AARP Bulletin - September 2011

In the News ;

32. 3 Average number of miles traveled aily by each person age 50+ in 2009, excluding air travel.

Truckin’ at Last at 82

; Now Hear This People, Trends and Ideas

Margarette Kirsch always wanted to travel cross- country in an 18-wheeler. And the 82-year-old finally got to do it. ; Thanks to the Twilight Wish Foundation, which works to make dreams come true for older people, Kirsch rode more than 6,500 miles to California and back to her Merritt Island, Fla., home this summer with 30-year veteran trucker and country singer Anna-bella Wood. It took several years to make this happen, says foundation founder Cass Forkin. ; Along the route, Kirsch and Wood visited nursing homes and truck stops. Their hosts “couldn’t believe that this 82-year-old lady could climb in and out of the cab of the truck without any help. Off to the side, I’d see they’d have a wheelchair or walker or walking stick,” Kirsch says. ; She sums up her experience with two words—awesome and outstanding. “Would I do it again?” she asks. “What time do you want to pick me up?” —Suzanne Tobin

Can You Dig It?

If you’ve ever passed a construction site and wondered what it’s like to operate the mechanical behemoths that plow trenches or build mounds, Dig This is your ultimate Las Vegas destination. The five-acre theme park offers bulldozers, excavators and other heavy equipment to patrons 14 and older in packages of $210, $400 and $750. Half of the visitors are women. Says Ed Mumm, 45, the fencing con-tractor-turned-entrepreneur who developed the idea, “We haven’t grown out of our sandboxes.”

the change? “We thought it was a more wholesome environment,” President John H. Garvey told local media. Despite shocked reactions by alums and students, as well as legal threats, a Catholic University spokesman maintains: “The university remains confident that the law does not require that men and women be housed together in residence halls.”

Old-School Dorms

After more than two decades of coed dormitories, Catholic University in Washington has decided to roll back the clock and return to the single-sex dorms many people age 50-plus remember well. Eleven of the university’s 17 dorms are coed, so the transition will take a while. This fall, the school will put most freshmen in men’s or women’s halls. Sophomore and upperclass dorms will follow. Why

Flying High

After months in dispute with his homeowners association, retired Marine Mike Merola, 60, of Cypress, Texas, is flying his American and Marine Corps flags unchallenged. Merola’s 20-foot backyard flagpole sparked a controversy when the Lakeland Village Community Association said it violated design rules. A lawsuit against Merola is expected to be dismissed when the association adopts new rules. “The [association] simply overreached … the Merolas never harmed their neighbors with their display of patriotism,” says Merola’s attorney, L. Lee Thweatt. —Mike Tucker