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p r e f a c e We were married in January 1970, halfway through our senior year in college. It was the era of the Vietnam War, utopian back-to-the-land dreams, and “sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll.” Ours was a cohort not much given to career planning or long-term goals. The shadow cast by the war and our collective certainty that the Age of Aquarius was dawning made us prone to heed Baba Ram Dass’s admonition to “Be here now.” As is often true for college cohorts, our anchor in the sea of chaos swirling about us was our community of friends, in our case a motley crew of hippies, political activists, musicians, intellectuals, and goat farmers who collectively constituted our “tribe.” And like many other generations of college students, we held the conceit that we were unique and that the special bonds we shared would bind us to one another for all of our lives. We joked that one day we would all reside together in the “rock-and-roll nursing home,” where we would sit in rocking chairs on the front porch and argue about which album to play next. “No more Beatles! Put on some Hendrix!” Such lines were delivered in our best approximations of an aged voice, with one hand cupped behind an ear and the other bracing “the bum knee where the rheumitiz is actin’ up again.” It was a lighthearted fantasy designed to sustain courage and hope. Somehow we would make it through those frightening times, drawing strength from one another, before ultimately reuniting as a community to share our collective vision of the good life. But our fantasies of the rock-and-roll nursing home never took into account the possibility of dementia. Our imaginations could extend only to diminished hearing, wrinkled skin, and creaky joints. Aging would take some toll on our bodies, but we never entertained the possibility that we might not remain the same “selves” we were at age twenty. Those friends from 1970 are now widely scattered. Some are retired from successful careers, while a few never strayed far from the goat farm. Several have viii Preface died. We are in regular contact with only a handful as we now move further into our sixties. Who among this once-inseparable community will be the first to be diagnosed with dementia? By grace or good fortune, we found our own way into adulthood. John attended theological school and was ordained a minister in the United Church of Christ, serving large congregations in New Jersey and Wisconsin for a total of thirty-four years. Susan earned an M.A. in experimental psychology and a Ph.D. in psychology and religion before entering academic life with a particular focus on adult development and aging. Our two children are now well into adulthood themselves, and one recently gave birth to our first grandchild. With much of our life together centered in congregations, we have been privileged to spend far more time in the company of older adults than most members of our cohort. When we were impoverished students, older adults of the congregation reached out to us in friendship, inviting us for meals and gifting us with used clothing. When we moved into our first parsonage, it was the “old ladies” of the congregation who filled it with furniture. As unpolished young “flower children,” we were grateful to be invited to elegant parties hosted by persons in their seventies, who schooled us in the social graces. We have been richly blessed in countless ways by participating in intergenerational communities all of our adult lives. As we enter the “third age” of our shared life (the period of life bounded at one end by retirement from primary occupation and at the other by decline in physical or cognitive health), we find ourselves delighting in new friendships with persons younger than we are. Too often friendships between different age cohorts are reduced to clichés of one-way relationships, either positively (elder as dispenser of wisdom and guidance) or negatively (elder as care receiver). Wisdom and care are both given and received in all relationships, and friendships across the lines of generation offer special riches. Further, these friendships are best nurtured and supported in the embrace of flourishing communities of persons who honestly acknowledge their vulnerabilities and love one another nevertheless. Our aim in this book is to present a radical view of friendship that is not...

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