The last time Maxine referred to herself as "Maxie" was in the fourth grade, and it never cropped up all the way through high school and college.
But, when Maxine entered the workforce after college, she noticed the tendency among her superiors to call her "Maxie," even though she clearly signed her letters "Maxine J. Morgan" and the masthead of her company newsletter displayed the line, "Maxine Morgan, editor."
It was an on-going amusement among the staff people in her department as they started tracking who within the organization called her, "Maxine," and who called her, "Maxie."
They found the "Maxie" people fell into two camps: the truly unenlightened and the condescending.
Maxine admitted at the time she had met very few "condescenders" in rural America.
Since her staff classified most of the "Maxie" people as unenlightened, she gave the issue only a passing thought. Some things were worth fighting for and some were not. She had bigger fish to fry.
It was the early 1970s. Maxine was making headway in her job -- getting things accomplished for the organization that she thought needed to get done, challenging leadership in a patient way to change ever so slightly into a more participative mode of management.
But, then, Jimmy Carter went to Washington. America recaptured some hope and needed self-renewal after the dark days of Watergate. He managed to symbolize a fresh approach to politics. But, then, Maxine watched Carter's credibility on the world stage as well as at home slip away after the Sadat-Begin agreement, probably the high point of his presidency.
Why did that happen? Yes, he was an honest, principled man, but he lacked charisma and experience in welding the worldly ways of power.
And, Maxine felt at the time, Carter lacked something else: a first name that is credible in American culture (or, at least, in the isolated ranks of Washington, where condescension is one of the tools in the fine art of politics).
During Carter's fall from favor with the American public, Maxine began to realize how "Maxie" could also be patronizing in her case as well – and even more so because she was a woman, a woman with a disability.
Called "Maxie" and tagged as "crippled" (just because she walked with a limp due to a right short leg she had since birth) was a double whammy that reinforced long-established stereotypes which didn't die easily in a rural area.
That really didn't become clear to Maxine until her friend, Elizabeth, challenged her to become more assertive about the matter. A single parent of two grade schoolers, Liz was an accomplished musician and intellectually astute. She also happened to be overweight.
"Esther kept calling me 'Lizzy,' and I finally called her on it," she explained. "You've got to do the same."
But Maxine found it difficult to correct people in person, and, to this day, as a 79-year-old, she's never challenged anyone directly by simply saying, "I prefer to be called 'Maxine'."
Maxine took the back-door approach instead. As the women’s rights movement took hold and as Maxine gained more visibility through professional accomplishments, she became the subject of several newspaper profiles about how "a woman with a disability makes good." Inevitably, the question would always come with every interview, "What would you change in how people relate to you as a woman with a disability?"
In every chance Maxine had, she used the "Maxie" example. And it worked. The media helped her say, "I'm not a 'Maxie' anymore." Today, the "Maxie" people are either reformed or out of her circle of contacts.
But it took years for Maxine to find a way to take this personal step into adulthood -- the same journey someone named Howie, Donnie or Billie as a child normally learns to take much earlier in life.
Now in elderhood, Maxine realizes she lived a good share of younger years on “default,” as author Richard Leider calls it. Living the “default life,” after all, was living a life that was ultimately inauthentic and impersonal. It was living a life that wasn't really of Maxine's own choosing. It was a life defined by others.
Here are two other insights from Ricard Leider that Maxine now shares with her grandkids:
* The secret to ending “default living” is really no secret at all. Be yourself.
* You have to work on yourself today in order to grow into the elder you want to become tomorrow.
She's also strangely grateful that living a life is like drawing without an eraser. There are no “do-overs.”
Maxine's takeaway tip from her story: Live a life of your own choosing.
Here’s to mature-adult living!
Jim Hasse, ABC, GCDF retired, author of “52 Shades of Graying”
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