Comments on: Life in a retirement home

Life in a retirement home

cardboard — Thu, 29 May 2008 21:06:26 -0800

Senior High: A week-long series from the Globe and Mail on life in the Terraces of Baycrest, a retirement home in Toronto. Drawing parallels to high school (the average stay of residents is 4.5 years), stories have ranged from the anxieties about the first day, the problems with cliques and getting snubbed by the cool kids, the ups and downs of the dating scene, and what to do about the awful food in the cafeteria. On Friday the series concludes with graduation, the one area where you might think the analogy would fall apart.

Humanizing above all else, each piece is supplemented with video interviews of the residents that give a bit more flavour to the story. Read and watch it now as the Globe and Mail usually archives its stories within a couple of weeks.

By: turgid dahlia

turgid dahlia — Thu, 29 May 2008 21:16:41 -0800

It's official: old people are having more sex than me. These are lovely, cardboard, thanks.

By: Avenger

Avenger — Thu, 29 May 2008 21:26:45 -0800

Mrs. Hoch sees how some women flirt. "They touch a man on the shoulder, on the arm. Maybe they want a man," she says with some disapproval. But on second thought, she softens: "They're only in their 80s, they're young."

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Thu, 29 May 2008 21:30:35 -0800

After my maternal grandmother died my maternal grandfather went into flurry of dating that I couldn't match even at my dating peak. Old people are freakier than most people realize.

By: mecran01

mecran01 — Thu, 29 May 2008 21:37:59 -0800

Metafilter: The residents are old, and many are frail, but they're not done growing, they're not done learning, and they're not done with the messy business of love and loneliness and rage and joy that defines the human experience.

By: empath

empath — Thu, 29 May 2008 21:43:41 -0800

I think juvenalizing old people is a little insulting.

By: Malor

Malor — Thu, 29 May 2008 21:48:41 -0800

My father had a shirt he really loved: "I'm not 60. I'm 18, with 42 years' experience."

By: turgid dahlia

turgid dahlia — Thu, 29 May 2008 22:09:01 -0800

My father had an 18-year old he really loved.

By: DecemberBoy

DecemberBoy — Thu, 29 May 2008 22:46:09 -0800

Old people are freakier than most people realize. Why wouldn't they be? Possible age-related difficulties aside, they're still people. They may come from a generation that was brought up to never kiss and tell, but they've had way more practice at it than we have. That old dude in front of you in line at the grocery store might have been having threesomes with Vegas cocktail waitresses decades before you were even conceived.

By: phrontist

phrontist — Thu, 29 May 2008 23:10:19 -0800

"One lady, on the second date she attacked me, and we went all the way!" At the Terraces, 90 per cent of the residents are single. Women outnumber men 4 to 1, but a recent influx of single men such as Mr. Hersch has injected a jolt of excitement. *siiiigh* What dahlia said.

By: stavrogin

stavrogin — Thu, 29 May 2008 23:51:21 -0800

Bueller? whuh? Did you say something? Bueller? I can't hear you, dammit! Bueller? I'm not interested in buying anything! Bueller? I saved your god damned kids asses in the war! Bueller? You'd be speaking German right now if it wasn't for me! Bueller? Get off my god damn lawn!

By: grouse

grouse — Fri, 30 May 2008 01:46:54 -0800

In high school, people complained about the cafeteria food. As an undergrad, people complained about the cafeteria food. As a grad student, people complain about the cafeteria food. In my workplace, people complain about the cafeteria food. Apparently that's what I have to look forward to when I retire too. Everyone always complains about the cafeteria food.

By: CautionToTheWind

CautionToTheWind — Fri, 30 May 2008 02:59:04 -0800

In my opinion, old people (by virtue of being old) have understood that most obstacles in a relationship are self-imposed, and that time is of the essence. This is what they mean when they say youth is wasted on the young.

By: vac2003

vac2003 — Fri, 30 May 2008 04:10:03 -0800

What empath said. No amount of clever writing and pseudo-witty phrases can get around the fact that getting old is crap, and for most a retirement home is a place they go to die. Yea, I am sure they are some frisky ones "gettin' some", but come on people, how many of you have been to these place where senility, incontinence pads, and loneliness are more often the rule? Shakespeare had a much better idea of this when he said: .......Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

By: aldus_manutius

aldus_manutius — Fri, 30 May 2008 06:17:51 -0800

What Caution said ...

By: eatdonuts

eatdonuts — Fri, 30 May 2008 10:11:32 -0800

:) this is good.

By: Oriole Adams

Oriole Adams — Fri, 30 May 2008 10:26:47 -0800

No amount of clever writing and pseudo-witty phrases can get around the fact that getting old is crap, and for most a retirement home is a place they go to die. So true. My FIL just had to put my MIL in an assisted living facility... She's 68 and in the latter stages of Alzheimer's Disease. She's in a special wing of the place for patients like her, and the facility is very nice as these places go (for $124 per day, it should be the Hilton.) Anyway, despite the cheery decor and attentive staff and the faux malt shop room and the sing-alongs, you can't get past the number of people sitting hunched over, barely moving, staring vaguely, mumbling the same nonsensical phrases to themselves over and over. The ones that have to be spoon-fed pureed fruit like an infant. Medical science is keeping us alive a lot longer, but for what purpose?

By: jenfullmoon

jenfullmoon — Fri, 30 May 2008 14:02:29 -0800

High school really never ends, even when you're 90. *cries*