Order by phone from the Concord Booskhop: 978-369-2405 |
EldernappedYou have to be over sixty to be eligible to sign up for a Senior Seminars program. But, in fact, there is a more lenient lower age limit if you are an accompanying spouse--or in recent years, companion--and it is not uncommon to see an unwrinkled young matron in her early fifties sharing “room with private bath accommodations” with a grizzled septuagenarian. Private baths are in fact an issue. Dorm rooms with a communal bath down the hall were the norm in early Senior Seminars programs, but these are being phased out due to the frequent mid-night bladder emptyings required by most of the students. On the other hand, there is no upper age limit, although the catalog reminds prospective enrollees for certain programs that these are “for the physically fit and vigorous,” such as the two-weeker in Costa Rica. It goes on to caution that, “There is considerable walking each day in such places as the Carara mangrove swamp and along the rim of Arenal Volcano.” Otherwise, age-wise, the sky, in a manner of speaking, is the limit. And while there are few participants in their nineties and the pertinent bell-shaped curve peaks at around sixty-seven, people in their eighties abound. Amongst them, there always seems to be one special sort of wiry little old lady with a too large head and a too small body on each tour. This old lady always stands out from the others, even when nothing happens. This is as it should be. In any such activity that is tailored for the elderly, most “happenings” are humdrum. They tend to consist of no more than the pleasures of experiencing intellectual stimulation, seeing previously unknown places and meeting previously unknown people. But there can be the rare occasion when a miracle--or disaster--intrudes. In which case this lady in her eighties can be counted on to be its prime mover--if not its actual cause. Arrival Sure enough, Harry noted, there was one. And she was acting in an odd manner, even for “one of those.” Out of the corner of his eye he spied her, a knapsack on her back--they always wear knapsacks--flitting from post to post of the arcade that gave shadow to the “Arrivals “ doorway of the airport. Now he saw her, now he didn’t. Was she playing hide and seek and seek? He pointed her out to Naomi. “Where?” she asked. “Right there, back of the third, no, fourth post to the left.” “I don’t see her. Who? Who should I see?” “One of those ET women, but this one looks like she’s gone nuts.” The bus lurched out of its parking slot and zoomed into the traffic outside the airport. As it did, Naomi hissed to Harry, “Stop kicking me.” “I’m not kicking you.” But someone was. They looked down at their feet and discovered a small, coiled, female body. Bulging, steel-gray eyes peered up at them and long, knobby fingers stretched upward to grasp one of the arm rests. It was the very woman who had been flitting among the shadows around those arcade posts. She was eighty-five if she was a day, and so thin and small that her weight could not have exceeded her years.= Once settled into their room, Harry and Naomi took a short nap to sleep off their just concluded transatlantic voyage and its associated jet lag. Then, that evening, after a pleasant Italian meal--what else should it be, thought Harry--served in the hotel dining room, the students gathered for the first time in the hotel’s first floor conference room. It would be their classroom for the next two weeks. As had been the case the previous five seminars, this would be the “Get Acquainted” session. Everyone was to be called on to deliver a short autobiographical statement. Harry and Naomi always enjoyed this first meeting because no matter how interesting the place and the program were, it was even more intriguing to hear about everyone else in the group. And what they had to say was further enhanced by the fact that they had gathered together in this European place from every far-flung region of the United States.... Next, a large, florid gentleman with close cropped white hair rose to his feet. He gave an impression of being a naval officer since he wore a dark blue blazer with brass buttons. At his throat was a white silk ascot. Every female in the group focused on him. Since there was no woman with him, he had to be single. Single gentlemen at the Seminars are always outnumbered at least three to one by single ladies. He informed the group that he was Pelham Caldwell, “But everyone has always called me Pete.” He was, “a retired lawyer, corporate law to be specific, from Dallas, Texas.” Pete went on to describe the sorts of corporations he had represented in his long career. He even interspersed some detailed examples of particular client firms in the northern Texas area. With no Naomi to stop him, Harry reflected, how long would Pete go on? But Pete resumed his chair in short order and beamed at his new classmates. He seemed happy that his presentation might have given them great satisfaction. His place was now taken by none other than the dear little old lady herself, the very one who had shared Harry’s and Naomi’s bus seat earlier that day. Harry noticed that she was wearing a narrow white cotton headband that made her look as though she had a forehead and a half. He remembered that all of these special old ladies seemed to wear similar headbands, and he wondered why. He had never seen one of them sweat. “I am Emily Thorndike,” she said in clipped tones of the sort one learned to use in elocution classes, popular between World Wars I and II. “...from Elmira, New York, but I’ve lived most recently in Boulder, Colorado. I’m a retired college teacher. Taught archaeology, mostly of the Middle East, but I’ve done Greek, too. And now that I’m retired, I like to go to Senior Seminars. I’ve been to quite a few already...” [The desk clerk interrupts to inform the seminar group leader that the police are inquiring about a fugitive woman, name of Lucille Adams. Is she in this group? “No, not in my student list,” she replies.] ...And Mrs. Hanson, Carol, was a homemaker who did a lot of volunteer work with an arts center in Phoenix’s inner city. They had a son and a daughter and a grandchild. “A darling little boy, Jason, just getting ready to graduate from play school to kindergarten.” They had been to four Senior Seminars before. And yes, they sure expected to enjoy this one, because they had been to Italy many years before on their honeymoon. As these two talked, no one seemed to notice that Emily Thorndike was no longer present. Except Harry. While everyone else listened to the Hanson saga, Harry caught sight of Emily at the far end of the room where there was an open window. Like a hopping bird, she climbed onto its sill, slung her legs over it and, in the blink of an eye, was gone. |
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