Just when you think you know pretty much all there is to know about getting old, or older, out comes a book that knocks you on the head with a few more facts about the aging process and gives you hope that maybe you’ll still be able to walk and chew gum well into your sunset years.

Dianne Conrad was a practicing adult and distance educator for over 35 years at several universities in Canada. Since retiring, she’s published several books, including the recent open-published Research, Writing, and Creative Process in Open and Distance Education: Tales from the Field. I haven’t read any of her academic texts but I’m here to tell you that this woman can write. She does not appear to have fallen into the trap of writing turgid academic prose, intelligible to only their peers. Conrad writes for all of us, scholars and non scholars alike.

For the sake of humour – or maybe just to shock us a little – she throws in the odd juicy tidbit like this: “85-year-old woman caught having sex in public . . . with five elderly men”. Um, excuse me?*

While I have no desire to take part in orgies of any kind, either in public or in the privacy of my own home, the section on sex and seniors, which she titles “Behind Closed Doors”, provides some terrific food for thought. For one thing, I learned a new word: “outercourse”. This, she explains, “is any form of sensual and sexual activity that does not involve the exchange of bodily fluids”. Massage, rubbing, touching, holding hands . . . all great ways to show your partner you love them and you’re both still alive. Hurray for that!

Conrad is open about herself and not unwilling to share her own foibles and occasional missteps. Like me, she regrets not doing her kegels more regularly; unlike me, she seems to have taken better care of her teeth! This isn’t to suggest that Being Old is irretrievably cheerful and lighthearted; as the book progresses, she takes on issues like suicide among the elderly, anhedonia (the inability to feel pleasure), and increasing feelings of irrelevance. But by discussing them openly and with a refreshing frankness, she makes them feel a little less scary. We could all take a lesson from this: when things frighten you, talk about them. Your children may not want to hear that you’re making plans for your funeral, but when the time comes – as it does to us all – they’ll be grateful for your foresight.

As an older person who’s already had to deal with a certain amount of loss through the years, I cannot recommend this book too highly. If you’re a senior, buy it and read it – if you’re in the younger stages of life, buy it, read it, and give it to your folks. You’ll enjoy the humour, the solid research, and, like me, you’ll learn a few things. Dementia is not inevitable, depression and loneliness are common to any age, not just the elderly, and you can teach an old dog new tricks!

*Conrad isn’t making this up, by the way. She includes a link to a story in the Daily Mail from August 2019. What I found interesting about it was the newspaper seemed to think the involvement of the elderly woman was more shocking than that of her fellow orgiasts, who included her husband and ranged in age from 62 to 82. Oh sure, old guys will get up to all kinds of mischief but an old woman? Heaven forbid!