How old are you? How much do you weigh?

Another writer from one of the memoir classes I lead in Chicago has hit the big-time: a story about the beautifully-named Bindy Bitterman was on the front page of Friday’s Chicago Tribune. Friday being Valentine’s Day and all, the article was about Bindy’s unique collection of three-dimensional “pop-up” Jewish Valentines. An excerpt:

Bitterman, who is Jewish, conjectures that the valentine’s cards became popular among Jewish immigrants to the United States in the early 1900s, but despite her efforts, which include contacting the Smithsonian Institution, she has never been able to pin down a reliable history.

Bindy takes the memoir class I lead at a senior living center called The Admiral at the Lake, and while her fellow writers there applauded the story, some questioned the headline’s emphasis on age. In the print edition of the Chicago Tribune, the headline read like this:

The old lady and the Jewish valentine mystery

Online, the headline reads like this:

An 88-year-old Chicago woman and the mystery of the Jewish valentines

”How the first headline got through the editors in this day and age beats me!” one of Bindy’s fellow writers said in an email to me. “That guy — and it had to be a guy right? — should be sent to some kind of sensitivity training class on how to be respectful to seniors!” Was it necessary to give Bindy’s age, they wondered? Her age wasn’t that relevant to the story, they said. “And anyway, if she’s living here at The Admiral you know she’s of a certain age…”

The headline reminded them of a woman who lives there at The Admiral who wouldn’t divulge her age. “My reaction was ‘Oh come on, who cares?’ but when I kept bugging her, she fired back “Well how
much do you WEIGH?” Touché! No answer there.

The Tribune column was written by Mary Schmich, and by the time I woke up Friday morning the link to the online version was already in my in box: one of Bindy’s proud fellow writers had already written to let me know it had made page one. I emailed Bindy right away to congratulate her, and she emailed right back to let me know her new best friend Mary Schmich had contacted her already that morning. “Mary wanted to let me know she hadn’t written the headline.”

Having only read the online version, I wasn’t sure what all the headline fuss was about. Bindy had seen the “old lady” print version but didn’t seem all that concerned, either. “After all,” she wrote to me, “I am an old lady!”