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When a man and a woman marry, there are adjustments, even for people like Ken and me who came from similar backgrounds. During those early days when we were getting used to living together, I often thought of the outspoken, young Japanese woman who was my friend while I was in the TB sanitarium a couple years earlier. Her husband was an Illinois farmer who had been stationed in Japan with the air force. I can’t even imagine their many differences.

Food seems to be one of the big hurdles. The first Christmas Day I ate a turkey dinner with Ken’s foks, I was relieved when his mother’s dressing tasted similar to Mom’s. It’s one of those dishes that has many variations. One of my friends told of choking down her mother-in-law’s oyster stuffing every Thanksgiving.

I liked to cook and Ken had a big appetite, but mealtime brought our first disagreement. The problem arose when we finished eating and each of us reached for a toothpick. My family had always used the flat ones; he preferred the round ones.

It was definitely a small problem, but as an only child, I never learned to negotiate, compromise and just plain give in. I was in charge. I couldn’t see any compromise and I didn’t want to give in. It took awhile for me to figure out my grocery bill wouldn’t be any higher if I bought two boxes of toothpicks at a time–one of each. The holder that sat in the middle of the table easily held some round and some flat toothpicks. That set the stage for coming to terms with future differences.

How have you reached a compromise with those you share a home with?

Overchoice is where a broad array of choices decreases satisfaction or quality of life. I think we’ve reached that point.

It takes me longer in the grocery store, not because I’m older, but because I’m dealing with too many choices. As a young mother with babies in washable diapers, I lifted down the biggest box of Tide powder detergent sitting on the shelf between Duz, Dreft and Ivory Snow. Today there is a whole row of Tide liquid in various sizes and mixes–Cold Tide, Tide ultra Oxy, Tide with Downy and various other combinations. I must look closely for the quarter-inch high letters “he” to be sure I am choosing one that will work in my front-loading, automatic washer.

It’s the same thing with most items on my list. I can’t just grab my preferred brand of canned tomatoes. I must bend down below the rows of chili ready, garlic and olive oil or other mixes.

In the old days, those who lived in town, turned on the spigot at the kitchen sink for a glass of chlorinated water from the community well. On the farm where I grew up, we had our own pump that tapped into an underground spring that gave us clean, good-tasting water. Today, there’s a section in the store for various brands of bottled water.

When I was a child, an ice cream cone was vanilla, chocolate or strawberry in the grocery store. My children chose from 31 flavors in the Baskin Robbins shop.

I hate picking up a mechanical item for Ken. No matter how well my husband preps me, a clerk always asks one more question than I have the answer.

Do you find it exasperating to make so many choices in everyday life?

Last Thursday morning, nineteen bikers, some with passengers, were up with the sun to begin the trip from Sterling/Rock Falls, Illinois, to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. The St. Jude Rides group was delivering the $56,000 they had raised during the past year along with a truck box of toys. My husband followed with our pick-up pulling their trailer carrying ice chests filled with water and soft drinks. (I rode along.) If anyone had a problem along the way, the motorcycle could be stowed inside the van and our crew cab had room for two passengers. The sun beat down and the temperature climbed to the mid-nineties. Gas tanks and bladders required frequent stops.

Motorcycle cops wearing knee-high, leather boots and sturdy helmets escorted us from state to state. The troopers halted traffic at each signal light and stop sign. As soon as we all passed through, the men in uniform straddled their Harleys and roared ahead. Their warning lights flashed and sirens barked to clear their path to the next intersection.

We spent Thursday night at the Pear Tree motel in Sikeston, Missouri, and were back on the road early Friday morning. Along the way, we were joined by delegations from Peoria and Princeton, Illinois; Des Moines, Iowa; Nashville and Dyersburg Tennessee. By the time we rolled into Memphis, the line-up of two hundred motorcycles plus support vehicles stretched about two miles.

At 11.45 A.M., we entered the St. Jude complex that includes multiple, large buildings with another under construction. After a box lunch, the program began with the group leaders presenting a combined check for $1,007,150, a record amount raised by the room full of people wearing maroon shirts with the St. Jude Rides emblem. During the past thirteen years, their donations have totaled more than $7.1 million. The hospital costs about $2.2 million a day to run.

The program continued with an informative talk from a woman who works at the facility. She had written a song for the staff to serenade a child at completion of chemo treatment. The lyrics appeared on a large screen and she invited everyone to sing along.

A mother with her seven-year-old daughter told what it’s like to hear, “Your child has cancer,” and find hope at St. Jude’s. Families never receive a bill for treatment, travel, housing or food–because all a family should worry about is helping their child live. The program concluded with a tour of the facility, which was founded in 1962 by entertainer Danny Thomas. The treatments invented there have helped push the overall childhood cancer survival rate from 20 percent when they opened to 80 per cent today.

What’s your favorite charity?

Who decides these green things are plants to be cultivated and those are weeds to be eradicated?

