- My mother, I promised her that she would stay in her own house.

- When I was a teen, I was the first girl in my high school to take shop and they said women take home Ec.

- If my organs are in decent shape, then I would like them to be donated.

- If you're 80 years old and you're entering a classroom, you have the benefit of eight decades of experience that you're bringing to the classroom.

(upbeat music) - Welcome to "getting dot OLDER", the new TV series, where Americans over 50, share intimate, personal revelations about aging.

I'm your host, Roberto Mighty, the "getting dot OLDER" project asks, analyzes and examines, how we're feeling about the joys and challenges of aging.

Join us.

(bright upbeat music) In this episode, we're going to meet Leslie and Jeff, the yoga musicians, Bob, the educator, Cori, the martial artist, and Judith the author.

We're gonna test your boomer IQ and get some advice from an expert on lifelong learning.

Looking forward to seeing your comments online, and hopefully you'll be inspired to take our "getting dot OLDER" online survey yourself.

Okay, on with the show, this is it.

(bright upbeat music) Sometimes I meet couples whose personal lives, and career lives seem inseparable, this is the case with Leslie and Jeff.

She was a dancer with the famed Alvin Ailey School in New York.

And he was a professional musician, touring around the world with big name jazz artists, well like any rom-com, they started with a meet cute, which we'll hear about in a moment and then built a career together, combining their love for each other and their unique talents.

For the past several years, Leslie and Jeff have been partners in Afro Flow Yoga, a unique combination of dance, music, meditation, and yoga involving retreats, workshops, and performances.

So would you please tell us very briefly how the two of you met?

- It was 27 years ago, this past weekend that we met on a flight, a US air flight from New York to Boston, the plane was basically almost empty and I looked down and saw a beautiful woman halfway down.

- And then I was sitting on the plane, I saw Jeff come on and I thought, please don't sit beside me because I do not it's too early to start a conversation at 7:00 in the morning.

But as we were landing, as fate would have it, I call it cloud nine, it was like a little light bulb that clicked, I looked over at this beautiful handsome man and I got a warm burst of energy and my guard immediately went down.

- So what happened then?

- That was the beginning, and she had a photo shoot near Logan Airport and having driven cab before it was so close to the Airport, I basically told her a cab is not gonna take you there, but my car is out in front of the Terminal A.

( Roberto laughing) It felt safe and it was early in the morning and I had already done a shopping spree at Filene's basement so I was looking pretty good.

(laughing) - Leslie, why did you get into the car with this strange gentlemen that you said he was beautiful and handsome but- - This is a great question Roberto, because at the time I really, really wanted to get to my shoot on time.

I was talking to Jeff and he seemed like I could trust him I had lived in New York, I kind of knew how to suss out the weird characters (laughs) plus I knew karate, and he convinced me that a cabby wouldn't take me and also when I met Jeff, I felt like I had known him for my entire life.

- Wow.

- So I trusted him.

- The most profound life transition I had was, realizing that I wasn't going to live my father's dream, and he had a beautiful business, he had funeral homes and he was a funeral director and kind of wanted me to go on that path but I realized that was not my vision, so that kind of directed me also into an area that he was a musician and an amazing businessman.

So I also want to take a little detour into the other path.

- Got it.

That's a common theme where our parents, have a vision for us and a dream for us.

And at a certain point, some of us decided, "I'm so sorry dad or mom, it's just not my thing, sorry, I love you (indistinct)."

- (indistinct) - Leslie, the most profound life transition I ever had was?

- Yes the most profound life transition I ever had was leaving Toronto, my birthplace and leaving my family and my loved ones and taking a leap of faith and moving to New York with $300 in my pocket, not knowing anyone and going for my dreams to train at Alvin Ailey.

Unlike my parents in that they wanted to have a big family and they had four kids and I am childless (laughs) so we don't have a big family, but we have a lot of community members, so that to me is very different from my parents.

- Was there any opposition concern or difficulty with your not having children with your big family, you just check your scares.

- No, I feel like our family has never put any pressure or both our families have never had any pressure on us to have kids, and we in fact, have been supportive of our siblings who have kids and it takes a village.

So we love to support our nieces and nephews and our siblings appreciate that.

(laughing) - This is an interesting question that has come up several times, especially with women who are childless by choice or for some other reason.

And the reason I asked you is because several people said that, "Yeah, it was an issue, with their families".

And the final question, which is really a final question, here's what I want done with my remains... - I want my remains to also be set free and through cremation and if my organs are in decent shape, then I would like them to be donated to someone else and give life to someone else.

- We're going to hear more from Leslie and Jeff later in the season.

But what about you?

What do you want done with your remains?

Please write and let me know.

(bright upbeat music) Bob is a retired educator and an entrepreneur companies he's created have made and lost fortunes.

