There really is nothing more depressing than looking at a resort full of people on the dance floor, thinking, "Wow, this group is particularly old and fat" and then realizing they are you. This trip to Mexico happened because friends (two Canadians) of friends (two Brazilians, one who works with a Canadian) of friends (a Brazilian and an American) planned the trip and the rest of us glommed on like a game of telephone, couple by couple. One couple has a bit of an age difference, and they are the bridge between the old contingent and the youngsters. Another way to put it: The Americans are all old.
Observations: the youngsters (age range 30 to 40) have so much energy. They can sit in the sun, drinking all day, then look fresh as flowers at dinner, before proceeding to party well into the night. Their contributions to the conversation included pride at being the first generation with really good first person shooter games. Yeah, well, check this out: we didn't even have video games, except at the arcade. Until we got Atari. Or Merlin. Our video games needed imagination, and we're stronger for it.
Tonight at dinner we were at the resort's teppanyaki grill, and I was sitting next to the one couple not with our group, who turned out to be from St. Cloud -- a town located between Minneapolis and our cabin. So that was crazy. She is an RN at the VA hospital there, and he works for ADM. The conversation escalated in a bad way when it was evident that he and I had very different viewpoints on American agriculture; in sum, I learned, mine are wrong. Kind of a drag to find out the 26-odd years I've been working on sustainable agriculture have all been entirely misdirected and a complete waste. We changed the subject to how much bullshit it is that we're at the stage of life when our parents and friends are getting old and sick and dying, sharing horrific stories of our friends and family members, and ended up having a really lovely time. ADM guy shook my hand at the end of dinner and said he'd welcome chatting more about agriculture some time when he hadn't been sitting in the sun drinking all day. Maybe then I can also explore what his wife meant when she whispered about how bad the crime is getting in St. Cloud. I'm sure it would be enlightening.