Oh No, Not the Home : Observations and Confessions of a Grandmother in Transition

Peggy Rowe is at it again, proving once more that great content is all around us, even in the retirement community she now calls "The Home."

In Oh No, Not “The Home,” eighty-three-year-old Peggy decides the time has finally come to move into a senior living facility with her husband, John, who follows his beloved bride . . . grudgingly. Once ensconced in "The Home," however, John quickly makes a long list of eclectic friends and takes up bocci ball, hatchet throwing, pool playing, and various other distractions that keep him mostly sane. Meanwhile, Peggy finds humor in places a normal person would never think to look—and laughter around every corner. Missing dentures? A mouse in the house? Nude sunbathing with an unexpected audience? Gluttony in the dining hall? A chair volleyball game that turns into geriatric target practice? It's all here.

With her usual mix of warmth and irreverence, Peggy brings her daily journal to life with an unforgettable mix of observations and confessions, written with the honesty of a true observer of the human condition and the urgency of an embedded reporter entrenched in a strange and distant land. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and before long, you’ll start to think that Peggy and John and their many new friends are just the kind of people you wish you had for neighbors.

Whatever you think you know about retirement communities, think again. This is life at "The Home."

And it’s not exactly what the marketing brochure promised!

Peggy Rowe lives in Baltimore, Maryland, with John, her husband of sixty-five years. After a somewhat abbreviated teaching career and spending fifteen years as a stay-at-home mom to their three sons, Peggy began writing in earnest. She has written three New York Times bestsellers since turning eighty.

And now, along with her ninety-four-year-old husband, Peggy is enjoying life in a retirement community where stories abound and humor is around every corner. While she writes, John stays busy playing pool, shuffleboard and bocce ball—and providing his wife with material.

“It’s all good” Peggy says, “if you like being around old people; the place is crawling with them.”

Mike Rowe is best known as the executive producer and host of the hit shows Dirty Jobs, Somebody’s Gotta Do It, and Returning the Favor, for which he won an Emmy. He also hosts the podcast The Way I Heard It, a collection of short stories for the “curious mind with a short attention span.” As CEO of the mikeroweWORKS Foundation, Mike has led the effort to close America’s widening skills gap and facilitated the granting of millions of dollars in work ethic scholarships.