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Show MAGGIE KUHN con stopped dying his hair it grow its lovely, natural D and now lets color of gray." Of course, to Maggie Kuhn age-isfundamentally no laughing matter. She notes that the number of people 65 and over in America is steadily increasing: today they make up about 10 percent of the population, and in another 50 years they are expected to reach 20 percent. "And what is going to happen with these growing numbers of old people?" she asks, waving her finger indignantly. "In some societies, like the Masai in Kenya or like the Chinese, old people are revered. But not here. America is caught up in the Detroit syndrome, and we scrap-pil- e our old people like worn-ocar hulks. m is ut 'Glorified playpens' "That's right' she continues, "we warehouse away our citizens in senior high-ris- senior es and nursing homes or, as prefer to call them, 'glorified playpens.' Sure, some old folks may not mind these arrangements in fact, recently I got a letter from one lady who said, 'I like my playpen and I plan to go right on playing in it forever.' Well, for her I say okay, but for the rest of us old folks who still want to be part of this world, America needs to provide 1 opportunities." Maggie Kuhn and her Gray have in mind is a new set of functions for old people. Spethey would like to see them as the "watchdogs" for the rest of society: monitoring the courts, the media, the welfare system, medical clinics, Otility commissions, town councils, and almost everything else that might go wrong. Says Ms. Kuhn: "Old people are the only ones who have the sense of history and the time to do these jobs. I believe our presence alone would make a big difference." What Panthers jobs and cifically, Bridging the gap Apart from this, Maggie Kuhn believes that old people, joined together with young people, ought to take the lead in pioneering "alternate Thus, she advocates "intergenerational living" She would like to see old people going back to college and living in dormitories with their fellow students (they have done this at Bucknell, she notes). And off campus, too, she would like old and young to share housing. Not one to ignore her own advice, the Panther leader currently shares her sprawling house in Philadelphia with two women, aged 35 and 30, and a man, aged 25. When she is not off traveling around the country, Maggie and her housemates get together to eat, debate to party. politics, and sometimes Maggie, who has never been married. ." says she has a number of "nice old men friends" whom she likes to invite over on such occasions. "This living together and getting together of old and young is just what this society needs," contends Maggie. "When I was a child my family lived in my grandmother's house, and my brother and I always had a lot of old people around to pay attention to us and love us. Today, young people scarcely get to see an old person up close that is, until they become one." Accordingly, the Gray Panthers have opened their membership doors to people of all ages. About 25 percent of the Panthers now are under 30. Maggie affectionately calls them her "cubs." The youngest cub is the grandson of a San Diego Gray Panther. As Maggie Kuhn tells it, the boy was so taken with his grandfather's political activism that he decided, in his own way, to become a political activist, too; whereupon he promptly went about to rid organizing his fellow the school cafeteria of junk foods. sixth-grade- Maggie Kuhn stops off to meet with consumer advocate Ralph Nader in his Washington office. She travels some 100,000 miles a year giving lectures. rs 'Political marriage' Though she smiles as she tells this story, Maggie Kuhn is serious about her ultimate vision of welding old and young people into a coalition for political change. "The old and the young can make a perfect political marriage," she says. "We are the ones who can best afford to take political risks because we have the least to lose." And indeed, at the recent national conference of Gray Panthers in Washington, D.C., the old and young discussed strategy for tackling in addition to age-isalmost every other social ill, from sexism to economic inequality. Naively ambitious? Perhaps so. But as far as the Gray Panthers are concerned, they have just begun to prowl. "We are in for a long political fight," says Maggie Kuhn. "Still, America has changed so radically in the years since I was born and in many ways for the better that who could doubt more change is coming in the future?" m Housemates talk things over with Maggie in her Philadelphia home. She envisions a coalition of the old and the young to effect political change. Sees many years ahead And this is a future that Maggie Kuhn intends to see. Seated in her living room with her young housemates and their friends, she was asked how long she personally intended to go on with politics and the Panthers. "Well, it's hard to say," she answered, stroking her gray hair pensively. "Ive got a little arthritis in my hands, but otherwise I'm healthy as a horse. I expect if I stay healthy and outgoing I'll be able to carry on till I'm 95 or 100. Don't you all think so?" Glancing around the room at the admiring young faces, it was obvious nobody doubted it for a moment. Maggie, who has never been married, kisses longtime friend and Cameron Hall at the recent conference of the Cray Panthers in Washington. er 9 |