[Desdemona]

What has happened is a loss of faith in traditional institutions such as family and church. Only when one gets to extreme old age and one's contemporaries are dying daily does one see the value in real relationships.

Hear, hear. Very true. And when you and your 5 siblings, who between you have had one child, reach old age and realize you are really on your own....

BTW, I'm nowhere close to old age. I'm just watching a lot of relatives. Fortunately, there's a lot of us.

[RobbyS]

I will --God willing--attend the 50th reunion for my high school class. It is shocking to see how old everyone looks. The girls, of course, are married to men older than themselves, so that mortality is written on every brow. That is why I would never live in a retirement community where the young are forbidden to live.