As my introduction, let me just say that “senior editor” isn’t solely a job title. Yes, I am an editor, but I’m also a bona fide senior citizen. I rarely even thought about “it,” until one day… I applied for the editor position at Generations Magazine and was asked how I was preparing for my senior years. I was like, “Who, me?” If a glance into a mirror doesn’t remind you of the passing years, I guess one can always depend on the astute observations of others.
I got an early start in the publishing industry delivering newspapers via Schwinn in a Chicago suburb. As a teen, I worked at a printing factory during summer vacations. There, my first “editing job” was removing badly printed Libby’s labels from huge stacks of them. You can’t have magenta beans adorning cans of haricot vert.
In high school, I wrote social commentary about teen angst and the Vietnam War. After high school, I rambled on for an underground newspaper. While attending college, I worked as a graphic artist for science agencies such as NOAA and at CU’s planetarium, and on Maui, for the NifTAL Project and a book publisher. I exchanged my art degree, X-Acto knife and loupe for a red pen when I took the editor job at a newspaper. I have also worked for online news outlets.
While working at GM for over 10 years, I have learned many reasons why it is prudent to prepare for senior citizenship. If you are lucky like me, “it” could happen to you, too. When store clerks begin to ask, “Do you need help with your groceries, auntie?”— you just might be a senior citizen. Read this magazine just in case…
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