Golden Years, page 18
“Society makes us feel like we’ve had our chance, and we’ve raised our children, and it’s time now to support the next generation and kind of take a back seat,” she said, “and Gerry opened my heart.”
As Joan said, people our age are seen as irrelevant and become invisible. It used to be that when you got to sixty or sixty-five, you were considered ancient. Life expectancy was different, and people drank and smoked rather than playing pickleball and eating a diet high in antioxidants. We’re living better for longer, yet we haven’t changed what we expect from our lives. I feel a responsibility to my generation not only to change that perception but also to wake up those like me, people in the third act of their lives, to the very real possibility of love. Particularly the guys.
You could fill a whole library with the books that have been written about the emotional unavailability of men. I’m definitely not here to tell you whether this traditionally male trait is a result of nature or nurture, a harmful generalization or a painful truth. I’m no expert on anything but my own experience. I may not be the perfect model of self-awareness, but if someone holds up a mirror, I’m sure as heck going to take a look. From what I can see, younger generations of men seem to be less walled off and more open. But for fellows my age, vulnerability remains a bad word.
My utterly unscientific poll of Long Lake’s retired population confirmed my theory. While all my friends, regardless of gender, were across-the-board supportive (not to mention protective) of me during my Golden Bachelor days, the women were decidedly more enthusiastic about the whole enterprise. When I asked people if they would do it, I estimate 80 percent of the women said yes. Under the right circumstances, namely if they were single, it wouldn’t take a lot of enticing for them to participate in the game to find a new partner. That percentage dropped to 40 percent when it came to the guys. One member of the Old Farts and Liars Club pretty much summed it up for my gender when he said, “I respect you for putting yourself out there, but I’d never be able to do it.”
The alphas I know would rather get a root canal than embarrass themselves by talking about feelings. The thought of making a bad choice, appearing stupid, getting shown up—whatever words you want to use—is enough to keep them from trying something that could very well make them happy. They would rather be lonely than lose face.
It takes real strength and confidence to get out there. And if you look stupid, you look stupid. That’s how I approached The Golden Bachelor and how I now approach the conversation about finding love and happiness in later life. If you respect me for making myself vulnerable, I tell my male friends, maybe you could give it a try. Quit hiding behind the tough-guy facade, and you might just find you enjoy things more.
About halfway into filming my season, people began to talk about the cultural impact the show was having. The dominant lesson of The Golden Bachelor—to be open to possibilities because it’s never too late to fall in love—was apparently resonating. I was surprised when an ordinary middle-aged man at the In-N-Out Burger where I grabbed a bite singled me out as a “hero.” But I took his comment as a personal attaboy and not anything larger.
After The Golden Bachelor began airing on Thursday nights, I started to see things differently. It began with a DM from a childhood friend. Joe and I had played Little League together when we were twelve years old. A few times, when my mom picked us up from practice, Joe ran her all over town with random directions to his house. Mom’s terrible sense of direction made her fall victim to Joe’s innocent prank. She didn’t catch on, but we thought the silly joke was hilarious. We also went to Walsh High School together, where we both played on the basketball team. As the years rolled by, we lost touch, except for the periodic high school reunion and occasional visit. Nonetheless, we never lost the bond between us. Joe lost his wonderful wife, Tina, to cancer only a few months before I lost Toni, and we felt one another’s pain acutely. So I was thrilled by the direct message he sent me after the show began airing on TV. “Gerry, I have not dated since Tina passed away seven years ago,” he wrote. “But because of your show and a little bit of luck, I’ve started seeing someone.”
Since then, stories like Joe’s haven’t stopped arriving. They come in emails, social media posts, letters, even phone calls. They also come from every age-group. Twentysomethings, seniors, and those in between have reached out to let me know that their resolve to take an emotional risk has been bolstered simply by their watching a guy over seventy putting himself out there.
I even received a tale of finding love again in a letter from abroad. As I read the letter, my spirits soared because it was a story with a happy ending. When Etta was a young woman in the UK, she dated Kenneth. But the two went their separate ways, each getting married and staying married for almost thirty years. With the deaths of their spouses a few years back, they found themselves alone. I like to think fate rewards those willing to take a risk. In the case of Etta and Kenneth, they each decided to “get out there” and wound up finding each other again. Etta was disembarking from a cruise ship at about the same time Kenneth was gathering his luggage from a different cruise. Although they hadn’t seen each other in three decades, he recognized her and decided to take a chance. He called her name, and now they are several years into their marriage. Etta wanted me to know that with an open heart, “Anything truly is possible.”
When I arrived in LA to start taping my season, my worry was that The Golden Bachelor would be a flop, and I would be the cause. Instead, it was a bona fide hit. The premiere was ABC’s most watched episode of an unscripted series ever on Hulu after thirty-five days of viewing. The entire season was ABC’s most watched reality show since the 2019–20 season of American Idol. While we achieved record-breaking viewer numbers, we also accomplished something far greater: We gave hope to a generation that had thought itself invisible. For me, stories like Etta’s are the true hallmark of success. I wasn’t the only one.
