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Nursing home residents are great sources of inspiration, as well as, primary and secondary topic ideas. Many nursing home residents have lead inspirational lives that are worthy of writing about either for general audiences or for niche audiences. Almost every medium sized or larger community in the United States has at least one nursing home.

The number of people who will spend their final years in nursing home care is projected to increase in the years ahead. There are many reasons for this increase. Smaller family units mean that there are fewer adult children to care for aging parents, a more mobile population means that children are less likely to live in the same vicinity as their parents, and the two income family means that fewer families have a caretaker available to stay at home with elderly parents. Life expectancy is increasing resulting in more and more elderly citizens who are in need of care. These factors create at least two great opportunities for freelance writers. The fact that they live in nursing homes makes their stories more available and them more accessible.

Opportunity One:

I currently visit two nursing homes with a total of about 150 residents. Many of those 150 residents are World War II veterans. Each of those veterans has a compelling story that needs to be told.

One of my veterans was not only at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked but in Pearl Harbor. He was in a motor launch with about thirty other sailors when Japanese planes swooped down and attacked the ships on either side of the harbor. Two minutes later he was running across a wooden dock going to his battle station aboard the USS Pennsylvania. A Japanese plane strafed the dock with fifty caliber machines barely missing him. He locked eyes with the gunner who was trying to end his life. The gunner was only 50 feet overhead.

Seconds later he was passing through a compartment one deck below the main deck when a 500 pound bomb crashed through, exploded and killed 17 Marines. He escaped their fate by no more than a couple of seconds. With the war less than five minutes old he locked and loaded his anti-aircraft gun and became one of the first to fire a shot in defense of America in World Was II.

Good stuff, huh. Well it does not end there. He spent 40 months on fighting ships, took part in dozens of amphibious landings, was a part of almost every major battle in the South Pacific and was awarded 11 battle stars.

Telling the story of his life, which I am working on, is an example

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