A quivering mass of jelly

That would be my body. I rode the Potawatomi Trail for the first time yesterday. Wow. 17.2 Miles of insane off-road trails, through the woods, meadows, sand-pits, and marshes of the Pinckney Rec Area. It was a great experience (as well as the part at the end where we collapsed into Silver Lake), but I kept thinking… that was just like running a Cross-Country race… and then running another one. Good times though.

another round

Sitting downtown on duty tonight. The tone of the town has definitely changed, since students have moved back in and classes have begun again. Even though it signifies the end of the summer, it really is my favorite season. I guess fall always seems like the beginning of things rather than the end.

I’ve been thinking about the way that our society deals with the elderly. The service industry that has grown up around the demand for geriatric care is a pretty recent thing. Until a very few years ago, it was simply assumed that parents and grandparents would be taken care of by the family. While that’s certainly not an uncommon thing, the explosion of indendence, managed, and assisted-living facilities show that increasingly, families are deligating, or maybe, abdicating, the care of their elderly to these organizations. I’m not saying that this is a bad thing. I think that in many cases, specialized facilities are more qualified to care for the individuals. But I wonder how it will end up affecting the way that society interacts with the elderly in the long term. I wonder if by increasing our separation between ourselves and our parents, gransparents, and great-gransparents, are we also forgoing the guidance that we would otherwise receive as we grow older? Who will show us the path of living and ageing?