{"product_id":"if-i-live-to-be-100-isbn-9781984823502","title":"If I Live to Be 100","description":"\u003cb\u003eA beautifully written and elegantly wise book that takes us inside the world of centenarians and invites us to learn from them firsthand the art of living well for an exceptionally long period of time.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Neenah   Ellis always wanted to live to 100, and her fascination led her to interview centenarians   from all over the US about what life was like at the very beginning of the century,   and how things have changed over time. Ellis, a producer for National Public Radio,   spent an unforgettable year traveling with her tape recorder and listening to the   stories of America’s oldest men and women. She met a couple who courted by horse   and sleigh in Vermont during the winter of 1918, and she spent a week with the oldest   living black lesbian in America. She visited a nationally known expert on dyslexia   who published a book at 96 and whose great-great-grandfather was a colonel in Washington’s   army; and she met Anna Wilmot, the row-boating centenarian from New England who captured   the hearts of thousands of NPR listeners with her confession that she swims in the   buff only “when it’s foggy and there’s no fisherman around.”  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Originally conceived   as an American history project, Ellis’s year of interviews became much more, a personal   journey of growth and transformation. After two decades of acting as the reporter   and inquisitor, Ellis finally shifted gears and was able in the process of these   conversations to start really listening. Once she had put away the exigencies of   her cusp-of-the-millennium life—her deadlines, the intense focus on current events,   the endless e-mail and ringing phones—she began to learn the kinds of things that   we do from much older people. She started to connect in her conversations with them,   and to see the virtue of looking forward, as the centenarians did, not backward.   They reminded her that the moment—this very moment that we’re in right now—is precious   and fine. And that the true richness of life is to be found in each other—in our   marriages and friendships, in the intellectual life that we share with each other,   and in the ways that we become connected. Their stories add up to a course in living   well, with lessons and inspiration for all of us.NEENAH ELLIS, formerly a staff producer for NPR’s \u003ci\u003eAll Things Considered\u003c\/i\u003e, is the general manager of public radio station WYSO in Yellow Springs Ohio, where she lives with her husband, Noah Adams.1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eVictoria Williams\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"You people have so much fun now.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Victoria Williams, at 106   years old, was the size of a twelve-year-old girl. They brought her to me in a wheelchair.   On the seat next to her was a black vinyl pocketbook, its stiff handle placed up   over her shoulder. Her lips were pressed tight together. She was angry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The health   aide pushing the chair rolled her eyes as she approached me in the visitors lounge   and said in a low voice, \"We've had a rough morning.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Miss Williams, would you   like a cookie?\" she said, coming around to the front of the chair.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"I want coffee,\"   said Victoria Williams, loudly. The woman walked off without introducing us.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Good   morning,\" I said in my most chipper voice. Victoria Williams stared at me like a   bug, expressionless. I leaned toward her. There was a faint smell of urine.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"I'm   the reporter who's come to interview you.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Interview me?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"For radio. I just want   to ask you some questions about your life.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Victoria Williams was the first centenarian   I met. I had applied for a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to   interview centenarians and I needed a sample tape, to give the review panel an idea   of what my radio series might sound like. I was in a hurry; the deadline was soon.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I called the Washington Center for Aging Services, a huge home for the elderly in   Northeast D.C. It's not the kind of place I would choose to live in. The aides seemed   caring but stretched hopelessly beyond their means. I was taken to a lounge area   where residents sat silently, some watching television, some in a stupor.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I was   not surprised to find myself there for the first interview. It matched my stereotypes   and I thought, This is what happens when you're old if you have no place else to   go. I expected to see many more places like this. I also expected, at that time,   that most centenarians would be like Victoria Williams.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The skin on her face was   smooth and shiny and taut. She jutted her jaw, sliding her false teeth forward and   then back, inspecting me, shifting her attention away from her struggle with the   aide, whatever it had been.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Here's your coffee, Miss Williams.\" The aide returned   with a steaming Styrofoam cup and two chocolate-chip cookies on a napkin. Evidently,   it was a peace offering, and it was accepted.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e With her elbows on the armrests and   her dark, bony fingers wrapped delicately around the cup, Victoria Williams held   the coffee beneath her nose, inhaling the vapor.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"My mother and father died and   we had to go to work,\" she started in abruptly, without looking up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"You went to   work after they passed on?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Part-time? No! We didn't no part-time, we worked if   it was all day or all night.