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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC and did that over the next 40 years, the Census Bureau estimates that the number of Americans aged 65 and up will double? As a culture, we're often reluctant to talk about what it actually means to get older. We don't often center the experiences of the elderly and aging. What does it mean to be over 60? Over 70? Over 80? What does it mean to be aging during a pandemic, that has had a disproportionate toll on the aging and elderly?

As it turns out, my colleagues over at Death, Sex & Money have been working on a project called getting real about getting older. It's a series of interviews and conversations on precisely these questions in collaboration with a voice some of you will remember. With me now or Anna Sale, host of the WNYC Studios podcast of Death Sex & Money and Jo Ann Allen news hosts at Colorado Public Radio and the host of the podcast Been There Done That all about the lives and stories of baby boomers.

Some of you are perking up right now and saying to yourself, Jo Ann Allen, who used to host Morning Edition and All Things Considered on WNYC, that Jo Ann Allen? The answer is yes. Hi, Anna and Jo Ann, it's been a minute Welcome back to WNYC.

Anna Sale: Hi?

Jo Ann Allen: Hey, Brian.

Brian: We'll open the phones in a couple of minutes but let's get the basic lay of the land first from you two. Anna, what's this all about?

Anna: Well, we've been talking for a long time at Death, Sex & Money about wanting to do more interviews with older people where I am not the one asking questions. I am 40 years old, and I love interviewing people who are older but it has a certain quality about it when you're a younger person asking probing questions about wisdom and lessons learned from older people. They're wonderful interviews but we wanted to hear more conversations about aging between peers.

Where you're really getting candid, really getting frank, comparing notes about what you're noticing. Then we had the wonderful experience as a team of getting to know Jo Ann Allen, listening to her podcast Been There Done That and we asked if she wanted to work with us on this. It's been awesome.

Brian: Jo Ann?

Jo Ann: I immediately when Death, Sex & Money came a calling, I'm like, "Yes, I want to work with Anna and the crew," because their podcast is so well done, and with mine just starting off in podcasting, I thought, what an association to have and to be able to learn from them, because what you've been on for 10 years now, Anna?

Anna: Almost seven.

Jo Ann: Yes, seven years. I wanted to learn about podcasting but I also wanted to have these conversations with people who are older. I've always been proud of being born Black and being born a woman and then discovering in college that I was gay. Now that I've moved into being an older American, I found new pride in who I am and that's being 67 years old. I thought, do other people feel the same things that I feel as an older person? I said, "Absolutely, yes, I would love to work with Death Sex & Money."

Brian: Listeners, first of all, you should know that Anna and Jo Ann will be hosting a live two hour calling show tomorrow night at 8:00 around these themes so that's, two hours, it's live, you'll be calling in then if you choose to. You'll be able to share your experiences of aging in a pandemic among other things with them on the air tomorrow night from 8:00 to 10:00 here on WNYC. I want to make that very clear that you all know that.

For 15 minutes or so right now, I wonder if I could invite you two, I'm going to put you on the spot a little bit but if anything comes to mind, I wonder if I can invite you to help formulate a call or a question for right now. What would contribute to the conversation that you're trying to have that our callers of any age might tell their stories about. Anna, any thoughts growing out of this series or the preview of this special?

Anna: Yes, something that we've thought a lot about and wondered about is, aging is always a period of transition and new identity and coming around to how your body in your life is changing. I do want to know specifically how this time of pandemic and isolation and more time to reflect, how you've noticed that showing up, and the way you think about your experience of aging if you're over 60. I want to hear about, has it made you feel glad about where you are in life? Do you feel more isolated? Do you feel more vulnerable? That's something I'm curious about.

Brian: Listeners, we can take that right on and give out the phone number. How has the pandemic made you feel if you consider yourself an older person, about where you're at in the context of your whole life, in the context of this moment? 646-435-7280. Jo Ann, do you want to put one of your own on the table or just reinforce that in some way?

Jo Ann: Well, reinforce that. Also, I want to know, do you wonder about what other people are saying in our age group? Are you concerned about issues that you may not experience as an older person? Do you want to know what issues other older people are feeling or going through? Although we're in a category that we have many common things going on but I found I also want to know about some of the stuff I haven't thought about around aging.

