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Beyond the Diagnosis: An Honest Conversation About Aging · Grandpa Bill's Podcast

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Hello everybody and welcome back to another edition of the BH Sales Holistic Healing Hour with your host and moderator Grandpa Bill Itium Citamat Estaniaculis Lara Ujit Acru Kirbitur Lobit Vera Pede Nella Nutram Rutum Comando Liguala Cedales Suscrit in Alequam Nucot Lectus Donek Kusnoc Welcome to another edition of the BH snails Many Daily Digest gonna say way right in where we left off yesterday Now October 24th Saturday welcome one and all worldwide exposure 14 years of podcasting overall nine years running daily two audio shows Spotify video audio with applicable YouTube channel remains Bill Holt 8792 like usure give us that thumbs up we are the little train that can and does we grow together arm in arm one star seed at a time under that premise yours, mine, ours, theirs, fully retired, giving back in Google Ambassadorship.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to another edition of the Mean Daily Digest.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Continuing today, workouts for geriatrics, aka silver streakers, good for all kids from one to ninety-two.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Everything about health and wellness.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: We all guys and gals, senior citizenry, and the previous issue facing cognitive issue together, a personal reflection on aging.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: And as I alluded to in that show, building on my own reflection, connection with aging, with dignity and purpose, looking at the historical role today of elders reveals how much human communities have long relied on older generations, not simply as recipients of care, but as the foundational anchors of culture, survival and shared wisdom.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Across the eras of time, the place of elders in the community has evolved significantly, shifting from central authority figures to marginalized populations, and now toward a modern rediscovery of intergenerational interdependence.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Tribal and indigenous societies, the keepers of knowledge.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Those of you that do follow the show, thank you one and all.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Today we're looking at tribal and indigenous societies.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: They were the keepers of knowledge in early human communities.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Survival depended entirely on the transmission of non written knowledge.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: So oral historians and activists without books or digital storage, elders were the living libraries of their individual tribe or tribes, holding genealogies, migration routes, creation of stories and loss.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: We've talked about this archivally many times with one of my other many bucklet lists.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Magnetic memory methods, the doctor Anthony Metavier.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty darn close to five years now on that venture in retirement.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: So we've done a lot of memory palaces, person action, object, mnemonics interloped with history, spiritual and practical guides, elders taught survival skills, medicinal plant war, and spiritual rights cementing their status as vital, respected community members until the end of life.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Pre industrial and agricultural errors, economic anchors in agrarian societies, multi generational households were the economic norm.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Land and legacy elders typically owned or controlled the land and livestock, giving them structural authority within the family economy until retirement or death.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Intergenerational labor grandparents played a crucial role in childcare and domestic management, freeing younger adults to work the fields.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Fast forward, I know in the existence of my now nineteen year old granddaughter, Ada, I was facilitated because I was the sole proprietor and worked my own hours to basically raise my granddaughter pretty much predominantly the first ten years of her life.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, with her parents.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Point being to allow them to work and save the crazy.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Take care of fees and so forth and have some semblance of feeling safe about their daughter, of course, with Grandpa Bell.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: My dear Ada.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: So back through the history of time, it really wasn't a whole lot different.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Status tied to utility, respect was deeply connected to productivity and the orderly transfer of property and trade skills to the next generation, to the next generation, so on and so forth.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Grandparents and grandparental influence is huge.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: So then comes along in our history, John, the Industrial Revolution, fragmentation and separation, the shift from rural farms to industrialized urban centers fundamentally disrupted the traditional status of the elders, pretty much commencing then.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: The shift to wage labor, a little tiny bit of one of my other shows, main mentor moments in business and in life, fully retired for me.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: I left corporate America in nineteen ninety-seven.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: This whittled with BS then.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: So the shift to wage labor as work moved outside the home into factories and office, multi generational households shrank into in the audio studio, the nuclear family.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Or if you want to have some fun with those crazy people, which I don't, but I'll make them the bunt of my jokes.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Nuclear The Nuclear Family Units living in smaller urban spaces.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: The concept of big bold letters all capitalized in the audio studio quotation fingers Retirement.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: So while the formalization of pensions and Social Security provided crucial financial safety nets, it also institutionalized retirement, often separating older adults from the daily, active economic life of the community where there are any now.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Communities, loss of intergenerational proximity, physical separation between generations sometimes led to the marginalization of older adults, shifting care from the community slash family norms to institutional settings.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: So the modern so-called revival, rebuilding intergenerational bridges.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Today communities are not so sure, I hope they are, actively reevaluating how to integrate older adults, recognizing that isolation harms both seniors and society as a whole.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: So the village people scrap the bell goofing around.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: The village movement.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it takes a village, all that kind of crazy stuff.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: The village movement, grassroots, aging in place networks, big quotation fingers, villages allow older neighbors to support one another, share resources, and maintain active community engagement.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Deep calming breath.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: The intergenerational programs, modern co-housing models, shared spaces, combining preschools and senior citizens, and community mentorship programs help to bridge the generational divide.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Reframing agency, moving away from viewing aging purely through a lens of decline.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Contemporary advocacy emphasizes elder agency, ongoing contribution, and the unique value of lived wisdom.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I do a lot of mnemonics.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Almost all of them are fictitious.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I would love to think that in reality, modern intergenerational programs are successfully bringing elders and youth back together.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: Although we're able skeptical.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: When she retired, she worked in a nursery school as much as many areas in her working life.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: But when she retired, she was a member of the senior grandparents thing.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: She loved it.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: The kids loved it.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: And my mom passed before Ada was even born.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: So that was a long time ago, but she enjoyed it.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the most impactful operational models is the shared site facility.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: That one happened to be in the basement of a church where my mother did the majority of her senior grandparents, which collates and co-locates early childhood education, daycares, or youth programs, an example like that, directly inside or alongside retirement communities and senior citizen centers.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: They may indeed exist.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: But do they work in what is supposed to be the functionality?
