Leaving Home at 72

By Donald E. Manges

What will you do after retirement? Two 70-somethings sold their house in the suburbs and lived in Rome, Vienna, London and Paris for 2 years. In brief, breezy essays, they tell of European daily life, museum wanderings, of family history, as they cope with French doctors, Italian subways and, once, a Bulgarian philosopher who moonlighted to fix their computer. When friends asked, 'but what did you do all day?" they replied 'just what you did, only we did it in Europe."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0595373623
• ISBN13: 9780595373628
• Release Date: November 2005
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Length: 308 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A married couple's travelogue.

A wonderful book, read at a breath! When reading it, you seem to be traveling together with the authors. If you feel blue and disappointed in life just take that book and start reading it. In no time you feel optimistic again.

A great read for those who do not travel; a must read for those who do.

Don and Dana Manges spent extended time in the Historic European Cities of their choice. By doing so, they experienced not only the treasures each of these Cities offers, but the culture as well. I have visited each of these beautiful Cities, but only for brief periods. After reading LEAVING HOME AT 72, I would compare my visits to seeing the previews of a movie. Don and Dana, with their writing gifts, created vivid descriptions of so much more, and made me feel as if I was now seeing the entire movie. From their personal point of view, they provide information on where to live, and once you are there, where to go, what to see, the local cuisine and how to do it all. Their writing style is so reader friendly that each page is easy and pleasant to read. Don and Dana kindled in me the desire to return to these wonderful Cities, but next time to see the entire movie.

Larry and Kathy Loved it!

As a couple who travel and have spent time in Rome, Vienna, Paris and London and elsewhere on the Manges tour, we howled at the adventures and relived ours. Having been a "student" in Paris in 1953 and in the army, Don's comics of yesteryear brought tears of laughter. The Dana-Don alternating passages in alternating print styles dramatized how men and women find different kicks in the same situation. This is an informative must-read for the not-retiring retiring who yen to savor foriegn sites and funny slices of life.

Senior Year Abroad

Don and Dana Manges's book "Leaving Home at 72" reflects a dawning reality in our country that "60 is the new 30". Firmly rejecting a formulaic retirement of shuffleboard and early-bird specials, they instead present an energizing example of diving into new experiences, scenes, and friendships that leave you feeling that weird optimism of the future that only Star Trek episodes ever seem to fully capture. The book is presented in a series of vignettes told, tag-team style, by each author, which accentuates the sense of adventure, together and apart, as they move from Italy to Austria, to France and England over a two year period. The authors move easily from fact-finding to exploration to humor, and the stories are the sort that bubble up in your consciousness in the hours and days after you read them. The detective Nero Wolfe often advised his assistant, Archie Goodwin, to handle each new situation with "Intelligence, guided by Experience", and this could be the subliminal message for the book ... all these new adventures have alien aspects which are easily overcome in this manner, and all reward the effort. I particularly liked Dana's discovery of the Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris and her excursion into seminars there ... experiencing cooking as theatre. Don provides an intriguing comparisons of his European experience in retirement vs that of a young serviceman in the 1950s. He has also appended episodes from his experiences with the International Executive Service Corps in Armenia and Lithuania that are fascinating on their own, and suggest that this may not be the only compilation to expect from the authors. This book is a good find and a rewarding read.

Classy Mid Class Americans Having the Time of Their Lives

Dana and Don Manges take you right there -- to places small and grand in great cities of Europe with 86 essay stories of their late-in-life adventure. They literally pulled up stakes (to provide their traveling grub stake), sold the family home to live a dream of living in Rome, Vienna, Paris and London over a two year time. Their stories, about half Don's and half Dana's, are artfully detailed to give the reader's mind a picture and feeling of what it's like to take "... the walking path ...outlining the peninsula of Cap Ferrat ... a land of milk and honey. And lots of money." ...a few miles from Prince Rainer's palace in Monaco. They write from the perspective of mid class Americans having the time of their lives. You can read this book for fun, for the joy of armchair traveling and for its wit and funny sketches. Or, if you have the time of a retiree and a yen to have a really different kind of living plus travel experience, you can use it as a guide and how-to book to visit and live as an American in great places of Europe. It is a one-of-a-kind book in my reading experience and I commend it heartily. Robert Roylance