what good are the good 'ol days when there's no one around to hear you talk about 'em?

Today was my first meeting with my senior citizen friend from church, Mamie.

When I originally signed up to be a volunteer visitor, I had this picture in my head about how it would go. We would sit in her apartment with tea and cookies and I would listen to her tell me stories about her childhood, where she grew up, what she did for a job, and ALL about her kids and grandkids. I had an idealized, stereo-typical vision about how it all would go, what she would look like, etc. I was pretty proud of myself, thinking I could really make a difference in this lady's life, that my next visit would be the one thing she could look forward to. Pretty selfish of me.

After I was approved to be a visitor I began to get nervous. Reality sunk in a bit, and I realized that maybe, just maybe, this lady would be hard-skinned, rough around the edges, and expect me to save the world since I apparently thought my life was valuable enough to share with an old, dying lady. Yeah, I'm serious. I tell ya what, my thought process goes from one extreeme to the next.

Anyway, I decided to bake some cookies with the intention of sharing them with Mamie. Maybe she wouldn't provide the cookies that we were supposed to munch on with our tea. I thought I should come prepared.

So this morning, at 10am, I went to her apartment on the 9th floor of a skyscraper in downtown Chicago, a smile on my face, cookies in hand and said, "Good morning Mamie, how are you?"

Her response, "I'm grumpy. But I saw Keith yesterday."

Fabulous start. She was grumpy, wasn't afraid to tell me, and apparently I was supposed to know who Keith was. There's nothing more akward than having no idea what someone is talking about and them expecting you to know EXACTLY what they're talking about. Especially an old lady.

Thankfully it didn't take long to sort out the Keith confusion. Aparently he goes to my church and is the director of the senior center. I just haven't met him yet :P Mamie didn't offer me anything to drink, and she turned down my cookies because she's diabetic (I'm such an idiot).

Regardless of the rough start, Mamie is an amazing woman and we had a great visit. She will be 95 at the end of October and she still lives by herself. She had the most coherent, clear mind I've ever encountered in a woman of her age, or even the age of a few of my co-workers :P We sat in her 'sitting room' and talked about the good 'ol days. I swear she knew every street in Chicago, what restaurants and theatres were in each neighborhood, and where you could go to get a $.35 cent meal, with 'good food.'

We talked about Frank Sinatra, President Clinton, the "doofus that's in office now," WWII, Marshall Field, BINGO, her travels, and the Dorsey Brothers (even listened to their album). A big topic of conversation though, was food. She asked me what resturants were in my neighborhood, if this-one-or-that-one was still around, what nationality I was which therefore determined what food I ate. She told me that she didn't care what kind of food she ate, as long as it was good.

She was definitely not the hard-skinned, rough around the edges Chicagoan that I was afraid she'd be. It was a great visit. She talked my ear off, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I can honestly say that we BOTH look forward to our next visit.