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: I just query.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: If y'all want to interchange and oh my grandmother or whatever is in a great one, that would be great.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Sure daily routines instead of occasional visits.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Occasional visits.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Occasional visits.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: Children and seniors share common spaces daily under something like that for structured and or unstructured activities, such as storytelling, painting, gardening, music, or eating meals together.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Painting and music just had longtime co-host Tam Bayou on, talking about the art van here in Maine, painting, crafts.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: The van not only goes to the children, but also senior citizen areas.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: And how great is it?
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Was it?
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it will always be.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Beba bell goofing around.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's wonderful therapy for elders.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: Especially.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: If they were passing on their of course where they were capable, cognitive decline is what started this episode about three or four days ago.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because y'all asked me about it, I've got it.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: And my wife Kathy is really battling with it.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: So international intergenerational co-housing models.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Cohousing takes community integration a step further by weaving different generations into the same residential ecosystem.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Student senior housing exchanges popularized in European cities and expanding globally.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: These programs can and hopefully do offer university students reduced or free rent in exchange for spending a set number of hours each month keeping older residents company cooking together or helping them navigate technology.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: What a beautiful thing.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: My granddaughter Ada is indeed an AI major sophomore year at USM University.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Talk about her often, do stories about her often.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: She's in my book.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: She's in the notes, the final chapter, my daily narrations, mean daily digests.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to think of them, her and her constituents when they get out of their schooling or something like that.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: I know my granddaughter, if she didn't do something to the letter of the law of that, she certainly is benevolent enough to entertain it.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: Why it works for a number of reasons.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: Private developments where they exist, designed with a mix of private homes and shared community kitchens, workshops, and play areas, older residents find built in support networks and opportunities to mentor younger families, while parents gain trust, close knit village homes.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: much support for childcare not what goes on in this crazy world presently in some far too many so called childcare and the same problems for we old geezers in some instances.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: Why it works the dual directional benefit the success of these models where they're being placed in, it's great if that's the way that's going to pave the future.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm all for that if it ultimately works out that way.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: It relies on reciprocity and y'all know what I think and feel about reciprocity we've done shows on that rather than one way caregiving.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: So for youth younger participants certainly gain steady emotional grounding, historical perspective and unconditional acceptance from elders who have the time the emotional bandwidth to listen for seniors where they're capable remaining embedded in a lively multi generational environment keeps older adults like moi mentally stimulated, physically active and culturally connected to the so-called modern world, modern Millie So let's take a look at a couple of those models that are existing at the time of this taping on October twenty fourth, twenty twenty six so some real world examples demonstrate hopefully that intergenerational living and shared sites are not just theatrical ideals.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: They are thriving highly successful blueprints changing how society views aging two of the most famous and studied models show how these ecosystems function in practice the Providence Mount Saint Vincent quotation fingers the Mount I don't know I'm not in Seattle Washington we'll say a prayer for that but they're located in Seattle Washington located in West Seattle the Mount is a comprehensive senior living and skilled nursing facility that integrates an award winning childcare program called the Intergenerational Learning Center ILC How that one works operating for over two decades the ILC brings infants, toddlers and preschoolers ages six weeks to five years directly into the daily lives of residents living in the assisted living and skilled nursing care.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: You can look that all up on the web if you'd like Providence is one link if you enter that in the search engine it'll get you there.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: Taylor and Francis will do the same daily activities children and seniors engage in regularly planned and spontaneous activities together including storytelling art classes music lunch and holiday celebrations again referencing Taylor and Francis The impact for residents many dealing with cognitive changes or physical limitations the presence of young children introduces unexpected joy, vitality and a renewed sense of purpose.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: Children grow up viewing aging under that premise as a natural part of their life entirely free from the fear of stigma often associated with elderly care environments.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: You can check that out if you so desire aging programs entering the search word as such daily interactions bridging generations at the mount in Westside Seattle the pictures look awesome so you can only hope that it is indeed interacting as such it pretty much looks like it's a go Humanitas human H U M A I I'm sorry H U M A N I T A S retirement Village Deventor D E V E N T R Netherlands in Europe the pioneering model at Humanitas Deventor has completely reimagined how communities handle elder isolation while simultaneously addressing student housing shortages.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: You can look that up with BRICO LAGE incraft how it works University students are given I mentioned this earlier rent free apartments inside the senior retirement village.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: In exchange they commit to spending at least thirty hours per month acting as good neighbors quotation marks to the older citizens.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: Daily activities students share meals, watch sports, matches together, teach older adults how to use smartphones and social media, celebrate birthdays and provide friendly company intergenerational living will get you to all of that if you so desire The Impact rather than living in a sterile medical facility residents experience a vibrant home like environment where younger voices in everyday life permeate the hallways surveys of the program report massive reduction in senior loneliness and a traumatic uptick in daily social engagement research gate New Dutch The communal dining area at Humanitis Deventer again you can look it up to see the image it looks like they're all happy campers.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: Why these models succeed both of these programs succeed because they shift the focus of elder care from passive treatment or total forgetfulness you know like hey misses Murphy down in the corner give a soup and two crackers she's all right in some facilities so it goes from passive treatment to active community participation good for what ails you good for all kids from one to ninety two workouts for geriatrics aka sewer streakers indeed good for all kids from one to ninety two it's everything about health wellness both physical and mental so we're gonna leave it there for this audio show we'll dig deeper into senior challenges mentally physically and emotionally we'll say bye bye for now make it a safe and productive day peace everybody