All posts by Dave Riley

Dave Riley

About Dave Riley

Growing Old Isn’t For Sissies is about aging. It’s stories of how some older people achieve remarkable successes, how some people make the lives of others better, and how all seniors have hurdles to face — maladies, loss of loved ones and more.

Legacy: For Gosh Sakes Leave a Paper Trail

“Just a week later the man was dead, and after a short interval, Bernie screwed up the courage to go through his brother’s papers. ‘Riley,’ he told me later, ‘it was a disaster.’ Death. Okay, I just lost half of the small audience I had. The remainder are realists. Some people are obsessed with the […]

Health: The Pet As Therapist

“[One] study found that nursing home residents felt much less lonely after spending time alone with a dog than when other people joined in the visit.” by Dave Riley MRS. R. AND I LIVE in what can fairly be called a very large retirement community — 17,000 people. But at times it seems like there […]

Health: When Life Overwhelms

“It was through [Louella’s] column and other news stories that I came to know about Wynn. My Mom would read me her syndicated reports in the newspaper…” by Dave Riley In the mid-1940’s, when I was a grade schooler at Mary Snow in Bangor, my Uncle Wynn Rocamora was a very successful agent in Hollywood. […]

Aging: At 106 Octavio Orduño Was Still Biking the Streets of Long Beach

“Smoke?” he replied indignantly. “I don’t smoke.” by Dave Riley When I was in my twenties and just back from military service in Germany, I moved to the Monterey peninsula on the California coast and rented an inexpensive place on the corner of First Avenue and Carpenter Street in Carmel. The accommodations were, to put […]

Compassion: People Who Gave … and Gave

by Dave Riley When you write about people — good people, that is — you don’t choose just anyone for a subject. You look for those who are somehow special, somehow more compassionate. As a result you can easily develop an attachment to them, as if each one were a close friend. When I wrote […]

Senior Finances: The Pension ‘Advance’ Scheme

  “We ended up paying more in interest with our pension advance then we would have paid if we simply paid off the interest over time on our existing debt load.” by Dave Riley OKAY, I KNOW THIS HAS BEEN quoted to death, but I’m going to use it anyway. When asked why he robbed […]

Maladies: Mrs. R. Returns Home

“…she could scream, cuss and even kick me, which she never does, and I wouldn’t mind it a bit.” by Dave Riley MY REGULAR BLOG POST will return next Wednesday, but for this week I just want to follow up on Mrs. R’s illness. After sixteen days in the krankenhaus, she has finally returned home. […]

Maladies: When Your Lifelong Love Hits the Wall

“This certainly is a bump,” she said at last. by Dave Riley THE INTRO TO THIS BLOG says, in part, it’s about “how all seniors have hurdles to face — maladies, loss of loved ones and more.” Well Mrs. R. and I are rather in one of those situations now. The day before Thanksgiving she […]

It’s Never Too Late: A Writer’s Life

A worker’s curiosity about the contents of an abandoned steamer trunk leads a very young writer to unlock the romantic story of a much older writer. by Dave Riley LEO ROSTEN, THE SCREENWRITER AND HUMORIST, said it best: “The only reason for being a professional writer is that you just can’t help it.” As Rosten […]