Bless my granddaughter. She did almost all of the driving from Asheville to Hagerstown Maryland and Baltimore to Philadelphia and back. The weather, I am happy to say, was glorious. The hotel in Philadelphia sat right off 1-95, and the following day we were picked up and transported to the studio in New Jersey, where I taped Suzanne Roberts’s show, Seeking Solutions with Suzanne.

Suzanne Roberts is a marvel, in her eighties, she hosts a show that brings information to older people. For the last six years, she has been taping three times a week for six weeks in February and March, and there are three tapings each day that she works. I was the third for February 16th. Before me, Suzanne interviewed a doctor who talked about sex in the later years and a woman, who spoke about the effects on retirees of the failures of some pension systems in our country.

Using my novels and the ladies of Covington and their involvement in life and life’s issues as a starting point, I spoke of possibilities and hope that life can and will continue richly and meaningfully after age sixty.

Then, Toby and I were taken back to the hotel, and we got into the car and headed home.

The show will let me know in advance when the five-minute clip of my interview will appear on CNN Headline News, Comcast network, and I will let you know. They will also send me a tape of the interview, so for you fan clubs out there, or for potential fan clubs, I would be happy to send you a copy of the interview.

Life is too hard to live it all alone. We all need someone we trust to listen to us when we need to share our thoughts and feelings be they glad or sad, and friends or, and, family to stand with us through the ups and downs of life.

I would be lost without my family and my friends. My oldest and dearest friends include women whom I have known since I was eleven, fourteen and eighteen years old, and others who came into my life in the 1960s and never left, and more recently, new friends here. What would my life have been and be today without these special women?

Lately, I discovered an AT&T one price, long distance program and I signed up. For under $40.00 a month. I make all the long distance calls I choose and talk for as long as I like. I would hate to tell you what my phone bill used to be, because I am one of those people who stay in touch, often.

We have four dogs, my little Daisy, two black labs, and a Plott hound. The labs and the hound simply wandered into the yard and stayed. Daisy was given to me when she was over a year old.

I believe that dogs, like people, are affected by their early childhood. Lucy for example, will turn over the garbage can scavenging for food, and I think, poor dog, what must it have been like for her, a smaller female in what kind of litter, struggling to get enough to eat.

Henry, the Plott hound, is incredibly affectionate and affable. At sixty-four pounds, he climbs into my husband’s lab, lies there, and goes to sleep. Recently, I had several women for lunch, and we sat in the living room, two of them on the couch. Before I could stop him, Henry climbed onto the couch and rested his head on one woman’s lap. Luckily she liked dogs and liked Henry, and she petted and indulged him, bless her. Henry adores butter, and if left out on the table or on the kitchen counter he will devour several sticks of butter every day and never get sick.

Jake, the largest lab, is incredibly gentle and laid back. He never intrudes on anything or anyone and his fur is like silk. He’s a gentle giant of a dog. I have become very fond of Jake.

Among the four we have only one watchdog, Daisy, at thirty pounds.

email: jmedlicott@mindspring.com

web: http://www.joanmedlicott.com