AARP Hearing Center
AARP The Magazine: LeVar Burton Reflects on Finding Inspiration from Fred Rogers; Tips on How to Avoid Romance Scams; and What You Need to Know About Retiring Abroad
The new issue examines the relationships, choices, and experiences that define life today for older Americans.
WASHINGTON—The August/September 2026 issue of AARP The Magazine (ATM) delivers exclusive conversations with visionaries, compelling reporting on money and relationships, and inspiring stories that explore how Americans are redefining aging through travel, wellness, connection, and purpose.
ATM sits down with literacy hero and game show host LeVar Burton, who reflects on finding inspiration from children’s TV legend Fred Rogers, mending family rifts — and long-term love.
Additionally, ATM reveals how to help protect yourself from romance scammers, provides a guide to living frugally without feeling deprived, and offers financial planning tips for worrying less about money in retirement.
In this issue:
UPFRONT/WHAT I KNOW NOW: LEVAR BURTON
Actor and literacy hero LeVar Burton talks to AARP The Magazine about Mr. Rogers (“I genuinely believe that Fred Rogers was an enlightened being”); mending a family rift with his father before he died (“Once he and my mom split up, I had little contact with him…so about five years ago, I started conversations with my father. And when I got the news that he was gone, I felt complete”); and his unavoidable career path (“My mother was an English teacher. My sister, Letitia, her two daughters and my son are all in the education business. I am too — I just have a different classroom.”)
REAL/PEOPLE: SESAME STREET CHARACTER DESIGN CHIEF LOUIS HENRY MITCHELL
Creativity guru Louis Henry Mitchell seeks to inspire audiences of all ages. “Each Sesame Street character represents a different trait, and it’s my job to bring those out,” Mitchell tells AARP The Magazine. “Some years ago, I visited a school where I presented some Sesame Street Muppets. I met an 8-year-old boy there who was on the autism spectrum and had never spoken. He was amazed by Ernie. On the car ride home, he started saying Ernie’s name. At the dinner table, he repeatedly said, ‘Ernie’s my friend.’ A nonverbal child was inspired to start speaking—that’s the power that these characters have to connect.”
Mitchell adds, “In my mind and heart, I’ve never stopped being 6 years old. I believe that none of us loses the sense of wonder we felt as kids. For a lot of us, though, it gets covered up. But we all can find that child in us. And we’re all artists, whether we know it or not. Creativity is anything new that you’re reaching for. Your life is your work of art.”
THE TRIUMPH OF DISCO: THE BEAT GOES ON
Fifty years after its introduction, the influence of disco on American pop culture is undeniable. It never really died, living on through top-charters such as Dua Lipa, Sabrina Carpenter, and Doja Cat. Chic’s Nile Rodgers, 73, recalls performing “Le Freak” with Dua Lipa at Madison Square Garden and watching the pop star start crying: “It’s amazing to see an artist of that caliber so moved by hearing a band play a song,” he tells AARP The Magazine, and argues that disco was “super revolutionary” — a celebration of the era’s women's rights, gay rights, and civil rights movements.
Harry Wayne Casey (KC), 75, of KC & the Sunshine Band, reveals that the peak of his fame was “the loneliest time” of his life, describing himself as “a caged animal” with thousands of fans mobbing his hotels. Thelma Houston, 80, whose “Don't Leave Me This Way” defined the era, explains that at her age, her voice endures because she “didn't party all the time back in the ’70s” and still does vocal exercises with a teacher. Studio 54’s famed doorman, Marc Benecke, now 69, looks back with regret at deciding who got beyond the velvet rope. “We ruined a lot of people’s nights,” he tells AARP The Magazine. And supermodel Cheryl Tiegs, 78, recalls the club’s music as, “comforting and wild,” in a space of “no judgment.”
REAL/PEOPLE: LYNN HUGHES’ CAMP WHERE GRIEVING KIDS CAN HEAL
Lynne Hughes, who lost her mother at 9 and her father at 12, tells AARP The Magazine that her childhood felt “like a smashed picture window full of holes,” with “no one left to ask, ‘How was your day?’” She found rare relief at a sleepaway camp, where she could just be a kid again, a memory that resurfaced years later when volunteering with a group for motherless daughters. She met a 70-year-old woman who had lost her own mother at 10, and carried that grief in silence for six decades, having never once spoken with another girl who understood.
This encounter pushed Hughes to found Comfort Zone Camp, a nonprofit that runs free three-day camps for children who have lost a parent or sibling. Her first camp in 1999 drew 34 kids. Today, the organization holds 30 camps a year across the U.S., welcoming more than 27,000 grieving children, with some former campers coming back as staff. Hughes describes kids arriving as weighed down, and when they leave, she tells AARP The Magazine they are “lighter, as if they'd dumped out a backpack full of rocks.” She distills her advice for anyone unsure how to comfort someone who is grieving into one line: “I can't begin to know what you're going through, but I’d like to try.”
REAL/PEOPLE: SWIMMING BACK IN TIME — MERMAID SISTERS REUNITE
Wish of a Lifetime is a charitable affiliate of AARP that grants life-changing wishes to older adults. So when Arlene Brooks, 76, slipped into her mermaid tail, she felt like a teenager again, she tells AARP The Magazine. Only this time, she wasn’t performing for a crowd; she was swimming with four women who had become like sisters to her more than 50 years ago.
Along with Brooks, of Arcadia, Florida, these “mermaid sisters” — Cheryl Wood, 80, of Skyforest, California; Ruth Greening, 77, of Inman, South Carolina; Donna Paul, 78, of Newberg, Oregon; and Jo McCoy, 77, of Richmond Hill, Georgia — had worked as performers at Weeki Wachee Springs State Park in Spring Hill, Florida, in the 1960s. For three years, they dressed in shimmering tails and performed water ballets in a natural spring 16 feet underwater, working multiple shows a day for an audience behind glass windows. But they had not swum together in the springs in more than five decades. Then, last summer, they reunited for one more swim as guests of Wish of a Lifetime from AARP. “I’m 17 all over again, and I’m just sliding through the water like I own it,” says Brooks. Read the full story HERE
###
About AARP
AARP is the nation's largest nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to empowering people 50 and older to choose how they live as they age. With a nationwide presence, AARP strengthens communities and advocates for what matters most to the 125 million Americans 50-plus and their families: health and financial security, and personal fulfillment. AARP also produces the nation's largest-circulation publications: AARP The Magazine and the AARP Bulletin. To learn more, visit aarp.org, aarp.org/espanol or follow @AARP, @AARPLatino and @AARPadvocates on social media.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Paola Groom, pgroom@aarp.org
