Keith Elkins, author of “The Old Guy Goes,” will read from his book and sign copies at Dog Ears Bookstore & Café, 688 Abbott Road, Buffalo, at noon Saturday, June 24.
A Buffalo resident, Elkins retired from Empire State College as a State University of New York Distinguished Service Professor in 1997. In the years since, he’s been a volunteer in several agencies supporting children, working adults and seniors. Up to four times a month for most of those years, he’s facilitated three or four current events discussion groups for seniors in as many different senior residences. He’s also served as founder, writer and performer with the Brainstormers, a group of mostly older actors who create, present and discuss with audiences of senior citizens playlets that dramatize issues of interest or concern to them.
In “The Old Guy Goes,” college teacher Eldred Duker feels he’s not so much slowing down as getting older faster and faster. Childless, he and his wife Marie adopt a six-year-old girl named Hope from the children’s home in which he himself lived as a child. After Hope is grown and on her own, Marie is killed by a careless driver. Slowly losing his grip on reality, he remarries, feels responsible for an accident that kills his second wife, loses control of his daily life, moves into a continuing care retirement community, contracts a lethal disease and, at 80, dies surrounded by his family.
For more information on the nonprofit bookstore, please visit http://dogearsbookstore.org, call 823-2665 or follow Dog Ears on Facebook for frequent updates.