Milkweeds, named for the milky, white sap found in their stems, grow up to six feet tall with broad, egg-shaped leaves, fragrant pink flowers and green pods. The perennials are poisonous to most animals but proven lifesavers for humans and monarch butterflies.

During World War II, the government asked my dad and other farmers like him to wait until fall to mow the interlopers growing in the corners of their fields. In early September, us kids fought our way through the head-high patches and gathered their pods. A pound-and-a-half of the floss from the pods could be sewed inside a life preserver, which would keep a 150-pound sailor afloat for ten hours.

Today, people are urged to grow milkweeds to prevent the extinction of monarch butterflies. The plants are the insects’ food source, home and nursery. According to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service statistics, nearly a billion monarchs have vanished since 1990. Herbicides used by farmers and homeowners to eliminate milkweeds are blamed.

The king of butterflies with their familiar four-inch, black, orange and white patterned wing spans floating in slow, sailing flights aren’t just pretty to watch, they are pollinators needed for plants to reproduce. Their bright color warns predators they make a poisonous snack.

Do you consider milkweeds intruders to be eliminated on your land or friendly plants to be cultivated in your garden?

Today is my birthday. Let me fill you in on a little history of my generation. Those of us conceived during the Great Depression of the 1930s are the smallest group in the twentieth century–people didn’t need another mouth to feed. Only 24.4 million birth cries were heard in the United States after the stock market crash of ’29 compared to 31.7 million in the forties and 40.3 million in the fifties.

We “remember Pearl Harbor” and did our little bit for the war effort. Following high school, our boys marched to battle in Korea, the first in a string of undeclared wars. President Eisenhower ended that conflict in 1952, but the Cold War with Russia continued and so did the draft. The men in uniform were trained and ready to do whatever might become necessary. The threat of nuclear weapons wafted over the globe like a mushroom cloud.

In our twenties, we settled down. Ninety-six percent of us girls wed and most had three babies. Only seven percent of those who married did not become mother, the lowest proportion of childless women in any generation in American history.

The Pill became available in the ’60s and revolutionized women’s lives. Those who had sacrificed their own college education to work for PHTs (putting hubby through) went back to school and careers. Our generation became the first to have a large number of females employed outside the home. This new independence contributed to more than a quarter of our marriages ending in divorce. This created single-parent families, which were predominately headed by mothers.

Raised on radio, we revamped TV. Mary Tyler Moore went from Dick VanDyke’s wife to the single-woman star of her own show. Other female firsts abounded: Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State; Janet Guthrie, Indianapolis 500 race car driver; Sandra Day O’Conner, Supreme Court Justice; Geraldine Ferraro, Democratic Party nominee for Vice President; and Elizabeth Dole, candidate for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination. All of those events were reported by journalists including Barbara Walters.

The Census Bureau predicts that in 2020 there will be seven to eight million 85 and older. Many will be single–one out of three American women passed 65 lives alone and one out of seven men. Strong ancestors, healthy eating, exercise, medical care and camouflage help keep us feeling good and looking good, but physical and mental impairments can reduce us to climbing molehills instead of mountains. We must continue to speak for ourselves and form partnerships with the generations following us.

What are you planning for your future?

We’re often admonished to “live in the moment,” which is good advice, but anticipation of an upcoming event can brighten dull days. September 12th through the 14th, Ken and I will accompany Lisa and her motorcycle riding friends to Memphis, Tennessee. The group is delivering their donation to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, an awesome place. My husband, who ‘moonlighted’ as a semi driver when he was a cop, will drive our pick-up and pull their trailer. The van will carry snacks for rest stops and be available to haul a motorcycle if anyone has a problem. We look forward to sharing an adventure with our daughter and seeing the people we met during a similar sojourn last year.

As the trip approaches, our time is divided between before and after. We’ll check our suitcases and packing lists to be sure we have the needed clothes and personal items. Ken will get the truck serviced. I’ll schedule a haircut and any other necessary appointments. Medications must be monitored and any needed refills obtained.

As we prepare, Ken and I will reminisce about our biking days when we were teenagers. At that time, riders didn’t need training or a special license. He bought a motorcycle, practiced a bit and stopped by our farmhouse to take me for a ride. It was a surprise when my strict mother said, “I guess it’s alright.” Before she had a chance to change her mind, I tied a scarf over my hair and climbed on behind him grabbing the edges of the big seat with both hands. He pulled down his black cap with the white bill and we roared off on his Indian for the first of many rides we took during that summer of ’53.

What are you anticipating?

I just returned from my usual walk in Salelens Park, one of Durand’s prime assets. The isolated path runs beside a stream and takes me down memory lane to the farm where I grew up. At 4:30 every afternoon, I saddled Millie and rode my pony across the creek and through the pasture to round up our twenty-four cows for evening milking.

In the spring, the yellow dandelions and purple violets glowing in the multi-shades of green alongside the blacktop are the same as the flowers I picked to place in the construction paper, May baskets I made in country school.

