Claudette Hollenbeck
Think about all the things we never knew when we were in our teens, 20s, and even 30s. I look at my three wonderful grandchildren and am thunderstruck by how little life experience they have had, and yet when I was their age I actually got married and started having children! In retrospect, I...
Claudette Hollenbeck
I am sure you have heard the saying “A camel is a horse designed by a committee.” That neatly sums up my opinion of the product committee work usually produces - a hodgepodge, consensus-driven outcome, which is rarely a “silver bullet.” I cannot count the number of committee meetings I have sat...
Claudette Hollenbeck
Aw shucks, folks. I’ll bet you are as sick as I am of all the misery in the media. Let’s focus on something with a brighter, cheerier future. How about a male contraceptive pill? Wouldn’t that be greeted with great applause? “What?” You say? You don’t think men would be willing to mess around...
Claudette Hollenbeck
I had a lovely brunch at the White House in Wilmington recently as one of six people at our table: four were age 90 or above and two were in their mid-80s. We were a raucous crowd and sat there for almost three hours. We had just as much fun as a six-top of 30-year-olds would have enjoyed. There...
Claudette Hollenbeck
Many decades ago, I was sitting in an aisle seat on an airplane waiting for it to take off and fly to Florida where I planned to visit my father. My seatmate, a 20-something male sporting a wild and bushy head of red hair, paused in the aisle next to me and proceeded to take off almost all of his...
Claudette Hollenbeck
I have been telling my daughter regularly since she was born 55 years ago, “You must have women friends. You will not make it through life without them.” So, for once I have a positive story to tell you related to that advice.
Once upon a time, there were five women working together at a...
Claudette Hollenbeck
Our old buddy Vladimir Putin turns 70 years old on October 7. I doubt that he is any different from men (and women) everywhere who see a very big birthday looming on the horizon and fret about “what have I accomplished and how much time do I have left before I become useless?” I have to ask...
Claudette Hollenbeck
I am stricken, unable to think about anything else but the death of all those children in Uvalde,TX. I cannot stand it, or shove it into some dark corner of my mind. How much rage must it take to look at the face of a little kid and shoot to kill, and then do it again 18 more times? It must be...
Claudette Hollenbeck
I am not at all embarrassed to find myself a walking (well, more like limping along) cliché of aging and senior thinking. It really is pretty exhilarating to be able to scan eight-plus decades and witness one’s own life with a wider lens. How many of us have ever seen ourselves clearly at any age...
Claudette Hollenbeck
A sizable percentage of my good friends are “movin’ on out,” leaving me behind and bereft. By far, they are refugees seeking the comfort of living near one or more of their children, usually in another state. It seems to be an age- or stage-of-life-related movement. Ten to 20 years ago, the same...