The big Five-Oh

[Guest]

My Grandpappy used to say, "You don't stop playing because you get old. You get old because you stop playing."

BTW: He was 89 when he died and was still chopping his own wood for the fireplace.

 

[NoJo]

BTW: He was 89 when he died and was still chopping his own wood for the fireplace.

I guess nobody had the heart to tell him he'd converted to central heating twenty years ago.

 

[CharleyH]

I still have a coulple of years to go till I'm 50, but my close friend is reaching it next week. He recently told me how panicky he's feeling. He looks about 40.

I remember, when I was in myearly twenties, how old my 30-year-old friends all seemed.

So, when, does "old" happen?

The moment you begin to think you are, otherwise who remembers?

 

[Sunnie]

I think that could be classified as an overreaction. At least I fucking hope so.

Justifiable homicide.

 

[Guest]

I guess nobody had the heart to tell him he'd converted to central heating twenty years ago.

Just to explain my grandfather's thinking:

"Central heating is having the wood burner in the middle of the basement." (And it was warm enough to sit around in a t-shirt and shorts on the coldest winter nights in his house)

When his doctor told him, after a mild heart attack at 81 yrs old, "Earnest, you can't go out and cut wood wood anymore...."

His reply was, "The hell I can't!!! I can cut as much wood now as any young punk out there and I don't need any fancy gas powered chainsaw or hydrolic splitter to do it!!!

I have no doubt that any would be burglar caught in his house would have had his ass thoroughly kicked, whipped, whooped, AND beaten bloody before the body was turned over to the police.

On the other hand, a kinder gentler man you will never meet. He would go miles out of his way to help someone in need and refuse to accept ANY sort of payment. And god help you if you were in his home and tried to leave without eating something.

I miss him.

 

[rgraham666]

I still have a coulple of years to go till I'm 50, but my close friend is reaching it next week. He recently told me how panicky he's feeling. He looks about 40.

I remember, when I was in myearly twenties, how old my 30-year-old friends all seemed.

So, when, does "old" happen?

You're old when you're too old to care.

Ask me when my fiftieth rolls around at the end of October.

 

[SensualCealy]

It's all relative, I think ... I think of age in terms of differences: My husband is ten years older than me, and ten years younger than my mom. My boyfriend is 13 years older than me, nine years younger than my dad. (Kind of creepy thinking about it like that, but it's fun to tease the guys with. ) My best friend is the same age as my little sister, who's married to a guy my age.

...I don't know what my point is.

Reminds me of the old math questions, if two trains leave two different spots at different times going different speeds which one will get to their destination first?
I failed math, twice!
C

PS, Old is Old, no one is ever too old for someone else untill it happens!
Mom was 17 dad was 34, they were great together back then. Mom was very mature for her age, and yes dad a bit immature. Now that he is 77 and she is 60. He is finally getting too old for her. Not in a negative sense, but he is failing with medical issues, and I dread night time phone calls. Honestly if I see him live to 80 I will truly be impressed and thankful. As my son said, "Grandma is still Brisk for her age!" lol

 

[Pure]

sub joe, in ten years or so, you'll look back on your 50s as a period of youthful vigor.

 

[TxRad]

Old? Now there is a question from the ages....

I'm 58 and soon to be 59... I'm on the who's who page of my High school yearbook as the guy that would never live to see 21... I'm told I look no older than mid 40's.. I feel like a hundred at times and thirty at others....

Old? no I'm not, except when I move wrong or the weather changes...

I bought a new motorcycle last year and my daughter said something about my second childhood.... I promptly told her that I wasn't through with the first one yet...

Age has nothing to do with being old... Old is a state of mind... senility on the other hand is a state of.... Uh... what was the question....

When you pause to think... Don't forget to start again....

