The first presidential election in which I was old enough to cast a vote was in 1948. I had turned 22 in April of that year, and I voted for Harry S. Truman.

I have been living with the fear of falling since my late eighties and early nineties.

Sunday is Mother’s Day. I have been a mother for more than 67 years, the longest job I have ever held.

Old age is not a subject one usually talks about around the dinner table — unless everyone around the dinner table is equally old.

As anyone who has lived on Martha’s Vineyard as long as I have knows, the price of food, housing, and just about everything was pretty steady for a few years after World War II.

When I met Johnny Mayhew, my future husband, he had just returned to Brown University to finish his education after three and a half years as a World War II Navy fighter pilot in the Pacific.