My grandfather, now nearing age 90, has always lived a very active lifestyle. He's biked through the mountains of Las Cruces, N.M., 5 miles every morning, for most of his senior years. He’s always had rock-solid six-pack abs — and his mind has stayed equally firm. He is exemplary of a theory that a University of Kansas Alzheimer’s Disease Center research group has set out to prove: Exercise has a strong, ...
Ann Anderson describes her job as “frosting on frosting.” A University of Kansas graduate, Anderson has held several jobs throughout her career, but she’s carried her identity as a tennis player everywhere she’s gone. Now 65, she’s working her dream job as a coach at the Jayhawk Tennis Center. She’s played since her mother gave her a taped-up racket with half the handle chopped off — sized for a ...
As we age, our birthdays begin to take on different meanings. Most of us lose the desire to affix pointy cardboard cones to our heads; some of us even try to avoid any acknowledgement of that day because of the inevitability it signifies. In what may appear to be self-celebratory extravagance, I decided last year to take vacation time for the days surrounding my birthday because, I thought, “Why not?” I ...