ageless spirits The ageless spirit of Connie Goldman BY LORI BITTER A s she does most mornings, Connie Goldman started her day in the swimming pool. Then she was ready to talk. It's nearly impossible to get her to talk about her life of more than 80 years. But, with eight books on topics related to aging, and hundreds of interviews in her long career at NPR, there is much that she could say. As the voice of National Public Radio's All Things Considered, Connie's voice is familiar to listeners. The woman who shared a desk with "Gary" Keillor (that's Garrison Keillor of A Prairie Home Companion) is much more comfortable talking about her interviews than being interviewed. "I started by interviewing celebrities when I was the arts reporter for NPR. People were inclined to pay attention to celebrities, so it was the device I used," she recalls. "As I started to think about writing books, I used my theatre background to translate my interview style for reading." "In my fifties I was drawn to tell stories about the truth of aging. You have to understand what's happening when you age if you are going to deal with it. Most of us start to understand it when we are caregiving. The person you are caring for is changing physically and mentally. It's not predictable, things happen 29 GRAND MAY JUNE 2018 Continued on next page