As a child I remember my grandparents being old people. I was fortunate to have four loving grandparents living nearby and as a grown man three of them were still living. Just the thought of grandparents brings the vision of elderly people moving slowly. They worked until they were too old to work anymore and then quit work and called it retirement. My grandmothers wore aprons and baked cookies, cakes and pies. They had vegetable gardens and canned the excess harvest for the Winter months. Elderly women in my youth always wore dresses and maybe a bonnet for outdoor work and a hat to church. Grandfathers tended small gardens and played card games for entertainment. My grandparents had stopped driving and seldom traveled anywhere. They conserved electricity and water and tried to survive.

My children's grandparents also worked until they were elderly, too elderly to travel. Growing up during the Great Depression they learned to invest in bank CDs instead of stocks and mutual funds. New gadgets like computers, VCRs and remote controls were something they did not want to learn. Getting money from an ATM was so foreign and untrusty they would never consider using one of those machines.

My how things have changed. Linda and I are now the grandparents and we have six grandchildren and one step-grandchild. But we decided to retire while we were young enough to travel and enjoy life. All of our fulltiming friends are grandparents too but they are either young or young at heart. The grandparents of today keep up with the latest technology, computers, web pages, satellite dishes, digital cameras and internet investing and banking. They love four- wheeling across mountains and deserts and climbing steep cliffs. A drive to Alaska is a routine trip. There is daily dancing, bicycle riding, hiking, golfing and every activity one can imagine.

Actually, with our total freedom we feel younger than before we retired. During Christmas we returned to Kentucky and knowing there would be a houseful for the holidays, we took our sleeping bag so we could sleep on the floor and let others use the beds. It never dawned on us that "we" were the grandparents. Yes, grandma and grandpa, times sure have changed.