Growing old(er) ain't for sissies

I have trouble drinking, now, because it gives me heartburn....

What doesn't kill us, makes us stronger.

Keep repeating that until you're ready to scream.

Or hit the bottle.

Went back to college a few years ago for fun / thinking about job change, realized I'd gotten my BA longer ago than most of the other students had been alive - and was subtly reminded of that every time I entered a classroom for the first time and some of the youngsters either stared or giggled and I was ignored by lab partners because older = bad even though I got better grades than most of them

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Dear God, you've hit on my conundrum. I remember going to college (sort of). It was... uh... educational. I think I took some courses. Yes, that's what they were. And they were led by teachers. Some of which I suspect may have chosen their profession because they couldn't make it outside of an educational institution, but regardless of their qualifications they had the advantage because the curriculum was theirs to manipulate, and therefore they could study it at leisure during their long vacations and laugh at us as we struggled with terminology and concepts they'd selected for memorization.

Technology. What can I say about it? Someone mentioned in some thread somewhere online about how 'no one could predict the cell phone revolution!' to which I call bullshit. What did you THINK was going to happen? No, I have a good grasp on it, but I don't play Pokemon or any of those games. I'm more rooted in tabletop RPGs, and created one in particular (unpublished of course) that I felt was quite good. I have an Atarii 2600 in my garage. I'm afraid to plug it in because it's got so much dust inside it will probably ignite. I don't play games because I don't have time to play them. I have kids that are getting ready to leave home soon (I hope) and their programming takes a lot of effort. I had my kids late in life. Most people would say, 'WTF are you doing having kids at this point in your life?' to which I would reply 'IDK' And I won't use punctuation for them on purpose because they think that makes me sound like an asshole. But if I text my wife? Yeah, then I use punctuation. What's up with that? (Obligatory Seinfeldian reference here).

My grandparents used words like 'prednear' and 'hey buddy.' One of my grandmothers was a racist and used the N word as a matter of course. No one cared. She was fricken nuts. Pornography was the underwear section of the Sears catalog. Ordering delivery meant Chinese food because Pizza places didn't deliver. A 'computer' was a set of beads on a metal frame or something college students might program with punch cards. We had a rotary dial phone. My mother gave me a manual typewriter to type up my assignments. That was high-tech. OMG! My teachers were so impressed that I turned in a TYPED assignment.

You remember dogs? You remember how they couldn't talk, or how people could actually DRIVE cars without an AI override license? Insane. Remember how people could fire a gun before biometric ID prevented anyone but the owner from using it? Remember when James Bond wasn't played by an avatar of Sean Connery? His family got so rich on those royalties.

Remember the world before they outlawed salt, bad carbs, and fat? Food used to taste good. Real food... yeah... I remember what that was like before the neural downloads. Now you only get the memory of what it might have tasted like to the recording studio. And movies? Remember those? Weird times, definitely. So different from an eSperience. I remember when you couldn't smell or feel in media. Remember what things were like before the constant storms drove everyone underground and you could see the sky?

Remember forums? When people actually wrote online? Crazy.

Just started a job at a company where the average age is probably under 30. They all have caught way more Pokemons than me (since I have caught zero, not having installed the app). They talk about how many marathons they've run. Kids today. I didn't even have that much energy when I was young.

juniper said:

...Bette Davis has been quoted as saying, "Old age ain't no place for sissies."

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Indeed.

I caught two pokemon in my classroom last night while my students were working on projects. I'm gonna walk around campus tomorrow and see if there's a gym (seems like there should be).

morngnstar said:

They talk about how many marathons they've run. Kids today. I didn't even have that much energy when I was young.

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I have no interest in marathons or entering any races. But I managed to increase my distance to 5k since I just started running again in April.

My granddaughters, 11 & 13, are here for the summer. It is almost 8 p.m. and 87 degrees. Hot, dry and dusty. They went out to play with friends, 4 hours ago. (It's too hot here for the kids to do anything but swim before sundown. They swam all day yesterday.) They rode bikes across town to the school playground, played there for an hour, rode to the store for milk, carried it home, cleaned out a pan of brownies, washed the brownies down with milk and ice cream bars. Next they jumped on the neighbors' trampoline for another hour. Then they came in for sandwiches cherries and tater tots. They were STARVING!

Now they are kicking a soccer ball around the yard--7 kids whooping, running, cheering. No, wait, time to start up the fire pit for S'mores! Then they will stay out till after eleven, talking around the fire, looking at the stars, no doubt telling ghost stories so Grammy will have to walk them home with a flashlight. Then I will roll out a sofa bed so lumpy everyone else in the family calls it "The Rack." It never bothers them to sleep on it. The girls will giggle and talk for a couple of hours. Last night I had to get up at 1:30 a.m. to go to the bathroom. The 11 year old was standing on 4 books and a kitchen stool, taking a picture of a moth on the ceiling! All I could say was "Don't break your effing neck. You have to pull weeds in the morning."

They think I am impossibly grumpy. So do I. I can barely hobble, curse under my breath as I mop up messes, keep falling asleep, there is a crick in my back that only 200$ can iron out. But we are going swimming all day tomorrow. Now ask me again what I miss about being young--s6

morngnstar said:

They talk about how many marathons they've run. Kids today. I didn't even have that much energy when I was young.

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My mom's nearly 70 and she's run more marathons than 26-year-ol' me.

Youth is wasted on the young.

sassandgroove said:

Youth is wasted on the young.

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^This! ^

stormie said:

What doesn't kill us, makes us stronger.

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Until it finally kills us.

Introversion said:

Until it finally kills us.

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What doesn't kill you can hurt, really, really bad though... And sometimes strength can come from fun stuff... like sex...

Getting older means that you make noises when you stand up.

Haggis said:

Getting older means that you make noises when you stand up.

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And sometimes when you walk.

Bending over requires cursing. Then again, so does straightening up.

On the plus side, I can always hire my nephew, (for a pittance), to do the heavy lifting if necessary.

Haggis said:

Getting older means that you make noises when you stand up.

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My knees already sound like maracas when I stand.

Will getting older add a full mariachi band?

kuwisdelu said:

My knees already sound like maracas when I stand.

Will getting older add a full mariachi band?

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You are in deep doo-doo.

kuwisdelu said:

My knees already sound like maracas when I stand.

Will getting older add a full mariachi band?

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The horns, yes.

Spicy food causes heartburn. A day on the boat gives me a backache. An hour in the sun gives me a headache. On the plus side, I've grown up now that I can say no and mean it without guilt weighing me down.

I ain't even 40 yet (next year), and already have two bad knees, one bad shoulder, acid reflux and probable apnea.

Can't wait to see what happens when I go over the hill next summer...

Why haven't you poor old over-the-hillbillies joined us in the Old Farts thread yet?

We get free jello and personalized bedpans there.

We even have one or two youngsters around to keep us on our toes feet bunions.




And did I mention that we get free jello?

GailD said:

And did I mention that we get free jello?

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Make it jello shots and I'm there!

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regdog said:

My favorite is the pain of stupid origin. You know the one. You stand up, something hurts. You sit down, something hurts. You wake up, yup why is that pain there. It didn't hurt yesterday.

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As a weightlifter I know this one by heart! lol