BOSTON, MA -- A study released today by the New England Council on Aging predicts that the last little old lady will die sometime at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century.
Most of them will die from the effects of old age, said the council's director, Dr, Margaret Schoon.
Although most little old ladies moved to Florida and Arizona in the 1970's, the Census Bureau reports that there are still pockets of them in most suburbs and cities, giving local residents pause. "I saw one buying a yam and a box of plastic martini glasses in my supermarket last week," said Buzz Melville, 25, a Unix administrator and resident of New York's Greenwich Village. "She paid for the whole thing with pennies and nickels that she got from this little thing she called a 'change purse.' It was weird."
Their demise is not expected to affect the daily lives of most Americans, but many cultural observers believe that their disappearance will leave a huge gap, insisting that little old ladies have made lasting contributions to American society.
"No longer will you see small well-dressed white haired old women walk into a Burger King and order a 'hamburger sandwich' and a cup of tea," said Joshua Betrock, a Professor of Sociology at Ohio University, and the author of White Haired Mamas, a study of women who came of age before and during World War II. "We're losing a generation of women who baked pies from scratch, got their hair set once a week at the 'beauty parlor' and sewed gingham dresses from old fabric they had lying around the house."
"These were old ladies who grew up swooning to Hit Parade crooners like Bing Crosby, Rudy Vallee and Russ Columbo," Betrock added. "Aside from the occasional Elvis Presley or Beatle song, Rock and Roll scared them, and the screen idols of the post World War II period, like Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift and James Dean made them want to puke."
"Every table and shelf in their living rooms were covered up with doilies and candy dishes...the hard candy industry is really going to reel from their demise."
Added Dr. Schoon. "There was this one little old lady in my neighborhood that subsisted entirely on Sherry and Circus Peanuts. At Halloween you were afraid to go to her house since she never went outdoors, even to walk her schnauzer. If you did go to her house to trick or treat, this old lady always gave you apples or pennies or unwrapped hard candy. My mother always said to be polite and say 'Thank You' even though once I got home I had to throw away the apples and the other unwrapped stuff."
Dr. Schoon predicts that former first ladies Lady Bird Johnson and Betty Ford, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, socialite Brooke Astor, actress Kitty Carlisle Hart, and comediennes Phyllis Diller and Rose Marie will all die during the first wave of old lady deaths.
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