The Last Great College Campus- A THD Satire

The Last Great College Campus: A Satire from THD

By the time you reach your seventies, society expects you to spend your days in a rocking chair, watching game shows, and wondering where you left your glasses.

Then you move into THD.  THD is not a nursing home. It is a social experiment with 167 participants ranging from age 75 to 102, proving that retirement merely exchanges office politics for Bingo Politics, Bridge or Mahjong Games.  

The demographics alone tell a fascinating story. Men are outnumbered five to one. In economic terms, we are a scarce commodity. In practical terms, a man only needs to walk into the dining room carrying his own tray, and suddenly he has acquired a fan club.

The women pretend they are not looking. The men pretend they don't notice. Nobody believes either side.

There are twenty-four married couples living here. They provide stability and reassurance to the rest of us that lifelong love still exists, while also demonstrating that after fifty years of marriage, one can still argue passionately over where to sit during dinner or what soup of the Day is better.

The activity calendar resembles that of a luxury cruise ship. This place is like a cruise ship  on land.

At nine in the morning, energetic octogenarians gather for Zumba or Tai Chi. Some dance with remarkable grace. Others perform movements that could either be exercise or attempts to find where their hearing aid fell.

Bridge players enter the room smiling and leave looking as if they have just negotiated an international peace treaty. To Play on Monday or Friday Bridge Games require a Dollar. Some Forget it more often than others. Luckily, I am there to lend a helping hand, with my accumulation of dollar bills from my previous winnings either in Bridge or our Mahjong Games. 

The Mahjong players create enough clicking sounds to convince newcomers that construction work is underway. Speaking of mahjong, I created a Modified Game,  I called it Quadjong. Quadjong because instead of three tiles to make a set, it requires 4 tiles, ether a run (consecutives) or 4 of a Kind, thus the name Quadjong ( Four). The Mahjong set will have 10 jokers, making the Game a little less boring, but more challenging.  

Arts and crafts sessions produce masterpieces that grandchildren proudly hang on refrigerators, unaware they are displaying work by someone who once balanced million-dollar budgets, performed surgery or in-charge of the approval of new anti-fungal Drugs.

The reading club spends twenty minutes discussing the assigned book and the next forty minutes discussing everyone's knee replacement or diet because of late stages of CKD. 

Our excursions to museums are educational. Half the group studies the paintings. The other half studies the benches or just staring on the Walls.

Restaurant outings are even more entertaining. The waiter quickly learns that taking separate checks for twenty seniors is an advanced graduate course in mathematics.

The biggest spectator sport, however, is not Pickleball or Chair Volleyball.  It is Romance.

I recently wrote about "Second Chance of Love," and some readers thought I was joking.

I was not. Cupid apparently does not retire at sixty-five. He merely trades his arrows for a walker. Dating in a senior community is refreshingly honest.

Instead of asking, "What's your sign?" people ask, "Who's your cardiologist?"

Instead of discussing career ambitions, they compare prescription plans and daily vitamins.

The phrase "Do you come here often?" is unnecessary because everyone comes here every day.

And unlike high school dating, parents are no longer an obstacle. Children are.

They become surprisingly interested in inheritance law whenever Dad starts having lunch with the attractive widow from the third floor.

Watching relationships develop here reminds me of the movie Queen Bees. Cliques form, friendships blossom, rumors spread faster than the Wi-Fi, and alliances shift depending on who reserved the best table in the dining room.

Every community has its celebrities. There is the gentleman who tells the same naval war story every Tuesday with such conviction that we all politely listen again, pretending the ending remains uncertain.

There is the lady who has won so many bridge tournaments that newcomers suspect she is secretly counting cards and putting Aces on her Bra.

There is the fitness enthusiast who insists that ninety is the new sixty, although everyone notices she still takes the elevator.

And then there are bloggers like me, quietly observing everything while assuring everyone, "Don't worry, I never mention names.", just initials. 

That reassurance comforts absolutely no one. Living at THD has taught me something unexpected. Old age is not a quiet epilogue. It is an encore performance.

The cast members may move a little slower, rely on hearing aids and walking sticks/canes, and occasionally forget why they entered a room, but they still laugh, flirt, argue, learn, dance, and fall in love.

We have traded corporate titles for first names. We have exchanged deadlines for happy hours.

We have replaced business meetings with book clubs and board meetings with board games.

Perhaps THD is not the end of life's journey after all.

Perhaps it is simply another college campus- one where the students have more wisdom, more medications, better stories, and absolutely no final exams.

And if you happen to hear laughter echoing down the hallway, don't assume someone is telling a joke. It may simply be another day at THD, where the average age is over eighty-five, but the human comedy is forever young. 

I hope I put a smile on your Face, today! 

Let me conclude this Satire about THD with following three Paragraphs 

One of the most meaningful moments of my three years at THD came when I found myself representing an entire culture. As the only Filipino-American resident, I felt both honored and genuinely seen when, during Philippine American History Month, our Activities Director invited me to give a one-hour presentation about the Philippines to the residents. It was more than a lecture-it was an opportunity to share the history, traditions, and spirit of the country of my birth with friends who had become my extended family. To make the celebration complete, I was asked to design an authentic Filipino dinner menu for our in-house restaurant, introducing everyone to adobo, pancit, lumpia, and other favorites. I even recommended several award-winning Filipino films that were shown over five nights in our little cinema. For one week, THD became a tiny cultural embassy, and I realized that even at this stage of life, one can still be an ambassador.

Of course, every community has its growing pains, and THD is no exception. The revolving door of employees in the Activities and Resident Services departments has sometimes been dizzying. In just three years, thirteen staff members have departed, some by choice and others unexpectedly, leaving residents to learn new faces and new names all over again. The departure that affected me the most was that of an Activity Director (TT) who first introduced me to the remarkable world of artificial intelligence. That simple introduction transformed my daily blogging and opened a creative chapter I never imagined possible in my ninetees. Equally surprising was the disappearance of our newest General Manager, whose tenure lasted only five weeks before becoming another footnote in THD history. Among the residents, we joke that activities personnels come and go faster than the weekly dessert menu, but beneath the humor is the reality that continuity matters. In a community where many of us have spent a lifetime building lasting relationships, stability among those who serve us becomes part of what makes a place truly feel like home.

These experiences have taught me that life at THD is a blend of comedy and poignancy. One day I am giving a lecture on Philippine history and watching my neighbors enjoy lumpia for the first time; the next day I am saying goodbye to another staff member who had become a familiar part of our routine. Such is life in an active senior community, where friendships are formed quickly, farewells come too often, and every ordinary day has the potential to become a story worth telling on a blog.

Lastly, THD News: 

1. Alexis Jones, Newly Hired Activity Director

I talked to Alexis the day after she was hired ( I think mid-May) and informed me she has experience working with Senior Citizens having work at an Assisted Living Community in San Francisco. I was impressed with Alexis youth, energy and emphatic behavior to senior citizens here at THD. The activities after her employment is again in full swing. One of the recent events, Seniors enjoyed recently was Her Hola Hoops Dance Exhibition at the Liberty Pavilion. I hope Alexis will be a Keeper and not another statistics and footnote in the high employee turnover here at THD. Again, welcome Alexis to THD, I will give you six months to know all of the 167 residents here at THD.  

2. Caleb- Newly Hired, Food and Beverage Director.- 

 I saw the above photo posted yesterday. I hope with Caleb's on Board, we will have more variety in our menu and more monthly ethnic dishes to enjoy in the Future. Welcome to THD, Caleb.