I once took Buzzy to the VA Hospital in D.C. for an evaluation by their Gerontology Department. The female doctor doing the eval was about my age and had a nice way about her as she interviewed my Dad. When she asked him what his hobbies were, he said he didn’t have any. She followed up with “Well, what do you do for fun?” To which he said “Read the paper I guess.”
She then challenged Buzzy by saying “Come on Mr. Ridgell, your generation is the first one to live this long. Think of yourself as a pioneer going some place that no one has been to before. You need to show your son and me how to get older and have fun doing it. You can’t sit around and do nothing because we already know how to do that.”
We all laughed and she had achieved her first priority in that she had connected with my Dad and made him at ease in talking with her. The evaluation went pretty well after that.
Later on as we were driving down the road, Buzzy remarked “You know, that gal may have been onto something.” I teased him by saying “You’re not going to take up Square Dancing are you?” He just smiled and said “I doubt that.”