.png)
Southern Belle called an "audible".
She had planned on going to the Ingham County Fair on Thursday but looked at the weather. She called me late Tuesday and asked if I would rather go to Binder Park Zoo near Battle Creek today or Ingham County Fair tomorrow (Wednesday).
I opted for the zoo.
We were there for three hours and the heat index was in the low 90s (Fahrenheit, not Canadian). We walked to the African Adventure exhibit. Southern Belle asked a staff-member how far it was and we were told "It is a one-mile walk".
After walking it, SB said..."I don't think so".
Indeed, it is a one-mile round-trip. I think the staff intentionally discourages visitors from making the walk because they undoubtedly have to rescue people who get pooped out. Or, the visitor calls 9-1-1 and the park has to shut-down when the EMTs show up to cart the optimistic walker to the ER.
Quicksilver walked two of the three miles we walked. SB brought a wagon because the plan was to get QS pooped-out. It worked.
The other clientele was a mix of young mothers, kids of various ages, a few grannies, and one old dude on a scooter and a group of cognitively-impaired kids from a group-home with one adult "minder" per kid.
One of the adults had an enormous camera and he was able to get his "charge" to behave by making a big show of pointing his camera at the miscreant. I hope it is a cheap camera because I bet in the next couple of months it will get stomped on.
Measuring physical fitness
"To measure is to manage" attributed to William Thomson, First Baron of Kelvin.
Have you ever been at a traffic light and looked over at the vehicle next to you and wondered "I wonder what it could do if the driver floored it?"
Maybe it was a heap from the golden years of heavy, Detroit iron. Maybe it was a pony car or a "sleeper' with a lumpy-sounding cam. Maybe it was a wannabe with lots of decals and moldings.
I watch people and wonder the same thing. Could they perform physical work (or walk) for 30 minutes? An hour? Two hours? Four hours? Eight hours? Sixteen hours?
How many days-in-a-row can they work that long? Can they work five days in a row and fully recover in two?
Work-hardening is a real thing. Some people work-harden faster than others. People blessed with youth and with testosterone work-harden faster than older people and people with lower testosterone (the original anabolic steroid).
There is a time when the gains plateau. Once again, the plateau is higher for younger people and for men.
At this point in the summer, I am probably good for four hours of moderately hard work a day (stocking shelves, walking, gardening). I could probably wring out eight-hours-a-day but would not have much left over when I got home.
"Joe, why does it matter to you? You sound judging and hateful"
"Culture" captures adaptive responses to stressors that occur along time-horizons that are beyond what most humans can grasp.
Our Western culture values individual responsibility/accountability, freedom/independence, ruggedness, adaptability, civic-mindedness/charity in roughly that order. Those values were diluted by wealth and popular culture and are considered obsolete or liabilities in about half of our population.
The problem with counting on wealth or "the social contract" to overcome the stressors alluded to in the first paragraph of this section is that wealth is perishable and "the social contract" is constantly being rewritten.
Humor me for a minute. Imagine that you are in your sixties, seventies or eighties and your backup plan for when you cannot manage at home is to move into a nursing home. Maybe you and your spouse gained a few pounds over the years. Maybe you don't move as much as you used to because you didn't replace the pooch when she died. The doctor said you could exercise and change your diet to get your blood chemistry right or you could gobble little pills and keep eating crap and watching The View on NBC. It is not a big deal, Shady-Rest Old Folks Home always has open beds becoming available. Right?
Now, picture in your head a walking tour of Shady-Rest. Suppose that every Latina working there (25% of the care-staff) are clones of AOC. Suppose the African-Americans (50% of the care-staff) are clones of Ilhan Omar and the remaining staff are clones of Bernie Sanders.
How long do you think you will have to wait to have your Depends changed? Will that lower or raise your quality-of-life? Will sitting in your own waste until shift-change increase your life-span or decrease it?
Bonus Link
Web-cam, Boardwalk, Ocean City, Maryland
Basically, Americans gain one pound a year from age 20 onward. Watch the people walk. Watch how many of them lurch from side-to-side as they move forward.
Yeah, I know some of this is because they are wearing flip-flops. But it hurts to watch. It IS possible to walk smoothly while wearing flip-flops but it means a mid or forward foot-strike stride.
I am not ready to say we are all doomed, but if the Elites have a stated goal of eliminating 90% of the population, there are a LOT of people who are volunteering to help them make that goal.
💯 on the measurement of fitness. I fight the good fight daily. Currently recovering from shoulder surgery as a result but if it was easy then everyone would do it.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the demographics currently making up the health care industry your assessment is pretty accurate. Incompetence is rampant. My wife had a mysterious health scare last year that required an overnight hospital stay. I told her a few days later that if I ever have something happen that requires hospitalization and there’s a good chance I won’t come out alive just give me a fork and direct me to the nearest light socket. Not doing it. That’s how bad the staff was.
I’m of a similar age to you, also retired and my days consist of moderate activity like woodcutting, landscaping, home repair and upgrades, trail maintenance etc.
ReplyDeleteI figure I’m good for five hours a day of the more demanding work but my body rebels if I push too hard for too many days.
I’ve also noticed and pondered what a lot of 50 and 60 something’s would do if the physical demands on them ramped up dramatically.
A lovely post! Sounds like a great day.