 

[Svenskaflicka]

My dad's cousins, The Twins, are born on the exact same day as I am. They'er 20 years older than me. When I was 10, our families forced us to celebrate together, thinking it was very cool to celebrate 30+30+10=70. Yeah, VERY funny... We refused to repeat the thing when I turned 20, although our relatives were looking forward to 40+40+20=100.
Next year, I'll be 30. Officially an adult. And The Twins will officially be Old Men, seeing as they turn 50.
Now, those two are like eternal 30-years-olds to me. To think that they'll be 50 is even more hard to comprehend than the fact that I'll be 30.

 

[oggbashan]

It's relative

When I was young, I thought that my two great-aunts were old. They were in their early eighties, living in a fourth floor flat, cooking with coal which they fetched from the basement. Every time we visited we would fill their coal hod and they always protested that we shouldn't.

In their mid-eighties the relations conspired together so that the great-aunts would be 'visiting' one group of relations or other all winter. Despite our best efforts they wouldn't stay beyond Easter.

Their landlord offered to buy them a gas or electric cooker; to install central heating; to move them to the ground floor, with their coal-fired range if that's what they wanted. They refused, politely. They had been bombed out of their home by a Zeppelin in World War 1. They stayed in their top floor flat throughout World War 2, saying 'We had to move for the Kaiser. We're not moving for a jumped-up corporal."

They ran errands for their 'elderly' neighbours who were ten years younger. They would take family youngsters (like me) to the park and play football. Eventually they wore out and died just short of 90 but at home.

My eldest aunt had been a suffragette. She was employed as a Lady Typewriter before World War 1 and eventually became a Company Secretary (NOT a secretary but one of the board members). She retired aged 75 and took up voluntary work with her church, running a Sunday morning youth club for difficult teenagers, mainly of West Indian descent. If you know South London you can imagine how 'difficult' some of them could be. Apart from that she was employed by the council as a pensioner advisor, dealing with problems of benefits and housing. She was still employed, and still running the youth club until three weeks before she died aged 91. Even though she had arthritis and walked with two sticks she never stopped.

My father retired, the first time at 65. He took a temporary job until 75. He then became a consultant, travelling the world for his company until aged 80. He decided to take a degree and started with the Open University. He got his degree by age 86. In the meantime he was a qualified guide for the City of London, leading about 20 tours a year. The 'short' tour was 14 miles. The 'long' tour was 20 miles. Even the short tour was regarded by the Japanese banks, his major customers, as at least equivalent to climbing Mount Fuji. Unfortunately by age 90 his short-term memory was failing. He had to move to a residential home. Even there he managed to average 14 miles a day until a few weeks before his death aged 96.

When I asked my father, shortly before he died, how old he felt he replied: "I still think that I'm in my early thirties until I look in the mirror. Then I know that I'm at least 70. When I look at some of the young carers in this home I feel 18 again."

Og

 

[shereads]

Old age is when there are no viable sex partners.

 

[shereads]

I guess nobody had the heart to tell him he'd converted to central heating twenty years ago.

<can't...breathe...inhaled cherry pit...send help>

 

[NoJo]

Old age is when there are no viable sex partners.

I always ask women if they're viable before I sleep with them, to save the shock later.

 

[The_Darkness]

I don't know about old, but I have a pretty good handle on young from our good friends at RedvsBlue.com


--Paraphrased and from the "Tattoos" PSA, Season 1
....you are a goddamn idiot, and I can prove this mathematically. Take your current age, and subtract 10. Were you smart 10 years ago? No! You were a goddamn idiot! The thing is that you're just as much of an idiot now as you were back then, it's just going to take you 10 more years to realize it!

 

[stuz5]

ageism

Modern pharmaceuticals have taken the worry out of growing old. I,ll be 70 in march.

 

[geronimo_appleby]

It's all relative, I think ... I think of age in terms of differences: My husband is ten years older than me, and ten years younger than my mom. My boyfriend is 13 years older than me, nine years younger than my dad. (Kind of creepy thinking about it like that, but it's fun to tease the guys with. ) My best friend is the same age as my little sister, who's married to a guy my age.

...I don't know what my point is.

Huh? Boy am I ever confused...
Mind you, that's pretty much a constant state for me - and I'm 41. Is that old?