternately joyful, perplexing, painful, amusing—but always profound—new status. And so Eye of My Heart: 27 Writers Reveal the Hidden Pleasures and Perils of Being a Grandmother was born."
A conversation with Barbara Graham, editor of Eye of My Heart, conducted by Mark Matousek, author of When You’re Falling, Dive; and Sex, Death, Enlightenment, and a former editor at Interview magazine.

Q: What made you decide to write about being a grandmother?

A: From the moment my son and daughter-in-law announced that a baby was on the way, I began to get an inkling of just how complicated grandmotherhood could be—especially since they were living overseas at the time and my husband and I lived in Washington.

Q: Is that when you decided on grandmotherhood as a subject?

A: No. But I started keeping a very detailed journal of my experience right after Isabelle Eva was born. There was such a riptide of emotion and, being a writer, I simply had to record it in order to make sense of it. By then my son and daughter-in-law had moved to DC to be near us—an incredible gift—and they found a house a mile away. I held Isabelle when she was just minutes old.

Q: When did you suspect that your experience might turn into a book?

A: Soon after she was born, my daughter-in-law and I were walking her around the neighborhood and it just hit me how radically different grandmotherhood is from motherhood. Interestingly, the same primal protective—even possessive—feelings get triggered, but when you become a grandmother you realize very quickly that you have absolutely no control, no say in anything. That afternoon I understood for the first time that Isabelle is mine—but not mine. I thought it would be interesting to explore the range of emotions and experiences that were getting stirred up.

Q: What made you decide to invite other writers to join you in exploring the subject instead of writing your own book?

A: Originally I planned to write my own book, but when Isabelle was four weeks old my son and his wife concluded that moving to Washington had been a mistake—even though they enjoyed being near us—and one month later they were on a plane headed back to Europe. After that I only saw her in brief, intense spurts, a week here, two weeks there.

Q: That must have been really difficult.

A: There are no words to describe my grief when they left. It felt like a death. But it wasn’t a death, just a dramatic change in circumstances beyond my control. At a certain point, I realized that I simply had to get past my feelings of loss. I had to reconfigure my relationship to my son and his family, as well as my own longing to be involved in Isabelle’s life in an ongoing way, when every visit doesn’t have to be planned months in advance.

Q: Do you think the stories are different now than they were in your grandmother’s time or even when your own mother became a grandmother?

A: Absolutely. Our lives are so different. Most grandmothers I know—certainly those of my boomer generation—work and continue to pursue their own passions in life, which almost always include but aren’t limited to their grandchildren. Many of us have been divorced and our extended families include stepgrandparents, as well as the usual other set of grandparents. Many grandmothers, like me, live far away from the grandkids. My own grandmother lived a few blocks from our house and was available to take care of me at a moment’s notice.

Q: How did you go about finding the contributors?

A: Every which way. I started with two writer friends—Kate Lehrer and Susan Shreve—who are grandmothers. They immediately signed on and suggested other writers. Other friends knew someone who knew someone. I also combed the internet trying to figure which authors whose work I love are grandmothers—not information easily come by. Maybe because it connotes being a woman of a certain age, many writers who are devoted grandmothers don’t mention that fact in their bios. I also called several contributors out of the blue.

Q: Obviously, you got a good response.

A: This was a book waiting to happen. One author said, “This will give me a chance to explore issues I’ve been avoiding since my grandchildren were born.”

Q: I was really struck by just how revealing the stories are. Weren’t the writers worried about offending their adult children?

A: Yes, so much so that two of the contributors wrote under pseudonyms. I encouraged each writer to be as honest as possible without endangering her invitation to future Thanksgiving dinners.

To read more about Barbara Graham, visit her website

New out in Paperback! To order "Eye Of My Heart" on Amazon

Coming soon, a review of "Eye Of My Heart." (an absolutely amazing collection of stories in this WOOFer's opinion!)

***************

For more Women Only Over Fifty thoughts & stories:

WOOF available through Amazon and Echelon Press!

Buy New WOOF Download Companion

Accentuate The Pawsitive!

Nancy Lopez: 50 Women Over 50

My first experience with golf came before I ever held a club. Our local golf course (one of the original founders being my grandfather) had sand greens. In case you're not familiar with the concept, packed sand took the place of grass. At one time, Augusta had sand greens! A small piece of carpet attached to a handle served to smooth the sand back down for the next group after a foursome finished putting. I was about eight. Guess who was the "carpet caddie?"

But, even that relatively thankless job didn't diminish my excitement about golf, so around age 10, I picked up my first clubs. 5 decades later, I'm still playing. Much of my early love for the game has to go to a young golfer who won her first Women's Amateur tournament at age 12, then went on to win the U.S. Junior Girls Championship when she was 15 and 17. Playing in her first U. S. Women's Open as an amateur, NANCY LOPEZ finished tied for 2nd.

Lopez is the only woman to win LPGA Rookie of the Year, Player of the Year, and the Vare Trophy in the same season (1978). She won the 2003 Billie Jean King Contribution Award from the Women's Sports Foundation and is the first woman to receive the Frances Ouimet Award for Lifelong Contributions to Golf.

To read more about the life and career of Nancy Lopez, click on Wikipedia.

***************

For more Women Only Over Fifty thoughts & stories:

WOOF available through Amazon and Echelon Press!

Buy New WOOF Download Companion

Accentuate The Pawsitive!

WOOF: Past, Present and Future

A group of 40 year old girl friends discussed where they should meet for dinner. Finally, it was agreed upon that they should meet at the Ocean View restaurant because the waiters there had tight pants and nice buns.

10 years later at 50 years of age, the group once again discussed where they should meet for dinner. Finally it was agreed that they should meet at the Ocean View restaurant because the food there was very good and the wine selection was good also.

10 years later at 60 years of age, the group once again discussed where they should meet for dinner. Finally it was agreed that they should meet at the Ocean View restaurant because they could eat there in peace and quiet and the restaurant had a beautiful view of the ocean.

10 years later, at 70 years of age, the group once again discussed where they should meet for dinner. Finally it was agreed that they should meet at the Ocean View restaurant because the restaurant was wheel chair accessible and they even had an elevator.

10 years later, at 80 years of age, the group once again discussed where they should meet for dinner. Finally it was agreed that they should meet at the Ocean View restaurant because they had never been there before.

***************

For more Women Only Over Fifty thoughts & stories:

WOOF available through Amazon and Echelon Press!

Buy New WOOF Download Companion

Accentuate The Pawsitive!