Ronni Bennett

Ronni writes Time Goes By, a blog that addresses issues that concern senior citizens or elders as she prefers. Today her blog has her usual Saturday week in review of topics she's found interesting, and I'll mention a couple of them here. You don't have to be my age for these articles to apply to you and to be relevant, for example, the Bill Moyers piece (I hope you watch him), Frontline's documentary Sick in America, health care legislation, social security, and making ends meet.

Here is what Ronni wrote about Money Matters :

Whatever your opinion of or experience with government bureaucracies, one of the things our federal government does really well is agency websites. The post office and IRS sites are among the best online tools there are - user-friendly and packed with easy-to-find information. The Federal Trade Commission has just opened a new section on their website called Money Matters with tips on credit cards, debt management, job searches, home financial matters and there is a scam watch.

Scrolling on down, Gay and Gray contributor Jan Adams reviewed the First International Film Festival on Aging. This is an excerpt about a film she reviewed:

The other gay-themed film followed 88-year-old Lorraine Barr as she goes on a lesbian-oriented cruise. Here's the trailer for that one.

Barr, like many lesbians in her generation, lived a quiet, hidden life with a long-term female partner, never able to publicly acknowledge their sexual orientation. Late in life she dared to share her story in a letter to Newsweek:

”...Now I write this after living for 44 years with the most loved and loving, giving, understanding and delightful partner imaginable. For all our time together, we were 'in the closet.'

“For so long, if you were a known homosexual you could lose your job. We kept our relationship from our families - or at least we thought we did. After my partner died, her son told me that her family knew about us, but kept our secret because they believed our relationship was our own business.

“But our silence for all those years was also partially a self-induced caution. Looking back, I think it's possible that as the world changed, we didn't change fast enough...”

Certainly we all feel ourselves caught up in fast changes.