Ren had given up coffee years ago, at his doctor's urging. He looked at the dark circle in the bottom of Musso's mug with nostalgic longing before readying himself for the two hours he spent each day in Tuscaloosa's public schools, reading to children. Ren's world is not science fiction. The demographic, economic, and political trends to make it reality are already in place. The huge demographic population known as the baby boomers is beginning to reach retirement age.
Boomers have wide interests, particularly in information technology.
I see this as having wide implications for the nursing industry. Boomers not only have wide interests, but with a longer life ahead of them than was imaginable to any previous generation, those interests are going to change. Society in general will undergo a re-evaluation of fundamental definitions, from what it means to age to what defines a community. William Kovarik, a media studies professor at Radford University, is interested in defining communities that serve those in the later years of life. I started thinking about this when I wrote an article about a program that was being run out of the Community Action Program in Minneapolis in the 1970s and '80s.