A producer from The Golden Bachelor and I had become friends over our many weeks of working together. On the last day of the filming, I met his father, who had rerouted a business trip to Chicago to meet us. Having lost his wife a few years earlier after a marriage spanning several decades, he was a pleasant man with an easy smile who hid the sorrow of his loss with well-timed puns and anecdotes. After the season ended, the producer sent me a message I still hold dear.
“I’m so damn proud of this show,” he wrote. “Together we created something so special that will change the way people see themselves and others. We are on the cusp of a cultural movement. There is so much hype and the show lives up to it. It is wonderful… filled with Heart, Humor, and Hope.”
Recent updates from him make my heart soar. His dad has put his heart and soul into a new relationship, and his feelings have been reciprocated by that special woman. They are planning to travel to Australia together soon, and the future seems to promise yet another success story for The Golden Bachelor.
Among all the opportunities I’ve been afforded as the original Golden Bachelor, the most gratifying has been the opportunity to spread hope to other seniors any way I can—through selfies in airports, social media posts, or appearances at assisted living facilities. Maybe it’s because my dad is still able to enjoy the freedom of living at home that I simply cannot decline an invitation to entertain the residents of one of these senior homes. It seems all I need to do to bring them joy is show up, and I find that it’s good medicine for me as well. It’s worth every minute invested to make the world a little bit bigger for those with little hope of doing what many of us take for granted, like taking a Sunday drive, going for a walk in the park, shopping for groceries, or seeing family. Whether or not it’s true, they always tell me they have watched The Golden Bachelor several times. At one place, several of the women had had their hair done for the first time in months, while others had gotten manicures just to greet me. They are hungry for the unique tidbit of inside info, and I am more than delighted to give it to them.
While I was happy my appearance was an event worth gussying up for, I constantly remind people that it was not the Gerry Turner show. The Golden Bachelor was about so much more, namely twenty-two women with a zest for life who are the embodiment of courage. Talk about putting yourself out there! No matter the escapade, their humor was on display—about the show, themselves, aging, and, of course, me. They gave me heart and still do, because my journey is still not over.
I had my person with Toni for forty-three years, and who could or should ever ask for more than that? I’ve never once thought I could replace her. The anniversary of her death is a day that still hits me hard. The girls and I always exchange greetings as a token to her memory. But the grief of that date pales in comparison to the grief I feel on Thanksgiving, a day she truly loved. That was Toni’s holiday. Man, she would rip the house apart cooking, baking, making flower arrangements, and doing all the stuff to make it a real celebration. After her passing, Thanksgiving was noticeably hollow for several years. I attempted to fill up the absence, trying in vain to be Toni. The experiment was an epic failure, and the last straw was when I actually dropped a cooked turkey on the floor. I was trying to do too much, and that bird was frigging hot! That’s when Angie put her foot down. “Okay, Dad, you’re done,” she said, while Jenny nodded in agreement.
That’s when we began celebrating Thanksgiving at Jenny and Jon’s. We each do a third of the work, trying to re-create all the things that Toni used to do. Martha Stewart is not going to call us for any holiday hosting tips, but the effort binds us. The void that was such a terrible source of grief has now become a kind of celebration. Mimosas are served as soon as we set foot in the kitchen and don’t stop until the Macy’s parade is finished. It’s zany and far from perfect, but we can high-five and say we have each other and got it done.
As much as I enjoyed learning to celebrate the holidays anew with my girls and their families, it’s still difficult to figure out how to move forward without Toni. After being with the same person for nearly half a century, how do you unlearn all the cues and comfort you’ve established so deeply? When I figure that out, I’ll write another book. Never mind the big issues, like bank accounts or blended families, which get so much attention. The everyday routines are what befuddle me. In a new relationship, you need to figure out what the other person likes to eat and when they like to eat it. Do they like music in the background? What are their favorite TV shows? Then there are the intimacies that can take a lifetime to coordinate. After sleeping with the same woman for my entire adult life, I’ll admit it’s darn difficult to take my clothes off and get in bed with a brand-new one.
These are the kind of details that can quickly derail a guy, particularly one in his seventies who has been doing things a certain way for a really long time. If you are able to stay curious instead of retreating into fear, and look at these questions as opportunities for exploration as opposed to reasons to hide under a rock, life can be an incredible adventure, no matter your age or circumstance.
My story of trying to date twenty-two different women within six weeks is a little extreme. Still, as with any experience of trying to connect to another person, I learned a lot about myself. At the time, I was deeply ashamed I’d said, “I love you,” to more than one woman at a time, as if I were a liar, a lothario, or a first grader. I felt ridiculous. But with the benefit of time, I have been able to offer myself a little grace. I wasn’t superficial or stupid; I just fall in love easily. I’d also like to point out that the three people to whom I said “I love you” embodied the perfect combination of character, grace, and charm.
