DINOSAURS AND ELDERS

"Dinosaurs, Rothschild notes, had joints whose movements were highly constricted; they could swing back and forth on a very narrow track. Human knee joints have much more rotational maneuverability. 'The problem is that nature's design for humans didn't include exuberances of youth, like football and sports, that stretch out and damage ligaments; these don't repair, so muscles have to take over,' he says. 'As we get older and aren't as active, we slowly lose the muscles that sustain that stability.' Because older ligaments are no longer strong enough to do that work, we contract osteoarthritis." CSI: Jurassic

The implication, as I see it, is that elders can come to resemble dinosaurs only if they don't learn from them. Personally, I think that one of the best ways to counterbalance the results of youthful exuberance (which in my case hasn't really ended, though my exuberance is much more balanced than it was before my chronic judiciousness set in) while staying as active as our young selves and maintaining those "muscles that sustain that stability" is to garden on a mountain...