Author: Mardo Williams

ISBN: 0-9649241-4-5

This book is filled, no, it's overflowing, with humor, causing my lips to rise up at the corners starting with the very first sentence. One Last Dance begins with "a violent encounter," Morgan and Dixie collide -- the birthday cake for Effie's party is smashed and Morgan's glasses are broken. It was destined to be the start of a beautiful, okay, bumpy, relationship.

The novel is separated into a convenient seven books. Book I walks the reader through the "getting together" events -- a 79 year old Dixie and an 89 year old Morgan. Just visiting Whispering Pines retirement center for the first time, Morgan runs into a woman (or was it the woman that had run into Morgan?), but before he heads back to his leased apartment in his big troublesome car, he learns her name -- Dixie. She's a spring chicken compared to Effie whose 100th birthday is being celebrated.

Dixie wasn't a resident. She worked part-time at the center, helping with "the newsletter, bingo, the parties" and "reads to a few residents who are blind. They love her!" Morgan thought, "so she could be loveable if she tried."

Mrs. Fontana gives Morgan the tour -- “independent living would be the same as having your own apartment.” Morgan’s face is frozen. “Then, when the next stage of your life arrives, you’ll move down the hall into assisted living.” Mrs. Fontana tries to convince Morgan that this facility has everything he will ever need -- including a rehab, should he “break a hip or whatever.” Morgan isn’t instantly persuaded to sign up. Instead, he would start off by returning for a meal -- testing the waters, so to speak. Besides, he had four months -- he either renewed his lease or checked into the old-folks home.

“Three days later, Morgan picked up an application packet for admission to Whispering Pines, He stood by the reception desk, thumbing through the thick sheaf of papers to find the list of costs. In addition to his room and board, he noted the assistance, when he reached that decrepit stage, would cost him by the piece: eight dollars for helping him with his bath, four dollars or wheeling him down to lunch. He supposed there’d be a charge for giving him an enema if he needed it. He searched but couldn’t find the service listed.”

Book II asks, “What could they have been thinking?” It would be the pancake house after church. Did he sign up to go to church services when they moved in together? The job jar held chores written on bits of paper. Today, Morgan had fished out defrosting the refrigerator. After brunch and back on the porch, “want some of the paper?” Dixie hands Morgan the “sports section,” her fingers brushing his, “setting off an electric spark.”

Morgan’s thoughts are humorous -- like imagining what the life squad would say if he tried to sweep Dixie off her feet and carry her up the stairs -- as Clark Gable did in “Gone With The Wind.” He knew how housewives must have felt -- “contrary to what Dixie said she believed, being surprised by what the job jar held for him on those little slips of paper did not make the day more exciting. The work was boring, tiring. Besides, after he’d cleaned everything up, the place just got dirty again. Talk about Sisyphus!”

As in everyone’s life, there are intruders, medical decisions, family business, accidents and as always, other arrangements. The remaining five books draw the reader even further into the lives of Morgan and Dixie. This novel is packed with emotion and revealing surprises, and leaves the reader feeling as if they know Dixie and Morgan.

This work of fiction gave me a new respect for love and aging -- gracefully or otherwise. In the end, to find love like Dixie and Morgan is rare, but at least I know it’s possible -- at any age.

Mardo Williams was a writer for over seventy years, so sitting down at his computer at the age of 92 to write was not uncommon. It is said that he wrote this novel “to inspire old folks not to sit in a corner and wait for life to happen, but to go full speed at life, and yes, even have a love affair.” Two weeks before the revisions were to begin, Mr. Williams passes away. His two daughters. Kay and Jerri, finish the revisions according to their father’s notes. It is a masterpiece!

The above review was contributed by: Sue Vogan, Writer & Author of NCO-No Compassion Observed: To read more of Sue's reviews Click Here