Brian: Listeners, Jo Ann Allen wants to know what questions you'd like to ask other older people who may be different from you about regarding their experience. There are two things you might call in about for Jo Ann Allen and Anna Sale 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280. Our phones lit up right away. Let's take a call right away. Here's Diane in Fort Lee. Hi, Diane, you're on WNYC, thank you for calling in.

Diane: Oh, wow. Hi, I'm really thrilled. I just called and I'm on the radio. Wow.

Brian: [unintelligible 00:07:10]

Diane: I love you and your show.

Brian: Thank you.

Diane: All right, as I tell the caller, I'm 88 years old, and good, healthy. My age group, going up to 105 is a new age group in this world. My grandparents died at my age. I at that time, was unusual in that I had grandparents at that age. We really don't know about people within my age group. There has to be, all those studies and so on, are based on people younger, we need to find out about the people within 85 to 107.

Brian: Diane, I'm going to leave it there but what a great thought. Jo Ann Allen, we need to maybe establish a new name for a generation if we call or maybe there is one and what it is if we call, Gen Z and millennials and baby boomers, how about the 88 to 107 year old cohort.

Jo Ann: I think naming age group wasn't a big thing back when Diane was younger, I don't know if I can actually come up with a category that will automatically describe what she's talking about. My father passed away about two years ago at the age of 103. I recognized that his world was very different than any world that I can think about or talk about because all of his relatives and people he grew up with and folks he knew throughout his life were gone. He felt like he was just hanging on and he didn't understand why he was living to be 103 because most people don't live to be that age. We are seeing more and more people who are up around 90, 95, and 100 who are still living. I would task Diane with asking what would she call her group?

Brian: Diane, are you still there?

Diane: Your wise elders. How about that?

Anna: I like that.

Jo Ann: I love it.

Brian: Okay, you can run with that on Death, Sex & Money you guys. Diane, Thank you, call us again. Don in Teaneck you're on WNYC Hi, Don?

Don: Hey there, how's everybody?

Brian: Good. How are you?

Don: I'm good as well. Anyhow, I'm 83 years old. I have two professions, [unintelligible 00:10:02] and psychotherapist licensed psychotherapist. I retired when I was 80 and devoted all my time to music now. This COVID [unintelligible 00:10:16] has basically [unintelligible 00:10:17] me into the house for the last year, which has been very good because I practice a couple of hours a day. I have nothing bad to say about this COVID other than the effect of it's tragedy, but I should say I had nothing bad to say about the isolation that it caused me I shouldn't say [inaudible 00:10:35]

Brian: For you, you're feeling like you have an opportunity to stay home and play the bass a lot. Is that what I'm here?

Don: Absolutely. It has been good for my practice and I'm really happy, [unintelligible 00:10:49] at that time, not the tragedy, of course, that is brought to other people.

Brian: Don, thank you very much. I'm going to go right on to Lynn in Manhattan, Lynn, you're on WNYC. Hi there.

Lynn: Hi Brian, your show really captivates me and thank you very much. It's always really wonderful. I'm 71 years old and due to a meditation group with whom I practice, there are people from all over the world and all different age groups. We were encouraged to form what they called, [unintelligible 00:11:25] circles, [unintelligible 00:11:25] meaning in the company of the truth. It's like like to talk about your spiritual path, how it's going, whatever. It was a regular, our group would meet once a month.

There were six of us in the group and the elders were in their 80s, early 80s at that time. We had to disband because the woman fell and fractured her shoulder. I organized people from the whole community, not just our group, but I would schedule visits with her to take her out for a walk. The men, when they would come, could walk with her in the Walker when she got better and could-- Whatever.

I think that was actually prior to her falling. The age range of my group specifically, my closest group was with two friends, [unintelligible 00:12:27] three years older than me, I'm 71 and then a very close friend who is 80 now and her best friend and business partner who's a year younger.

Since the caucuses of March 3rd of last year, the democratic caucus, that's when I started my isolation. That's the date that [unintelligible 00:12:51] to my brain, that this particular friend has invited me since then and throughout the pandemic on a fairly regular basis to come over to her house and watch, have dinner always have dinner and watch a special program on TV.

Brian: Lynn, I'm going to have to move on to some other callers, but have you said no, because you didn't want to be in person in somebody's house at this time?