Later in the year, brown cattails emerge from the swampy area to remind me of a long-ago Sunday drive. Mom, sitting in the passenger seat, spotted her favorite plants along the roadside and exclaimed, “Oh, look, cattails!” Dad immediately pulled our black, ’36 Chevy sedan off the asphalt, parked and stepped into the quagmire to pick a handful of the brown plants. He returned to the car, opened the right hand door and handed Mom the fall bouquet. He then dug in the glove compartment to find an old towel to wipe his mud-smeared, gray, dress shoes. When it came to expressing affection, my folks believed the adage, actions speak louder than words.

In the winter when snow sparkles in the sunlight, the village street department employees keep the trail clear. I don my purple fedora, heavy coat and warm boots to face the cold weather unless the daytime temperature stays below 20 degrees. I believe the two-mile hike from our front door down the cement sidewalks, along the park’s paved path that circles a small pond and back home keeps me healthy physically and mentally.

Do you have a favorite place to walk?

Every morning we open our eyes and start making small and large decisions. When Kenny and I were in high school, he made a little, spur-of-the-moment decision that ended up setting the course for the rest of our lives. On a sticky, July, Friday night, I was a bored 14-year-old walking around the Davis Days summer festival with my current boyfriend, Ronnie. I loved the carnival rides but they made Ronnie sick. A bold, 16-year-old Kenny stepped up to me and asked, “Would you care to go on the Ferris wheel?” I jumped at the chance. Back on the ground, I returned to Ronnie, who was standing where I left him. Kenny went his own way. The next night the village festivities continued and so did the romance kindled between Kenny and me.

Two years later, I promised to wait for Ken when he made the big decision to enlist in the Navy. It was the Eisenhower Era of peace and prosperity, but the Cold War, a state of political and military tension between the United States and Russia, continued and so did the draft. The men in uniform were trained and ready to do whatever might become necessary. He spent his first year learning to be a sailor and to handle the ammunition and the bombs carried by planes. The following three years, he was an ordnance man aboard the U.S.S. Bennington, an aircraft carrier. The small-town boy visited both coasts of the States and travelled halfway around the world to Hong Kong, Japan and Australia.

When Ken returned home, we were married. We raised Linda, Lisa and Kurt, welcomed daughter-in-law Sandy and became the proud grandparents of Katelyn and Jacob. Ten years ago, we buried Linda who died of breast cancer. Last April, we celebrated sixty years of marriage. We enjoy growing old together.

Have you made a small decision that ended up changing your life?

The last time my husband and I ate supper in an upscale restaurant, the host seated us at a table covered with a white cloth. A young woman introduced herself as Becky, our server. She asked, “Can I get you guys something to drink?”

Sunday at church, two boys and four girls gathered around our female pastor for the children’s sermon. She greeted them with, “Good morning. It’s great to see you guys.”

While I watched a high school girls’ softball game recently, one of the players shouted, “Come on you guys, let’s get some runs.”

I cringed each time I heard gals referred to as guys. I was part of the women’s movement in the sixties and seventies that changed our country including our language. Our daughter, Lisa, became one of the females who invaded all-male bastions such as police and fire departments to become police officers and firefighters. Men joined women as flight attendants and nurses.

Why go backwards? In the fifties, Becky would have been our waitress, our pastor would have been a man and there would have been no girls’ ball team. My female school teachers assured me that documents such as The Declaration of Independence with the words, “All men are created equal,” meant girls, too. When I became an adult, I learned that wasn’t true.

The English language provides words for a mixed group such as people and children that don’t have a gender connotation. Ball players can still be ladies.

How do you refer to females or groups including both sexes?

I believe we never start our life over. We may turn down a different road, but we are all of the personae from our past like Russian matryoshkas, the wooden nesting dolls of decreasing size placed one inside the other.

My doll has nine incarnations. The smallest, a four-and-a-half-year-old wearing a cowgirl hat. Dad rode his horse, Mickey, and held a lead rope snapped to my pony’s bridle when we took jaunts together. One sunny, summer afternoon, I slipped from my sadde and landed in a bed of sand. I wasn’t hurt, but I was scared and started crying. Dad jumped down, picked me up and checked that I was okay. “Come on, get back on and we’ll go to the barn.”

“No. I don’t want to ride Millie any more. She threw me off.”

“She didn’t throw you off. You just fell off.” He lifted me onto my pony’s back and planted my feet firmly in the stirrups. I clung to the saddle horn with both hands while we slowly walked the animals to the stable. I’ve been getting back on the horse that threw me ever since.

The next is the 16-year-old, high schooler who my 18-year-old boyfriend left behind while he served a four-year hitch in the Navy. She is followed by the 19-year-old, office worker who spent five months in a tuberculosis sanitarium recovering from the life-threatening disease.

Ken returned home and I added two more, a wife and a mother. After our three children were in school, I found my calling as a journalist. Our kids grew up and our son made me a mother-in-law and a grandmother. The one you see is an older woman who is missing a piece of her heart. Ten years ago, my husband and I buried our eldest child who died of breast cancer.

How many dolls lurk inside you?