I knew I had become more empathetic with age and the loss of my wife. My training as a mediator had honed my active listening skills, which opened me to many more feelings and perspectives than I had ever considered before. I was keenly aware of how close grief and pain were to the surface after Toni’s passing. The waterworks, which flowed freely at anything from the sight of my granddaughters to a TV commercial for insurance, were proof enough. What I didn’t realize, however, was that a host of other emotions were swimming around, right beside that pain. Just as I cried more freely than ever before, so did I fall headlong and harder in love. Any guardrails I used to have up seemed to have evaporated into thin air. I could easily look upon that as a weakness. My logical brain tells me that falling in love without thinking had serious repercussions. It led me to profess love to Faith in front of her whole family only to send her packing a few days later, crush Leslie’s spirit by confirming her worst fears of abandonment, and marry Theresa only to get divorced three months later. But I’m done with that side of my brain. At least when it comes to love.
While I recognize the dangers of letting oneself fall in love deeply, there is also a lot to recommend it. I don’t want to live out the rest of my days lonely, so I need to accept the perils of vulnerability as a necessity. I won’t lie; this is scary stuff, even or especially for a grown-ass man! But there is also a thrill to discovering myself all over again in my seventies. Despite what I said earlier about the fantasy of romance wearing off with age, there’s an aspect to dating older that is much freer. Unlike younger people, who may be concerned with career, family, and all those details of getting through life, those of us who have been through it already don’t have to worry about any of that. All you need to do is worry about finding that person you can’t live without. Maybe looking for love in the later years is more intense, for better or worse, because your emotions are at the forefront? Moreover, with every breath you hear the ticking clock in your head instill urgency in the search.
The fact that it is never too late in life to uncover new aspects of ourselves is a thrill in itself. The catalyst for all this discovery was undeniably the show. Put in that beaker where love develops more quickly and more intensely than in the real world, I shocked myself. More than once, I had to stop and ask myself, “What is happening to me?” Leading with my heart is something I believe I would have eventually learned to do even if I had never been the Golden Bachelor. But for sure, plain old Gerry was helped along in this lesson by twenty-two wise and wonderful women.
When Toni passed away, I exhorted my granddaughters, Payton and Charlee, to talk about her. “Talk about her at holidays, at her birthday, at your birthday, every chance you get,” I said. “Talk about her so that she’s remembered. As long as we talk about her and celebrate her memory, she will never be completely gone.” I always wanted to accomplish something positive that my kids, grandkids, and hopefully great grandkids could talk about. Likewise, I want to be remembered for whatever good I did in this world.
If my time as a lead on a TV show taught me anything, it was that you don’t have to give up. That is the true success story of The Golden Bachelor I want everybody to hear. No matter your age or circumstances, you deserve happiness. I know from experience how elusive it can be, but I am absolutely not willing to crawl into a hole and give up just because things didn’t work out with Theresa. No, I still want to find my person. When I received my cancer diagnosis, I didn’t despair. It took me a minute to flip grief into gratitude, but I believe I have the rare benefit of being able to live like I’m dying. My journey isn’t done. No one’s is unless they have lost hope and closed themselves off to the connections true love brings.
The Golden Bachelor was about finding opportunities for love, but—despite the dozens of roses and endless flow of champagne—not just of the romantic variety. Helping someone, opening another’s eyes to a new experience, creating comfort during difficult times—these are loving acts that sustain us and lift us all up. That’s why I’ll never stop smiling and taking selfies in the airport or doing anything else that makes the journey a little happier for everyone.
As a child I was exposed to a wide variety of experiences, like watching Sandy Koufax pitch against Bob Gibson at a St. Louis Cardinals vs. LA Dodgers game. Poor but happy, my family frequently visited my uncle’s farm in Missouri, where I loved riding horses and helping to make ice cream.
I wasn’t the star of the team, but the lessons learned from sports helped me succeed in life—and pushed me to be a better pickleballer.
Before being a nerd was cool, I was a serious nerd. For my senior prom, I wore my blue dinner jacket and Toni, a yellow dress, but both of us had the look of love.
Our wedding day. Many people expected our marriage to fail because we were so young. It was our youth and commitment to each other that actually made us succeed for forty-three years! We grew up together and never considered not being together.
In 1987, Toni and I had been married for almost fifteen years. We graduated from our little runabout to this bigger boat. Here we’re with Toni’s mom on one of our first trips along the Mississippi. Of course the girls were along for the ride. They loved the river.
At its peak, there were 124 Mr. Quick restaurants in six states. I was proud to be the youngest of the chain’s group of owners.
I wished Jenny could have worked on The Golden Bachelor. She was the only person with experience styling my hair. And brother, did she have a LOT of experience!
No need to pay for marketing when it can be done in-house. Angie liked the burgers but LOVED the fries.
We had many great days on the river, teaching the kids to ski, having picnics, and racing from one lock and dam to the next.
Jenny and I at her first-grade recital. Time with the kids was always important to me. I made it to every special event, but my best memories come from the days I coached both Jenny’s and Angie’s softball teams. That was special because my dad did the same for me.