Lynn: My issue, I guess, was loneliness. I don't tell people that I'm lonely, but I'm very like, I guess, sensitive or whatever, [unintelligible 00:13:33] that I hear. I just get struck by my compassion just like reaches and just breaches out from my heart and I just break out in tears.

Brian: Lynn, I hear you and Anna, I want you to pick up on that revelation that I think came at the end of that. She's lonely in the pandemic, but she doesn't want to tell people.

Anna: I think that, that's what been one of the most wonderful things about this project is when you ask the question, how are things going for you? People are ready to answer. It's just that there's not a lot of asking happening, particularly around the emotional lives of people who are older. I think that it's a time, some people are thriving and some people it's a time of a lot of challenge and trying to figure out ways to feel connected and in community and having to do that in totally new way.

Brian: Let me play a couple of clips from your podcast so people get a sense of some examples here. This one relates to another thing that, that last caller Lynn brought up, when she talks about going for walks, it's fear of falling. This is listener Fran, who is 63 on something every aging person probably worries about.

Fran: They should be teaching us how to fall from the time we are very young because my son knows how to fall because it's a body memory. He and I were walking. We take a lot of hikes together and I was telling him about, this fear of falling. He kept falling on purpose. He kept falling, look, mom, fall like this. Boom and he'd go and he'd roll. We are so afraid of falling that the way we fall is dangerous. Get that balance checked.

Jo Ann: Okay, Fran, I will.

Brian: That was with you Jo Ann. That's heavy. They teach kids how to fall in like gymnastics and football training and maybe everybody should learn how to fall. Here's one more.

JoAnn: I love that you chose that because that is a big issue in our community. If you just not see it as a horrible aging aspect of life, but that it's something that you can figure out how to correct. Which is what I did after Fran said, "Oh, Jo Ann, get that checked out." I did. I called my doctor. I explained this thing that I was doing of heading in one direction and then suddenly finding myself in another, at 67.

I thought, "Well, yes. I don't want to go through with just trying to pretend like I'm not falling. I am falling. Let me get help in terms of what to do." Learning how to fall is something I plan on doing in the coming month. I have corrected the situation because of medication and some other things that were going on. I love that you chose that, Brian.

Brian: One more Sandra age 73 on what it was like to witness racial justice protests unfolds during the Coronavirus pandemic right outside her window in the Bronx.

Sandra: As a Black person, I have been seriously aware of the institutionalized inequities in this country. I felt frightened because it was almost physical. I'm in danger. My life is in danger in my own country. I was caught between being really angry about that and being really scared. I began to feel very vulnerable and my thinking, even went a little bit off the rails where I'm saying, "Oh my goodness, I can't go out there and fight, I would be [unintelligible 00:17:33] in a minute." I really was sort of overreacting to an extent, about what could happen, what will happen.

Brian: Sandra age 73, Anna, give us just like a 30 second take on that so I have enough time to give you a good promo for your special at the end.

Anna: You will hear from Sandra, she's going to be calling in tomorrow night when we open the phones. I just thought that describing that, like looking out her window, feeling both scared and taking in knowing what it meant to be watching those protests because of how much her life had been affected by structural and institutional racism. It was a feeling of looking out with excitement and also with trepidation. I think those mixed feelings, were very honest.

Brian: My guests have been Jo Ann Allen. Jo Ann, real quick, like 15 seconds.

Jo Ann: I have to say, I'm glad that she's talking about it because we both said, neither one of us would get out into the streets today. We've already done that, but we are happy to see that the younger generation is doing it. In the end we were both pleased that those protests were taking place, but also realizing we can't get in the streets anymore.

Brian: Jo Ann Allen host of the podcast, Been There Done That all about the lives and stories of baby boomers. She's also a news host on Colorado Public Radio and Anna Sale, host of the WNYC studios podcast, Death, Sex & Money. They've been collaborating on a series called getting real about getting older, which you can find on the Death, Sex & Money podcast.

If you couldn't get your calls in to us here, you're encouraged to try again tomorrow night when Anna and Jo Ann will be hosting a live two hour call-in show on WNYC, that's 8:00 PM until 10:00 PM tomorrow night, you'll be able to share your experiences of aging in a pandemic with them on the air and hear from so many other listeners like the great ones we had on today. Anna and Jo Ann, thank you both so much. Good luck tomorrow night.

Anna: Thanks, Brian.

Jo Ann: Thanks, Brian.

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