Archives for April 2026

Science, what’s left of it in the past year, is only recently studying what nonlinear aging looks like. Do we age steadily or all at once? Most of us (I’ll include you the reader because I appreciate you) feel like aging happens in stops and starts. For example, you’re feeling pretty good and out of the blue you wake up with hip or knee pain. As per the title, at least you wake up.

There may be scientific basis for this experience. Age-related markers such as proteins and DNA tags in our blood may explain the fits and starts aspect of our bodies complaining to us about a new pain or some degraded physical function.

Lifestyle has much to do with the fits and starts, witness your acquaintances who are overweight or over imbibing alcohol. People exhibit aging the most in their 40s and again in their 60s. The fat and alcohol issues start at 40 but the more serious consequences come at 60. In any case, scientists now believe aging is not a linear process but rather comes dramatically at certain points in your life.

It’s safe to say that all the boomers who have gotten knee and hip replacements already know this. Things were going swimmingly and then wham…can’t walk with those whacky joints anymore.

How does this new science help any of us aging boomers? Sadly, not much. There’s an urgent need for longitudinal studies that would examine such factors as male and female differentiation, pregnancy, trauma, and Covid infection, along with differentiating which organs are causing the greatest impact.

More research will eventually help people (most likely not us) live longer as well as forestall disease. That could mean instead of declining at 70, you could gain five more years of good life. Not you as in us, but you knew that.

Jay Harrison is a writer and creative consultant for DesignConcept. His newest mystery novel, Rio Puerco Demise is available on Amazon. His first mystery novel, Head Above Water, is also available on Amazon. But that’s not all. You can also purchase the Best of BoomSpeak on Amazon.

Once a year, years ago, the circus ‘came to town’ and among other highlights, set up a midway featuring exotica not found down on the farm. For the price of admission, folks could “Step right up!” to gawk at freaks of nature otherwise isolated from everyday life – a controlled glimpse into the unusual, the strange.

The circus phenomenon seems to have declined along with other public events like Wild West Shows, Roy Rogers,“Hi-Yo Silver!” and, and, and, and. But somehow, we seem to have evolved an internet version of the same. Facebook, and others along the daily-info line, are the extended family of The Greatest Show on Earth…okay, minus the roar of the grease paint and the smell of the crowd, not to mention cotton candy and a parade down main street. But the internet feeds the universal drive of curiosity seeking, inveterate interest in the unusual. Once we get past the weather and “Just In!” political flashes, online copy basically panders to curiosity-seeking-seekers.

Somehow it seems like legitimate, open-minded openness to international news and worldwide exotica. But is it really? Okay, some reporting is current news and some is technically educational but it comes sandwiched between fishermen in the far east trapping eels and hyenas harassing zebras in Africa and elephants fighting off lions. It’s like a meal of too many over-rich treats: horses humping, surfers slicing mountainous waves, not to mention automobiles colliding, sailboats racing and folks jumping off towering ledges into bottomless bays. And, of course, add an endless variety of wild animals demonstrating survival of the fittest fit for a zoology class.

So, Facebook is somewhat educational with an element of redeeming encyclopedic information, like used to be encased in our Junior Britannica encyclopedias. But it all comes in a blitz of information, staggered and random. Nothing like an academic class with related facts in chapters and sub-headings. It’s a class that a student with attention deficit disorder would find exciting. Lots of data and details that don’t have to be ordered or remembered…give me more.

So, today’s internet is a jazzed-up version of the circus parade coming to town. Lots of exciting shows and information…never saw that before. The only difference is that it doesn’t cost $.25 to see the show…just have to pay for cable on a monthly basis.

Retired trainer, and writing instructor, Joe Novara lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Writings include novels, short stories, a memoir and various poems, plays, anthologies and articles. Read more at https://freefloatingstories.wordpress.com/