I spied the tomato-red cover on my editor’s desk. I took one look at the title and dashed off a note, pleading to be the one to pluck it. Then I lugged it to bed every night for a week, peering over my reading glasses to take in every word.
The title, you ask? “The Juicy Tomatoes Guide to Ripe Living after 50” (New Harbinger, $16.95 paper). And, sweetheart, if your odometer was clickin’ over the mid-century mark, you’d be luggin’ too.
It’s got everything a ripe tomato needs to know. It’s got inspirational tales of hot mamas and mountain-climbing grannies. It extols the beauty of the wrinkle. But then it lays out frank talk about going under the knife. It spills the beans on stuff you might be embarrassed to ask anyone but your best friend (the skinny on chin hairs, say).
Susan Swartz, a columnist for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat and author of the earlier “Juicy Tomatoes,” sits down with some 100 juicy tomatoes who don’t apologize for their age and don’t hide their spunk.
They make you wanna leap. Right into that juicy red soup they call Life After 50.
Splitting hairs: “Maybe if we could come up with a jazzier word for gray we’d like it better. . . . We could borrow from the paint-chip people. Call it `flint’ or `ice’ or `morning fog.'”