The oldest person you have ever met.

That's it.

Here are some possible approaches.  (don't try them all at once!)

1.  Instead of the oldest person "You" ever met, substitute  a
character's name, and do the exercises in the third person,

2.  Do the exercise in scene.  (First person, present tense, or third
person present tense, or first person, past tense, immediate point of
view, or third person past tense, immediate point of view.)

3.  Do the exercise in summary, using the reflective point of view.

4.  Bend the universal a bit.  Examples:  A list of old persons, an old
person from childhood, compared to another old person from recent years,
an imaginary old person, an interview with an old person, and so on.

Some suggestions.  Tell us some stuff.  Let us see these people, hear
how they speak, feel their presence.  Tell us about them, and don't
hesitate to ramble off the subject a bit.  If other people enter the
telling, make sure they are clearly seen.  Don't try to make this a
story, just a passage.   That way later on we can all post suggestions
of story possibilities.

My own old person (deliberately kept short since I have that other story
to get back to)

I was about eight when I met the 90 year old man.  My mother and her
sister led me up to him.  He stood tall, almost as tall as my father,
and he looked straight ahead, as if he had spotted something very
interesting on the horizon.  'Say hello to Abner,"  my mother said.

"Hello, Abner,"  I said.  It was the first  time I had ever called an
adult by his given name.

"Hello,"  Abner said.  He kept staring straight ahead.

"Abner cannot see you,"  my mother said.

"He's blind as a bat,"  my mother's sister said.  She'd always been like
that, afraid of no one, and ready to speak her piece.

Abner did not object.  He placed his hand on the top of my head.  "A
good boy,"  he said.  Then he pulled me close to him and I could hear
his heart beating inside his ancient chest. I could hear his breathing
too, one steady breath  firmly following the other.  I was awed.

Later my mother told me Abner was 96 years old.  "90,"  her sister
insisted.  Since I know from long experience that my mother never heard
a good story that she did not believe she could improve, I go with her
sister, who never told a joke in her entire life, as the more reliable
source.
 

To all:  And that's it.  You can all do better.  I'm sure of it.  If you
like, you can play with this one, tell me how you would make it into a
story.

Paul Pekin

ppekin@megsinet.net

ps,  excuse my missing hyphens, Pat.  You know how I hate them.