But when I asked him question number six, his answer had nothing to do with business.

If I could go back in time and counsel my younger self, I'd tell my younger self... - I'd go back and put my arm around myself and tell myself it's okay, it's gonna be okay, I'd counsel myself that it isn't as bad as it seems.

You know, it seems, I don't know if other people have lives like this, but boy, college was rough, finding who you are, building some confidence, finding a mate, so much self-doubt oscillating between feeling worthless and feeling as though you should come up with the next theory of relativity.

Boy, it's nice to see that way behind me.

- Do you ever think about things that might've been, or it might've been better question number 15, causes many people to take a step back, my greatest regret is... - The stuff that me probably makes me the most remorseful are that I didn't do more of it.

I didn't celebrate as much the older people in my life when I had a chance or in really I would've liked to have...

I could have done more, small things, but the small things that are really important things.

- I wonder what Bob meant by, "The small things that are really important things".

So here's what he said.

- My grandparents and the fact that I don't believe we ever celebrated their birthdays.

I don't think we celebrated my dad's birthday, little kindnesses and some big kindnesses.

I made sure my mother, I promised her that she would stay in her own house and I was able to make good on that promise, but my grandparents, my grandmothers both had to had gone into nursing homes.

I mean, it's something I would change if I could, if I could go back it's...

So the kindnesses, the things it's so easy to share a smile, to pick somebody up and that's worth so much.

- We'll hear more from Bob later in this series, but let me ask you, is there someone in your past that you wish you'd been kinder to?

Please write and let me know.

(bright upbeat music) (cows mooing) - Cori lives in Texas and works as a school teacher, she grew up in Massachusetts and also lived in Maine and Minnesota.

In her spare time she is a ropes performer, and she's a former martial artist and she's a mother and a grandmother.

- I love body art, I've always loved tattoos, but I have a problem with commitment.

You can always get divorced, you can always move, you can always break up with somebody, but tattoo is serious.

(laughing) And I kept saying, next year and next year, the decades passed, next year, next year, then the pandemic hit.

And I was suddenly, I may never have a chance to do this again.

- Cori's mom was White and her dad was Black when they got married, interracial marriages were still illegal in many States besides facing legal jeopardy, her family also dealt with real estate discrimination and social prejudice.

I asked Cori about growing up and she shared her experience of being a mixed race child in the 1960s.

- I went to two elementary schools, I went to two junior highs, one junior high, and then high school.

And you can't go anywhere if you are the only one.

You really have nobody else to talk to about this, so you're figuring it out on your own, some people maybe are your friends, so they can be seen with you and pat themselves on the back about how liberal they are, and you have to finally sometimes admit that this person is really my friend and I'm this person's favorite token.

And that's the reality and trying to figure out who is who, but a lot of people who don't have a whole lot going for 'em take it out on you.

And I wasn't always 5'2, I used to be short (laughs) and so when you are this short, skinny little brown kid, and you're the only one in class it's open season, it just is, and there are times when my mom would visit the school.

And you also have to understand when White boys and White girls are spitting on you and being abusive that a teacher will write it off as freedom of expression.

But if I decided to turn around and pop a kid in the mouth, well, my freedom of expression suddenly ends (laughs) So- - Cori also mentioned what it was like stepping outside of gender roles in high school.

- I was the first girl in my high school to take shop, and they said, women take Home Ec.

And I said, I can cook, I can clean, I can sew, I can knit, I can crochet.

What I cannot do is wire my house or fix my car.

- Now despite all this Cori does have a wry sense of humor and an infectious laugh.

I asked her one of my favorite questions from our "getting dot OLDER" survey.

The thing I love most about my age now is... - I love the gray in my hair.

I really, really like that when I was younger, I'd see people and they had golden lights or red lights or walnut lights in their hair.

And my hair was just brown.

My black relatives, they had these amazing natural lights.

And I would like run around the sun and nothing would happen and my hair was just brown.

And then finally, I lived in Florida where the sun was extreme and it started bleaching out different things.

And I made this mistake and I went to the hairdresser and she said, "Oh, you have all the sun damage in your hair".

And she cut it all out(laughs) and then she made me pay her for that that is so awful, it was to like a double whammy, but now I've got it, you can you see where it's kind of, you got that little salt and pepper and it's coming here and it looks to me interesting.

And it started turning gray, the day I gave birth, my hormones changed and I went into the hospital, total brunette, and I left with a little bit of gray right here.

And I'm like," Okay, this is cool, okay, I like this."

So I really... And if I get good enough, like I said, eventually, I wanna see if I can get good at aerial arts and hit on, maybe apply for a job with the cruise industry or something like that.

How they have little acts and I wanna call myself solid silver or grannny action or something like that.

(laughing) - Oh man, that's great.