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I shifted closer to her right ear so she could hear   me better.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She sipped the coffee loudly and said, \"Ooh, that's hot!\" Then she continued:   \"We had to work all the time. Didn't no place stay and pay no rent. No! We worked!   We stay where we worked.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She put the edge of the cookie between her teeth and broke   off a piece, chewing as she talked, not looking at me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"You people have so much   fun now.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I wasn't sure whom she meant.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"You think people have more fun now?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Yeah, you all have a lot of fun, setting down and drinking coffee that somebody   make and give you. You didn't make and give us none. We had to make our own.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Miss   Williams, do you remember when you were a little girl?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"A little girl.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Do you   remember?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"When?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"When you were a girl. Do you remember?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Yeaaaahh.\" She dragged   out the word and smiled.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"What was it like when you were a little girl?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"We used   to know a lot of little girls in our day,\" she said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"No, I mean when you were a   little girl.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"I was in school. There were a lot of little girls.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Where did you   go to school?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Wherever Mother worked, if it wasn't too far for us to walk, we'd   go in that school.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"You walked to school?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Yeah. The teachers were nice to us,   too. There weren't no nasty teachers.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"What did you learn in school, what did you   study?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Studied everything. Graduated. Mmm-hmm. Teachers were nice to us.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Before   long it became clear that Victoria Williams could tell only one story about herself   and she kept coming back to it, as if it were a tape playing in her mind: She graduated   from high school and then from Hampton Institute in Virginia, one of the country's   first black universities, and then she taught school. She got work because she was   highly recommended. People respected her parents, who were honest and hardworking,   so she had \"good backing\" and got good jobs. She kept coming back to parts of this   story no matter what question I asked. Often she would break into a remembered conversation,   speaking both parts.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I asked her, \"Where was your daddy from?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"My daddy's son?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"No, where was he from?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"When did he . . . ?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Where was he born?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Where? I   forgot. My daddy was born somewhere in New York or New Jersey. My mother was a teacher.   She cooked and washed and ironed and taught school, too, so she had a good recommendation.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Do you know where your mother was born?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Yeah! She was born down in North Carolina.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"And where were you born?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"North Carolina.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"What town?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Near Hampton Institute.   That was the hospital where people used to go in. People didn't have their babies   out in the street. You'd have your baby in the hospital with a doctor, and when the   baby's born, the doctor would say, 'She was a healthy child,' and they'd take you   right in school. So the background helps to push you. Yeah. And then you get you   another teacher and you do pretty good. 'Well, where did you learn that?' 'I learned   that at such and such a school.' 'Oh, you went to more than one school?' 'Yes I did!'\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e After an hour or so, I began to feel frustrated, deciding that I couldn't have a   real exchange of ideas with Victoria Williams. There would be no stories from the   early part of the century, only fragments of memories that I had no hope of putting   in context. I'd just try to get some good one-liners and leave. Luckily, though,   the health aide was listening in and had more patience than I.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"When you were coming   up, when you were a little girl, did you hear much about slavery?\" she asked Miss   Williams.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"We didn't know much about slavery. We learned about the college part   of a colored person. No indeed, we were above that! Yes. Mmm-hmm. He has to either   be in college or have finished. He can't be out in the street. You can't teach him   nothin' in the street. You can help him after he got in college.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In my deaf impatience,   I failed to realize the richness of this question and changed the subject.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Miss   Williams, do you remember when you came to Washington?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e After a couple of hours,   I said good-bye. The interview had mostly been a failure. I had no coherent stories   and only a vague idea of what her life had been like.