What is it like to be old in the United States? What will our own lives be like when we are old? Americans find it difficult to think about old age until they are propelled into the midst of it by their own aging and that of relatives and friends. Aging is the neglected stepchild of the human life cycle. Though we have begun to examine the socially taboo1 subjects of dying and death, we have leaped over that long period of time preceding death known as old age. In truth, it is easier to manage the problems of death than the problem of living as an old person. Death is a dramatic, one-time crisis while old age is a day-by-day and year-by-year confrontation2 with powerful external forces, a bittersweet coming to terms with one's own personality and one's life subtank nano.