- So I have a plan.

- We'll hear more from Cori later in the season, but what about you?

What do you love most about your age now?

The "getting dot OLDER" oldest series includes expert advice for people over 50.

Our growing number of topics will include medicine, elder care, financial services, nutrition, geriatrics, estate planning, and lifelong learning.

Please join me in welcoming Anne Doyle, an expert in lifelong learning to the show.

- My name is Anne Doyle.

I'm the President of LaSell Village, a community of older learners on a university campus in Newton, Massachusetts.

- What is lifelong learning and what are the pros and cons of lifelong learning versus just continuing education?

- So my philosophy around lifelong learning is really about learning across your lifespan.

So honestly, if you're 17 or you're 47, or you're 87, it's more about an attitude and an approach to thinking about how you bring forth every day?

How are you going to engage every day with a world?

- When I was in my '40s, I took some continuing education courses and that was a lot of fun, but are there changes in the way that I would learn if I were 65, 75, 85 or 95?

- So how do people learn?

Well, my experience is that, from a very young age, we're either an auditory learner or a visual learner, or maybe a tactical learner.

And I don't see that much different for people who are in their older years (clears throat).

But what I do see is that there are some intentional ways that a faculty member might want to design a class or the physical space so that people can learn as well as possible.

- Can you give me a couple of examples of that?

- Well, I'm wearing glasses.

So many people have declining eyesight as they get older, and we have the benefit of being on a university campus and have designed our classrooms, both here at the village and at the university where they have these wonderful whiteboards from floor to ceilings.

So faculty can write as large as they need to for example, - Makes a lot of sense.

- And for hearing loss, we also are really attentive to that in terms of acoustics and other ways of adapting the room so that people with hearing aids could hear really clearly.

- I notice that your instructor had a microphone and I thought he doesn't need a microphone for a room that small then I realized that makes a lot of sense.

- And I'll tell you that the faculty, when they teach here, they always say that they wish that the University had the same setup because hearing is so important, and we all know when we're sitting in a room and we're straining to hear, it's just harder to learn.

So there are some intentional things that we do that frankly, it's a universal design.

I mean, this is what we should be doing everywhere.

- We'll hear more from Anne Doyle later in the season.

Meantime, according to a recent article in the online "Kiplinger newsletter", many colleges are offering free or cheap courses to seniors in all 50 States.

Sometimes these courses are audit only meaning that they don't accrue course credits.

But if you like a classroom setting, you might be pleasantly surprised by checking out the opportunities for higher education right in your area.

(bright upbeat music) Judith originally from rural Ohio near Cincinnati is an author, entrepreneur, linguist, wife and grandmother.

She and her husband Alan have lived in central and south America, Amsterdam and Boston.

Her published writings include family memoirs and historical novels.

I started off by asking Judith question, number one, getting older means... - Getting older means experiencing over and over multiple times the tremendous thrill of being addressed by three gorgeous little girls who call me grandma.

- What do you hate most about getting older?

Here's what Judith had to say to question number four, and man, I can relate.

- The thing I hate most about my age is the amount of time it takes to keep all the parts moving and functioning, starting at the top, moving down to the eyes, the ears, everything, and ending up with the legs and the feet.

It just takes more time when you're young, you take it all for granted, but now it requires a lot more support, I resent the time.

- Question number five, accentuates the positive.

The thing I love most about getting older is... - The thing I love most about my age is that I'm still young enough to travel, exercise, meet new people, do all the kinds of things I love doing.

I love not only my being able to be with my grandchildren, as I mentioned before, but this year in 2014, my family added two grand nephews, no two grand nieces and a grand nephew to the family.

So I have not only all these wonderful nieces and nephews, but even they are having their children and the family just keeps growing.

And that's just quite a thrill.

- I asked Judith question number two, when I was younger, I used to think that older people didn't...

But now that I'm older, I know that I... - When I was younger, I used to think that older people did not continue to grow intellectually, artistically, spiritually, psychologically at the rate that they did when they were young, that things slow down.

But now that I am older, I can see that that is not true.

And that every year can be a year of tremendous creative output.

- When I was a kid, I thought older people were rewarded for a lifetime of hard work by living a retired life of leisure, but these days as the old song goes, it ain't necessarily so, lots of folks in their '60s, '70s and '80s are still working, starting new businesses and writing.

In Judith's case, many of her accomplishments happened after her 50s and she's still going strong.

(upbeat music) This season on "getting dot OLDER" we're gonna meet Inderpreet, Bert, Jessica, Yulan, Howard and Charles.

- Thanks so much, we're really looking forward to hearing your responses, go to our website and fire up your cell phone or your laptop or whatever device you have for recording yourself and I'm really looking forward to hearing your questions online.

(upbeat music)