ReplyDeleteFrom the original post:
"Now, picture in your head a walking tour of Shady-Rest. Suppose that every Latina working there (25% of the care-staff) are clones of AOC. Suppose the African-Americans (50% of the care-staff) are clones of Ilhan Omar and the remaining staff are clones of Bernie Saunders.
How long do you think you will have to wait to have your Depends changed? Will that lower or raise your quality-of-life? Will sitting in your own waste until shift-change increase your life-span or decrease it?"
Can you elaborate on this section? Is the implication that if the members of those ethnic groups think identically to the chosen respective politicians of that ethnicity, that they will provide sub-par care? Also, is there a reason you match politiicans with members of their own race? Considering one could have similar thought processes to a member of a different race, political or otherwise.
"....provide sub-par care?" Yes. That is the concern. The politicians mentioned were chosen because they preach the religion of envy and anger. A simplistic view of their verbal-vomit is "If somebody has more than you do it is because THEY (or their ancestors) stole it."
DeleteThe next chapter in that line of reasoning is that it is morally proper to steal back from them. That is, take the money but not do the work. Stick that thumb in the old, rich-person's eye and twist it. It is righteous!
"...match politicians with members of their own race?" Yes it is intentional. Part of good writing is to make the mental image you are sketching out easy to visualize in their heads. I suppose I could have used "rabid pitbull" or "frenzied rattlesnake" but the mental leap to connect the analogy requires a lot of mental effort and the reader shuts off.
Yes, there will be Florence Nightengales of all races but in a nursing home you will get which-ever nurses' aide shows up and is assigned to your block of rooms. Given the job turn-over, you will be changing nurses' aides every two weeks.
Thanks for asking and not assuming.
One of the great eye-openers for me is simply travel. Looking at the average American in an Airport versus (fill in the blank) foreign national is stark to say the least. Abroad, most likely the less than ideal physique is an American. Who wonders where their next meal it coming from.
ReplyDeleteSomewhere along the line, we lost the perspective than you are responsible for your own health. We need to recapture that.
I have the same thoughts when out and about. It appears that many people I see could not handle physical work. I can’t boast on that score, age is chasing me, and my legs won’t perform like they should. But my husband and I are still out there, gardening, stacking wood, shoveling snow, cleaning gutters, pushing a lawnmower, whatever. I cook most meals from scratch, not too many prepared foods. Smaller portions than most people, too.
ReplyDeleteThe nursing homes I’m familiar with used to have decent staff, but not enough of them, and too many residents. I hope I never have to go there. I’d rather die at home, than ‘live’ like that.
Southern NH
Mad magazine, What me worry? 40 years ago had a cartoon of fat future Americans, being pushed over by tiny guys with AK47s. Woody
ReplyDeleteTomorrow will be my nineth visit to the gym inspired by you and the passing of my father-in-law. (91, had a good run, wonderful legacy). I also get a kick out of "basic dude stuff" on LinkedIn. Roger
ReplyDeleteAnd ... told my twins (at 4) that the ice cream truck plays music when it is empty. A friend of mine brought to my attention that those two will pick my nursing home... Got to work out! Roger
ReplyDeleteI overheard my brother-in-law tell his wife to " go ahead and eat what you want, that's what the pills are for". They are both overweight type 2 diabetics, and they look and act 15 years older than their actual age. One of their daughters is very heavy and is headed down the same path. The other daughter works hard physically in her job, and she works hard to keep the weight off. Out of 4 people, 3 of them wouldn't last a month if they had to do sustained physical labor.
ReplyDeleteA great summation as usual ERJ. ---ken
ReplyDeleteSaunders?
ReplyDeleteGood catch. Thank-you.
DeleteAs a firefighter in a larger city (now retired) I got to see a lot of nursing homes. The few quality nurses we would interact with were almost always gone within a month. Best guess is they moved on to better jobs. A very few would stay on and fight the good fight. The rest, well... I wouldn't want most of them living with me, let alone taking care of me. Doing CPR on a bed is a non-starter. Literally. Later in my career I transferred to the richer part of town with high end nursing/assisted living homes. Much better care, but you had to be rich going in because it was mansion mortgage prices for a small apartment. I hope to end up something like my grandpa; hunting, shoot a deer, have a heart attack. Done.
ReplyDeleteThat would be a good way to go.
Delete"At this point in the summer, I am probably good for four hours"
ReplyDeleteI'm good for 6 hours now.
A this point i am good for about 4 hours, in fall and winter I am good for 8 or more. I do not tolerate the humidity well
ReplyDeleteMy great aunt was in a low end nursing home in the late 80's in a New Jersey suburb of NYC.
ReplyDeleteBack then it was like what you describe. I can only imagine how much worse it is now.
My parents (80+) are in a detached house at a well regarded facility. Their goal is to die in that house; they plan to bring in care since it will be better and cheaper than moving to a dedicated facility for it.
Jonathan
Having just mostly retired I'm still working on finding the structure in my day to keep my physical fitness up. Its been hard as it has been hotter than our average summertime temps. I do walk 1-1/2 to 3-1/2 miles at least 6 mornings a week but after having an outside the home job for the last 45 years its a transition I'm still working on... Articles like this one are good inspiration for me to keep moving!
ReplyDelete