Is There Life After Retirement?

When I was a little kid, my mom subscribed to Photoplay magazine, which is difficult to describe in today’s terms.  Photoplay was definitely all about Hollywood and movie stars, but not mean spirited or gossipy, like today’s tabloid mags.  It’s an overused term, but the late 50s and early 60s were a “simpler time,” I guess.

Anyway … I started first grade in 1960, so Photoplay was my at-home reading primer.  I read it cover to cover.  Knew the stars, knew their lives, knew their families.

One of the first “other little girls” I ever related to was Carrie Fisher.  I was only a couple years older than her (give or take a few months), so I could really relate to her.

Time passed, Princess Leia eclipsed Carrie, marriages/divorces/lifestyle stories eclipsed that, and – joyfully – Carrie-as-an-author eclipsed it all.  She was smart, brutally honest and just terrific. Acerbic, honest, clever, funny, totally told it like it was.  I loved her writing, loved her on talk shows. She had a no holds barred delivery, no matter who or what the subject was.  Yet her level of willingness to poke fun at herself and her own issues was like the club soda that cut the sting of the whiskey.  And the recent Star Wars reboots? Wonderful.  She was so very many things.

But today, I will miss my one-way through the looking glass childhood “friend” Carrie.

Eddie Fisher, Carrie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds.