Boomers and Nursing Homes
Many of us have experienced visiting relatives in a nursing home. I have visited several over the years and my experience was not all together pleasant or unpleasant. All of them had some things in common.
They were very quiet. There were whiffs of urine in the air and the walls were painted soft relaxing colors. Those are the nursing homes of our grandparents and parents.
Let’s look ahead a few years and picture the nursing homes when the baby boomers require them. I’m guessing some Peter Maxx posters on the walls, the Stones or Beatles on the jukebox and whiffs of marijuana in the air.
Are there any other changes you can think of?
They were very quiet. There were whiffs of urine in the air and the walls were painted soft relaxing colors. Those are the nursing homes of our grandparents and parents.
Let’s look ahead a few years and picture the nursing homes when the baby boomers require them. I’m guessing some Peter Maxx posters on the walls, the Stones or Beatles on the jukebox and whiffs of marijuana in the air.
Are there any other changes you can think of?
posted by pissed off patricia at 3:51 AM
30 Comments:
Hot rod wheel chairs with hi-fi car radios attached - Cross Town Traffic (Jimi Hendrix) sounding from my fathers I'm sure - and cafeterias designed like an old road side diner.
REALLY loud rock and roll because we're all deaf from earlier rock and roll.
If they can't score any pot, they could burn incense. Or even if they do score pot, for that matter. Just like old times.
This gang isn't going down without a fight ... dancing barefoot on the hills.
No, No nursing home for me. I have a better plan.
Like the Grandfather figure in the movie starring Dustin Hoffman, "Little Big Man". He decides to go off one day and declares it a "Good day to die". Climbs up to a funeral pier and lays down to die. It starts raining and he then changes his mind.
The point being that I want to "live" until I die, and a sentence in a nursing home is no life.
My plan is to get into a canoe here on Lake Superior, where I live in Northern Wisconsin, and shove off. The water is cold all the time, cold enough to let you slip away peacefully from hypothermia. I'll simply tip over and let nature do what it needs to.
Of course this plan may change. Did you say pot in the nursing homes? Will we be able to roll our own? Or do we have to have the pre-rolled? And what about suitable munchies for after the smoking sessions? Will they stock Cherry Garcia ice cream and warm up the hot fudge topping because that's the way I like it you know!
Some nursing homes are finding that having animals (dogs, cats, birds) is very positive for the residents. That's the kind of nursing home I would want. I don't think I could live (or would want to live) without interacting with animals.
I hope to be one of those hale old ladies who lives in her own home until she dies, but I also hope that I have enough sense to seek an assisted living situation should I need it before something bad happens to me.
Sue Woo beat me to the punch on the volume control turned up WAY TOO LOUD, which is ironic because that's not really a change!
Blogger SUCKS.
Monday PM - Free oxygen
Tuesday PM - 23 cent wings
Wednesday PM - 2 for 1 margaritas
Thursday PM - Dollar draft and darts
Friday PM - Beatles cover band(no cover)
Saturday PM - 2 dollar maritinis and karaoke
Sunday PM - Acoustic gospel group
I plan on a Viking funeral, myself.
As long as they do not seem like harbingers of death will be alright with me.
Cocktails on the Veranda,
Muscular Pool "Boys",
Taco &Burrito Nights,
Coed Floors,
Yoga ( the sit down kind- NOT the Hot kind),
Movie Nights,
Frig&wet bar every room Raddison Style,
Dogs and cats....everywhere.
As a nurse I have worked Nursing Homes, and I used to do pet therapy with my Bassatt at a nursing home....so I have thought about this way too much...
Rudy Rucker wrote a whole series of Science Fiction novels set in Florida. "Feezer"- Freaky Geezers- have taken over much of the state. They spend their time buying drugs from each other, listening to the Beatles, and trying to get laid. Sort of a second childhood. Being slightly younger, I have watched first generation punk musicians evolve into alt. country singers. I expect that I'll end up watching bubbles blow while Joey Shithead cranks his accordion and plays The Pennsylvania Polka.
If this country keeps on the same course, there won't be any nursing homes. There will be gated communities for the surviving very rich Repubs and Others in their league, served by... who else? Illegal aliens. The rest of us boomers will have been used as a human wall against terr'ists.
Oh, ha ha, just joking.
My 88+ year old mother lives with us, so I am keenly aware of why people do not want to live in homes. However, it's a daily challenge, even with someone who's relatively active and sweet-natured.
Sigh. They are so vulnerable.
we have talked about nursing homes having two parents with Altzheimers. They don't remember anything but the "glory days."
But I must go;
Plenty of Viagra for my beloved,
the ability to chase him down the hall even with my walker,
I want young, handsome male nurse,
A garden atrium in the center for flowers of all sorts,
Bruce and the Beatles, although I probably won't hear it from years of concert going.
Martini's at happy hour and an afternoon siesta. Not necessarily in that order.
Oh, plenty of Cherry Garcia, Vanilla Swiss Almond and twizzlers.
It's starting already I forgot to say IF I must go...
Never forget the healing powe of the Morning Martini... a must for any nursing home.
Yeah, constant battles to contain sporadic outbreaks of gonorrhea and syphyllis.
All the old geezers are going to be passing acid and tripping in their wheelchairs when a voice comes over the loudspeaker saying
"We've heard that the brown acid that is circulating might not be so good, so please be warned. But it's your own trip..."
The speaker then resumes playing Jimmy Hendrix' Greatest Hits at jet engine decibel level.
Seems like a lot of the old hippies went conservative and Republican! With my luck, I'll have to share a room with one of them. I will need a computer so I can trash-talk about the person on my blog. I will probably still be dancing to loud music (guitars, fiddles, and mandolins, always) and having some wine... for my health... keeping a pet cat if they let me... and probably smelling of urine as well. I can always blame the smell on the cat. That's where the incense comes in handy. ;-)
First, Thanks for visiting my site, I have a new entry you might like, second, my Mom had a stroke at 78 and spent the next four years in a critical care nursing home, allowing medicare to bleed her estate dry. I'm not going in a nursing home. I don't have a plan yet, but that is a start.
However, free weed would change my mind.
I think they'll offer on-site cosmetic surgery and botox injection parties will be really popular.
Plenty of Barcardi 151 and limes must be well stocked.
And my parents (who are both in their late 50s) had this really cool dart board when I was a kid. The picture in the center of the board? Richard Nixon.
I'd like to play darts from my wheelchair. The picture in the center of the board? Hell, I'm not picky... any one of the BushCo cabal members would do.
Well if we must go to a home this certainly sounds like the one for me.
I expect designer depends. They should be very colorful...sort of Psychedelic! No...seriously!
I want Nursing Care at Sea - the ultimate cruise vacation, with midnight buffets every night. The Pool Bar will always open, and there will be free weekly massages for long-term residents. There will be worldwide ports of call, and handsome escorts available to assist with shore tours.
Realities: a friend of mine, who had been in a bad car accident, was sent to a nursing home recently for about a week of care. My friend, who is 66, works out like a maniac, so she was in great shape. Anyway, another of my friends went to visit her. And she stopped to speak to this elderly man in a wheel chair (this second friend is 65, and just retired.) The old guy grabbed her boobs, and screamed "I got 'em, I got 'em."
I just applied for long term care insurance, because if I have an accident, and need extended care, I don't want it to be on my kids. But I don't plan on dying in a Nursing Home. I will have a durable power of attorney, and will not linger.
Merci's comment is actually interesting: if you take a cabin on successive back to back sailings, it is less expensive than going into a home. And a good deal more fun.
If I was not still young enough to think old sex just too creepy to think about I would say Love Ins.
Ask me when I have a few more wrinkles.
Peace.
Be careful how you treat your kids. They're the ones who will pick your nursing home.
Good Job! :)
Good article , this article make some interesting points .
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