Book excerpt: Eighty-year-old George Castor promised he would never let his best friend Ralph die alone at the Silver Gardens Nursing Home--but Ralph passed on while George was away fishing. Distraught, guilt-stricken and seeking redemption, George buys a broken-down mansion in Looking glass, Oregon, paints it fire-engine red, and begins searching for other old folks to share it with him. Because George has made a new promise that will alter the course of the rest of his life. And, with the help of a miraculous old woman named Grace, he assembles a ragtag bunch of aging strangers, determined to make their last days on earth--and his own--an adventure.