Day 15

Greetings readers,

Here we are, at the close of day 15.  And here I am, beginning to run out of ideas for nice things to do for people.  I suppose that I can continue to go to random places in town and buy things for people, but that seems like a cop-out.  A few of my accomplishments have been random, only coming about because of the circumstances.  When I started this, I honestly had no idea that it would be this hard to find ideas.

Oh well, I suppose that I will just have to get creative.

Take today for example.  While driving down the road, I saw a car pulled off to the side.  I pulled over as well in order to ascertain the problem.  It turns out that the woman simply had a flat tire.  I helped her change the tire, and drove off after making sure she got her car moving alright.

Now I could have called that my goal for the day, the woman did smile and was grateful, but I did not.

Instead, I continued to drive down the road towards my destination.  My destination being a retirement/assisted living place here in town.  It offers various places, such as apartments for elderly who can still live alone, semi-assisted places where a nurse comes to check on them every so often, or fully-assisted places with full-time care.

Once I arrived at this place, I got out of my car and headed inside to the main office.  Having been in contact with this place previously, I simply signed in on the visitor's log and then headed towards the main get-together room.

The room is large-ish, containing various sitting places, couches and chairs, arranged around a huge TV.  There were also a couple tables with chairs around them, as well as an open space, which I am still not sure of the original intention of, but when I was there, several elderly in wheelchairs were sitting there.

So I came into this room and there were elderly people watching TV, some program about the ocean, looked pretty interesting actually.  There was a group of women at one of the tables playing cards, as well as the wheelchair group that I mentioned earlier, talking with each other.

What I had come to this place to accomplish, was to spend time with these elderly people.  No more, no less.  I started off by walking over to the table where the women were playing cards.  I pulled up a chair and sat down, asking them how they were doing.

You know, elderly people can be awfully suspicious, some of them at least.  Out of the 4 women at the table, 2 of them started talking to me, while the other 2 regarded me with instant suspicion.  It took a while, but I eventually did manage to convince them that I meant no harm, and was simply there to talk to them.

Once their defenses came down, it was actually an enjoyable time.  The women talked with me and, eventually, actually let me play cards with them.  They were playing hearts, a game that I have never played before.  The rules are simple, but actually playing it takes skill that I do not have.  I am not ashamed to say that each round I played, I very solidly got my butt handed to me.  These women were crafty and ruthless when it came to playing cards.

Naturally, the inclusion of a new person in the area became a hot news item.  We drew a crowd at the table, and people watched us play. and watched me lose horribly.  After a few games, all of which I lost, I announced that my brief stint at Hearts was over.  I then proceeded to get up and interact with other elderly people in that room.

I am proud to say that I spent an very enjoyable few hours there.  I got to talk to some rather amazing people, and get to know them.  A lot of people got to hear about things from me that they were interested in, like college life nowadays, as well as what I was studying, etc.

After a few hours had passed, it was getting on towards dinner time and I got up to excuse myself.  I left the retirement home feeling happy, and knowing that for some of these elderly people, I had made their day, easy.

Spending time with the elderly was fun, and most likely something I will do again.

Until next time,
B