A contribution from a noted author, the late Don Marquis, contemplating his own old age... He obviously didn't want to be "looked after":

"...we shall be the ribald, useless, drunken outcast person we have always wished to be. We shall have a long white beard and long white hair; we shall not walk at all, but recline in a wheel chair and bellow for alcoholic beverages; in the winter we shall sit before the fire with our feet in a bucket of hot water, with a decanter of corn whiskey near at hand, and write ribald songs against organized society; strapped to one arm of our chair will be a forty-five caliber revolver, and we shall shoot out the lights when we want to go to sleep, instead of turning them off; when we want air we shall throw a silver candlestick through the front window and be damned to it; we shall address public meetings to which we have been invited because of our wisdom in a vein of jocund malice. We shall ... but we don't wish to make any one envious of the good time that is coming to us. ... We look forward to a disreputable, vigorous, unhonored and disorderly old age."

A bit less extreme, does anyone remember a TV show called "As Time Goes By", starring Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer? They played two middle-aged folks, reuniting after many years apart. Palmer's character was a likeable grump, rather stuffy, but his father was wildly eccentric, full of fun, and always off on, or planning, another adventure. He'd probably have loved your Master Plan, Kris.

Sometimes it's the young people who should be "put away" in homes! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/delight.gif" alt="" /> Rock On!

The Rivertown Chronicle