Generation to Generation: Reflections on Friendships Between Young and Old - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1576010724 ISBN 13: 9781576010723

Publisher: Papier Mache Pr, 1998

Synopsis

An important collection about intergenerational relationships, reflecting the special bonds between people who are separated by many years, but who are connected by warmth, understanding, and mutual appreciation.

About this title

From the Publisher:

Sandra Martz, editor of the classic anthology When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple, teams up with Papier-Mache's long-time acquisitions editor, Shirley Coe, to compile a wonderful new collection about special relationships between people of different generations.

Whether family, friends, or brief acquaintances, we have all been enriched by our friendships with people older and younger than ourselves. Like Sandra Martz's other anthologies that "reach beyond the page to touch our hearts, enrich our souls" (Women's News of the Mid-South), Generation to Generation reminds us of the invaluable experiences shared with our friends from across the years.

A book group Discussion Guide is printed in the book.

From the Author:

Whether family, friends, or brief acquaintances, our lives are enriched by our connections with people older and younger than ourselves. All it takes is time and an opportunity to get to know one another. Of these relationships, the bond between grandparents and grandchildren is one of the most important and most enduring. Grandparents are the keepers of our heritage; grandchildren are the forgers of our future. As children, our grandparents often provided our first experience of unconditional love. If we lived in the same community, we shared common interests and made important contributions to each other's knowledge, awareness, and self-perception.

Over the last several decades, however, it has grown increasingly difficult to establish and maintain the extended family relationships that characterized and sustained communities in earlier times. Today grandparents may live in adults-only retirement communities, grown sons and daughters pursue careers in distant towns, and teenagers cloister themselves apart from the family. We attempt to bridge the growing generation gaps and strengthen our family ties with family visits, reunions, electronic mail, and old-fashioned letter writing.

While working to maintain our long-distance relationships, however, we don't want to overlook the at-hand opportunities to forge new friendships with older and younger people. The people we meet every day--neighbors, teachers, students, volunteers, coworkers--are potential new friends and companions.

Generation to Generation pays homage to these possibilities. Moving chronologically from the various narrator's perspectives, these stories, poems, and photographs explore the richness and diversity of intergenerational relationships, both within and outs ide our families.

Addressing childhood issues, the writers explore how care and attention from adults can help children develop a strong sense of self. In "Possibilities," a granddaughter and her newly widowed grandmother jointly explore a future without limits: "Sing with me, Emogene; singing frees the spirit," encourages Grandma Turner. In "Jackie West," an older neighbor nurtures a ten-year-old girl after school with warm meals and healing words to contradict the racism she encounters from classmates.

In the stories of free-spirited older men and women, we see the power of countering stereotypes of what it means to be older. When "Aunt Hattie Visits" unexpectedly from Florida to shop for a bright new party dress, her niece finds it impossible to resist her aunt's exuberance for life. Aunt Hattie's theory is that I think too much. "Comes from reading all those books," she says. "Sometimes you just have to feel something and do it." Inspiring his neighbors with his physical agility, "The Oldest Man in the World" is old, old, howling old, perishing old / But can still turn a somersault and will / If the request is from someone he knows well.

Many readers will recognize the opportunity to focus outside one's self that comes with being in a support role for others. The free-wheeling cab driver in "The Hundred-Dollar Tip" initially assumes his "weekly" is just another fare--some kind of big-shot business man--but soon establishes a meaningful connection with his elderly rider that changes his perspective on life. In "Soup for Victoria," a well-intentioned but somewhat beleaguered young woman learns that true friendship with an older family friend requires being able to receive as graciously as she is prepared to give.

Several stories address the poignant bond between the very old and the very young as they deal with isolation. In "The Tea Party," an older woman resists her daughter's urgings to move to a retirement home; instead she reaches back to her own childhood memories to re-create a celebration for the little girl who's just moved in next door. A tender bond is formed between a speech-impaired grandfather and his beautiful, silent, autistic granddaughter in "The Swing." Only with each other do they both feel truly heard.

We've been deeply touched by the intimacy and sharing of these lives. We hope Generation to Generation will inspire you to reflect on the joys of your own past intergenerational relationships and look forward to those that await you in the future.

About this edition

• Publisher: Papier Mache Pr
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 1576010724
• ISBN 13: 9781576010723
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 216
• Editor: Martz Sandra, Coe Shirley