[B]OLD AGE With Debbie Weil

In the Intro to this episode, you'll hear Steven Petrow talking about his sister Julie Petrow’s death last June 2023. After years of battling ovarian cancer, Julie, Steven’s five-years-younger little sister, chose to die in her New Jersey home by drinking a lethal cocktail. She was surrounded by her family. And it was legal. She used a procedure called MAID or medical aid in dying, which is now legal in 10 states in the U.S. plus the district of Columbia.

But before she died, she made Steven, who is a bestselling author and a contributing columnist for The Washington Post, promise to write about how she chose to die, in order to raise awareness around MAID, a practice that many people don’t know about, or don’t understand, even though it was first legalized in Oregon, almost 30 years ago.

So Steven did, publishing an essay about Julie and her decision in The New York Times a few months ago. It got a huge reception with over 600 comments on the NYT’s site.

In this episode, Steven explains more:

• What the term medical aid in dying means and what it is exactly (it used to be called physician assisted suicide, but a physician is NOT present)
• Why he thinks only 9,000 people have availed themselves of the procedure since it first became legalized
• Why it’s mostly used by educated whites (for one thing, the cocktail of lethal drugs cost $700 to $900 and is NOT reimbursable)

This is simply a fascinating episode and Steven is a lovely guest, eloquent, respectful, and informed. It was such a pleasure to have him back on the show. As always, see below for links to his articles and books, including the NYT article, and a link to the first time he was on the show almost three years ago.

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Don't miss Debbie's Behind The Scenes essay on Substack accompanying every episode of the podcast.

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Mentioned in this episode or useful:

• Steven Petrow’s website
• I Promised My Sister I Would Write About How She Chose to Die by Steven Petrow (New York Times, Dec. 28, 2024)
• A cancer patient had decided how to die. Here's what I learned from her. by Steven Petrow (Washington Post, Feb. 18, 2024)
• NPR podcast with Steven Petrow about MAID (Feb. 22, 2024)
• He didn't want his sister to die. But her suffering helped him understand her choice (NPR, Feb. 25, 2024)
• How Aid in Dying Became Medical, Not Moral by Rachel E. Gross (New York Times, Oct. 24, 2023)
• At Peace: Choosing a Good Death After a Long Life by Samuel Harrington MD (Grand Central Life & Style; February 2018)
• States Where Medical Aid in Dying is Authorized
• [B]OLD AGE Podcast S3E24 - Steven Petrow on the Stupid Things He Won’t Do When He Gets Old
• Stupid Things I Won't Do When I Get Old: A Highly Judgmental, Unapologetically Honest Accounting of All the Things Our Elders Are Doing Wrong by Steven Petrow (Citadel; June 29, 2021)

Connect with Debbie:

• debbieweil.com
• [B]OLD AGE podcast
• [B]OLD AGE newsletter on Substack
• Email: [email protected]
• Debbie and Sam’s blog: Gap Year After Sixty
• Facebook: @debbieweil
• Instagram: @debbieweil
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/debbieweil

Our Media Partners:

• CoGenerate (formerly Encore.org)
• MEA and with thanks to Chip Conley
• Next For Me (f...

Debbie Weil brings Frank Weil, her almost 90-year-old father, back on the podcast to give us his perspective on the 2020 presidential election, even as votes are still being counted. Her Dad is a prolific blogger at FAWideas.com, where he regularly offers his thoughts on Democratic politics, including cogent tirades about you-know-who, whom he regards as incompetent, amoral, and dangerous.

So who else to make better sense of this nail-biting week than her Dad?

He lives in Washington DC with her mother, Denie Weil; they’ve been married almost 70 years. In the late 1970s, Frank was an Assistant Secretary in the Dept. of Commerce under Jimmy Carter. In the decades since, as well as before, he has been deeply involved in Democratic politics. He’s been an informal advisor to Presidential candidates, including Barack Obama. And he always has an opinion. Plenty of them.

They recorded the conversation you’re about to hear in the early afternoon of November 4th. The frustration of the previous night was starting to give way to patience as key swing states and counties continued to count votes. At the time they recorded, there was general agreement that Joe Biden would prevail, narrowly, and become the 46th President of the U.S.

Frank says this is the most extraordinary election of his lifetime, both in terms of nail-biting outcome but also in view of the massive turnout and unusual process of early voting and mail-in ballots.

