Tango and Noodle Hockey

Today I spent at least 30 rather goofily ecstatic minutes with the morning crew in the main room at Geriabulous, listening to tango, and playing "hockey" with about 20 elderly folks. They were all gathered in a circle, in their seats or wheelchairs, wielding fun noodles, which are normally used in swimming pools, and have been cut off so they can be used as thwacking implements to send beachballs and balloons careening around the room. Man, physical activity is so good for the soul. I had so much fun, and they were gleeful. I also helped a blind person play Bingo for the second time--my first day I sat in-between two blind people to help with Bingo. It's weird to see people who haven't been blind for their whole lives; it's gotta be an incredibly hard thing to adjust to late in life, when other things related to one's independence from and connections to others are already made more difficult as mobility and cognitive speed decrease, and friends die and children move away and get busy.

Friday was my first day with the crew that I'd mistakenly described in my prior post as developmentally disabled. They're not. They're all people who've suffered some sort of brain injury that's left them at least cognitively impaired, some from strokes, some from accidents. That group was incredibly fun. Many were difficult to understand, but none were surly. They were happy and optimistic, introduced themselves and asked for, and remembered, my name. I spent threee hours participating in various activities with them, including assisting some as we walked laps around the downstairs offices, playing an indoor version of frisbee golf that involved bases, and reading creepy Halloween-ish stories. Towards the end of the day, around 5:30 p.m., as everyone was waiting for their rides and leaving in small groups, those of us left had no stories, so someone asked if I knew any. I sang "The Fox" (a version of the lyrics here: http://www.festivarian.com/index.php?topic=2110.0), then they asked if I knew more songs, so I sang about 4 different camp songs from my days as a Girl Scout camper and later counselor, all of which had repeated parts that others could easily pick up and sing along with. Then it was mentioned that this one quiet guy in a wheelchair who's lost a lot of motor control is a Beatles fan, so we all sang "Help" together, then he sang "Yesterday," and it wasn't poignant and sad, it was impressive and inspiring.