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e A couple of days later I interviewed   another lady; this one had only just turned one hundred.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Rochelle\" had a small,   sunny apartment in an assisted-living facility. She was high-spirited and bossy but   sweet, too, and a little loopy the day I met her. She assumed she knew what questions   I had and insisted on telling me right away why she had lived so long.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Ever since   I was a kid, I drew people like Bies and I still do. When I come down to dinner--I'm   not showing off, I'm telling you the truth--there's a lineup that passes me. Honest   to God, I'm not lying to you. People admire the hundred age, but people have always   been drawn to me. That's one thing I can really boast about. I always had friends.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She seemed nervous and impatient, and wanted to get this over with. I raced through   a list of questions I had prepared in an effort to do a better interview than I had   with Victoria Williams. The questions involved most of the major historical events   of the twentieth century. But Rochelle had a fuzzy memory for some things. She couldn't   remember the difference between World War I and World War II.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Oh, now I'm confused,\"   she said, her hands buttering above her lap, but with some prompting, she did recall   the end of World War I. She was living in New York at the time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"I remember the   excitement. People went out in the street, they were so happy! They were so happy!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Her eyes suddenly welled up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"It brings tears to my eyes. That I remember distinctly.   I was married by that time. I remember them rejoicing when the war was over.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She   surprised me. One moment she seemed scattered and confused, the next moment she cried.   I didn't know where to go from there.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Tell me about your husband,\" I asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Ahhh,   that's a story in itself. There isn't much to tell. I fell in love because of his   kiss. I fell in love immediately; nothing else mattered. And now, in my old age,   I take inventory.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She leaned forward conspiratorily and mouthed the word \"Nothing!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She leaned back and paused. \"I'd rather you wouldn't write about my husband. I thought   I loved him. It was just a physical attraction. But,\" she said, \"we were very happy.   We had two beautiful children.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I could not imagine telling a stranger such a thing.   I hadn't been with her more than twenty minutes. I think part of her was upset that   she had revealed so much.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Rochelle said, \"My mind is going. I can sense it. I don't   know what happens. I become confused. I don't know what the hell I'm doing half the   time.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Rochelle was aware that she was losing control and it made her agitated in   conversation with a stranger. The walls of her apartment were covered with photos   of her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and I felt glad to know   she was surrounded by people who loved her, who knew her story, who didn't care whether   she could remember the difference between World War I and World War II. My presence   was a reminder that she had changed and I made her uneasy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e From those two first   encounters I learned to be more patient, to spend more time. But I took those interviews   and made my sample tape for the grant proposal. I chose a recording of a bittersweet   Scott Joplin piano piece and played the edited tape cuts over that, with the non   sequiturs edited out.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I won the grant. I promised to interview twenty centenarians   around the country, but I would need a better strategy. I needed to get them to tell   me stories instead of one-liners. I knew how to do this, I'd been doing it for twenty   years, but never with people who had so many difficulties. The dementia, especially,   was a new factor and I expected to encounter it repeatedly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I would have to relearn   what I knew about interviewing, and I would have to edit these interviews in a way   that would make the centenarians sound coherent without completely misrepresenting   their mental condition.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The sample tape had a pleasant enough sound to it, but I   did leave in a hint of Victoria Williams's disorganized mind.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Miss Williams, I   see you have your purse with you.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Yeah, I carry it everywhere I go. That's my   driving permit and things. Because I might run into something.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"You still driving?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Yeah. And if someone said, 'You have a driving permit?' 'Certainly, I do.'\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Do   you still have your car?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Yeah. I have a car. Mmm-hmm.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"You did have a car.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"I do have a car, but I don't need it, so I leave it for my mother to drive.\"Producer of NPR's One Hundred Years of Stories","brand":"Crown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301446308069,"sku":"NP9781984823502","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781984823502.jpg?v=1767729774","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/if-i-live-to-be-100-isbn-9781984823502","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}