Let me tell you about 91-year-old Helen Staudinger, who almost ended the life of her 52-year-old neighbor after he denied her request for a kiss.

Neighbor Dwight Bettner and Staudinger were having a conversation when, for unknown reasons, he asked her to leave his house. She agreed to leave if he would give her a kiss. When Bettner refused, Staudinger went to her home, retrieved a .380 semi-automatic handgun and fired several rounds into the man’s house.

Thankfully, Bettner was not injured.

Bettner told police he had had continuous problems with Staudinger and that he believed she was "enamored” with him. He told police that when he informed Staudinger that he had a girlfriend, she threatened to shoot him.

She now sits in jail on $15,000 bond facing felony charges.

Well, Mr. Bettner, I say, "Old women need love, too."

This lady was obviously a “hunk-a-hunk of burnin' love."

Burning for you, man!

She had taken the plastic curlers out of her hair. Had her eyebrows arched. Probably had on her best Victoria's Secrets.

What were you afraid of? I can almost bet you she wouldn't have made you a daddy.

This woman grew up in a different time. When women waited for men to declare themselves first. It must have been quite an insult to her that after she worked up her courage to approach you, you refused to even kiss her.

How insulting.

What was a girl to do?

I have heard that men fantasize about relationships with older women. Cougars! Mrs. Robinson. Well, here was your cougar. Why did you run away?

Young women don't run when old men give chase. If I were given a dollar for every Grandpa with a sweet young thing on his arm, I could bail old Ms. Helen out from jail.

Hugh Hefner's young girl didn't run. And 74-year-old Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, Michael Douglas, Larry King, Rush Limbaugh...all with young women.

Wise old Ben Franklin said in a letter: "In all your amours, prefer old women to young ones." He said further that older women have more knowledge of the world and have better conversation.

Franklin said, "When women cease to be handsome they study to be good." And, man, I would venture to say Staudinger, at age 91, is a pretty good woman.

"Making a young girl miserable," says Franklin, "may give you frequent bitter reflections, none of which can attend making an old woman happy."

This story reminds me of some words I once read on a greeting card sent to my mother: "I may be old but don't forget; I still have a kick or two left in me yet."

Ms Helen isn't ready for the rocking chair. She wanted to rock your world. Now, you will never know what you missed. Maybe she couldn't have slid down a stripper pole but probably could have done a mean shimmy around her walking stick.

She might have allowed you to use her senior discount cards. Might have given you a rubdown with Bengay.

Now, like so many others who insisted on exercising their rights to equality, this trailblazer has been jailed.

So I must join the crusade for equal rights for old women. After all, one day, it is hoped, I will be one.

Free Helen Staudinger!
***
D. Barbara McWhite grew up in York County, S.C., and lives in Orange Park, Fla., with her husband and cat.

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