Jane Birks reads from her new memoir "Waking Up Alive"

With Waking Up Alive, Jane Birks completes her trilogy of memoirs.

Community living at the Wellington Senior Living Facility defies current prognostications for the elderly. True, the gang at “the Home,” sometimes unaware that night’s darkness has yet to descend, ignores the world with unexpected catnaps. Under the atrium’s light, some back-of-the-head cowlicks reach for the sky. And, yes, ambulances assemble when life becomes fragile.

But who would suspect such challenges? Many I-know-what-I-wanters nurse hearty appetites; they have plenty to say and plenty to do. Otcogenarians, nonagenarians, and centenarians alike dance a swinging two-step, sip a glass of wine, conga around the atrium, and enjoy their epicurean delights.

What’s not to like if one can look forward to waking up alive?

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Jane Wyman Donnelly Birks is the author of Walking a Good Pigeon Toe and Still Kicking. She’s a pistol.