He tells us that his frustration of the past weeks and months has turned into “inspiration” as he ponders the fact that a divided government might be a good thing, because it will force Washington to compromise and therefore better represent the people. He and Debbie take a brief walk down memory lane for some of the most memorable elections of his lifetime, the first being FDR’s unprecedented third election in 1940 with Henry Wallace as his running mate, when Frank was nine years old. When Debbie was nine, she remembers waking up with excitement the morning after Kennedy was elected in 1960.

There are a few things Debbie and Frank didn’t get around to specifically discussing, including the record turnout, the highest in a century. And they didn’t have enough time to go deeply into examining the divide in this country, between rural and urban, educated and less educated, and the belief in astonishingly opposing narratives.

You can’t help but sense this man's optimism, despite this difficult year and despite the real difficulties that lie ahead as we try to unite a deeply divided nation. He lets us go with a word of wisdom on the importance of collaboration even with those you don’t agree with.

Mentioned in this episode or useful:

• Frank’s blog: https://fawideas.com
• Frank Weil's bio
• Let Me Be Frank: From a Silver Spoon to the Knives and Forks in the Road of My Life (FAW’s autobiography)
• The Result Will Not Be Too Different From Expectations (his blog post on Nov. 4, 2020)
• Frank's appearance on Episode 1 of the podcast
• Why counting the votes takes so long: Here's what happens after polls close in a US presidential election (Pew Research Center, October 22, 2020)
• Memorable Elections (History.com, August 10, 2020)
• Truman vs Dewey: The 1948 United States presidential election
• The most famous election headline in U.S. history: Dewey Defeats Truman
• Nixon vs. Kennedy: The 1960 United States presidential election
• Henry A. Wallace, the 33rd Vice President of the USA

WE ARE LOOKING FOR A SPONSOR. If you are interested in reaching a smart and thoughtful audience of midlife (GenX and Boomer) listeners, who are active, open to change and new possibilities, and...

* This is the last episode in 2023. Back on Jan. 26, 2024! *
Debbie talks to Mary Pipher, a psychologist and bestselling author of 11 books including the ground-breaking Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls. She was the first psychologist to recognize and articulate why life was difficult for adolescent girls and why so many of them felt bad about themselves.

More recently, she has written Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing As We Age, about women navigating the transition from middle age to old age (the topic of this podcast!).

In 2022, she published a memoir, A Life in Light: Meditations on Impermanence. In her new book, just out in paperback, Mary, now 76, talks about her difficult childhood and her relationship with her parents, the importance of family and community, living in a small town in Nebraska, and what the particular challenges of getting old are. She also talks about forgiveness, about adopting Buddhism and her definition of happiness. Per the title, she’s obsessed with light, through trees, on walks, at certain times of day, in certain rooms, and in memories — and how the light makes her feel happy and complete.

She says her knowledge about happiness comes from being someone who has struggled with sadness and anxiety much of her life, something that resonates strongly with Debbie.

This is a great episode. Mary articulates so well what it’s really like to get old and yet still feel so alive.

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Don't miss the Behind The Scenes essay on Substack accompanying this episode
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In today's episode, Debbie interviews Jeff Tidwell, a 35-year digital veteran who has worked with big brands like eTrade and WebMD, as well as with numerous startups, on product, community, marketing and user experience strategies. He’s lived and worked in New York, San Francisco and LA. About two years ago, as he approached 60, he began to feel conscious of his age in a youth-oriented industry.

In this episode, Debbie talks to Kathleen Billings, town manager of Stonington, Maine, the small coastal village on Deer Isle that she and her husband now call home.

Debbie wanted to talk to a local leader about the challenges of this election and pandemic year and Kathleen was the perfect person. She is matter of fact, deeply knowledgeable, and forthright.

Kathleen, 56, has been Stonington’s Town Manager for almost 20 years. She tells us how the town’s twin industries of fishing and tourism have fared and how she began to prepare for COVID back in February. She and Debbie talk about the friction between People From Away (PFA) and locals and how it was exacerbated by COVID.

They also talk about the political tensions that Kathleen has had to face this year and how she‘s handled them. On a side note Kathleen talks about the very real issue of rising sea levels and how the town is addressing that.

They end by reflecting on the year 2020 and how Kathleen has focused on maintaining a positive atmosphere so that everyone can get through this time without being "ground under," as she puts it. She expresses gratitude for the many nonprofits on the island that address community needs.

PHOTO CREDIT: Debbie Weil