happy st. patti's day to all me fellow pat's and patsy's!

you know what?

i think old people are absolutely wonderful and adorable. i should say "older" - not "old." dont want to offend.

but when i am driving down the street and i see a beautifully wrinkled black woman, walking slowly with her bag of goodies, it makes me smile. older people hold a lot of wonder for me. looking into their eyes is like being privy to a peek at their joys and struggles. i love how fragile some of them are, and that, even if you never knew them when they were younger, you can tell they've shrunk a bit.

i respect older people so much, because even if their not perfect angels (and some are not. some are cratchety and mean) still they have lived and endured on this earth for much longer than i have. they've seen more, heard more, lived more than me. and i could sit for days listening to their stories. i love to talk sometimes, but when i am in the presense of poeple over sixty-five, i like to shut up and soak up as much as i can.

i love visiting with andrew's grandma for that reason. somehow she and i usually end up alone in conversation at family parties - she passionatly telling her stories to me. often it's a story she's told me before, about her life forty years ago -when she was a young, struggling mother. a shaping time in her life, i think. she's amazing. she had three boys in cloth diapers at one point - and no washing machine! i hope i get to listen to her stories for many more years. younger generations could learn a lot of we all stopped to listen to our grandparents stories.

with the coming of old age, i know there sometimes comes aches and pains, but i still think i will enjoy being older. hopefully i will have someone who will enjoy listening to me ramble about the days back when . . . .