I was invited to the MSU New Horizons Band (NHB) end-of semester concert. No holiday music was played. But it was the most joyous music making I’ve heard in a long time. New Horizons is a different kind of community. Regardless of ability, it accepts any adult who wants to learn to play or sing and improve making music. Though I’ve researched and written about New Horizons before, and know several MSU NHB members, this was my first close-up of...

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I recently wrote about safe environments for protecting seniors from falls and injuries. But for the mentally competent elderly, mental preparation for activities is perhaps even more important than safe surroundings. The mind is a curious thing. Its “connection” to the body is one of science and philosophy’s insoluble problems. Descartes, in 1637, proclaimed, “I think, therefore I am,” believing he’d established that the mind and body are one....

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My gym buddy’s tee was dripping wet. He looked bushed. “It’s mind over matter,” he said. “My body tells me no, but my 17-year-old mind tells me to keep going so I can still be playing racquetball when I’m your age.” Like a few other early elderlies, he’s clinging to a fantasy that determination and hard work can overcome decades of subtle, progressive mental and physical decline. But falls and accidents and their aftermath are leading causes of...

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Several of my friends died recently, under different circumstances. I’ve been pondering death as physical and spiritual loses to both the deceased and their survivors. I’ve written about my friend, neighbor and fellow physician Ray’s experiences while dying. His journey to death began when he developed heart failure from a brief hospital procedure, and ended a couple of years later with wretched joy. His heart never fully recovered from the...

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“Old age ain’t no place for sissies,” actress Betty Davis wrote. Her book, The Sad Life,was published shortly after her conflicted, tumultuous life ended in 1989 – my age now. There’s also a heads side to the aging coin. Mornings are the best. I get up whenever I’m ready. Usually before 8:30. My day starts with juice and coffee, reading the paper, and meditating. An hour or so later I hang out birdfeeders and move on to the rest of the day....

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I’ve stopped getting upset over daily accounts of wars and catastrophes, shootings, corporate shenanigans, Congressional follies, and the Legislature’s wrangling. Using a 60’s term, “I’m beat down to my socks.” I missed the 60’s wave of dropouts inspired by the writings of poet Allen Ginsberg, novelist Jack Kerouac and others. Beatniks protested the oppression of minorities, McCarthyism’s witch hunts, the Viet Nam War, and Victorian sexual...

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