How to Know You're Old

Jason

Ideas bounce around in my head
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 26, 2016
Messages
6,011
Reaction score
1,036
Location
Nashville, TN
when they bump jeopardy for the daily White House press briefing and you can’t decide which you’re more annoyed at - the shift of your favorite programming or that orange head showing up again on your tv :(
 

Jason

Ideas bounce around in my head
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 26, 2016
Messages
6,011
Reaction score
1,036
Location
Nashville, TN
When you see a social media meme and the person says:

Went to my nefews graduation party last weekend

And it takes you a minute to realize what they did grammatically, and you facepalm so loud, you actually leave a mark on your forehead.
 

jeb101

Banned
Flounced
Joined
Oct 11, 2020
Messages
21
Reaction score
0
Location
Statesville, NC
I'm so old.

My Grandpa used to say the only good thing he could say about getting old was he didn't have to shave every morning and my Grandmother used to reply, when ask how she felt in the morning - "Not bad, considering the alternative." :)
 

Maryn

Sees All
Staff member
Super Moderator
Moderator
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2005
Messages
55,442
Reaction score
25,464
Location
Snow Cave
I haven't reread this thread, but I don't remember this oldness marker coming from me before.

Old is when your bad knee becomes your good knee because the other one's even worse.
 

jeb101

Banned
Flounced
Joined
Oct 11, 2020
Messages
21
Reaction score
0
Location
Statesville, NC
My Grandpa used to say, "The only good thing I can say about getting old is I don't have to shave every day.", and my Grandmother, when ask how she was in the morning, would reply, "Not bad, considering the alternative." :)
 

Words.Worth

.
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 6, 2012
Messages
88
Reaction score
3
I noticed that when people used a word senior more and more often to imply some elderly life experience and wisdom as an advantage over grasshoppers forty years or so their juniors. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work with the today youth!
But nothing could save my good lady friend feeling so when she turned a wallflower at the recent dance party.
 

Melissa.O'Connor

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 11, 2020
Messages
321
Reaction score
282
I was on Twitter and a published author mentioned researching what cell phones were like in the 90s. As if it was her historical research.

::sigh::
 

Maddy Knight

Banned
Joined
Oct 19, 2020
Messages
66
Reaction score
6
In my day, calculators just came out while I was in High School, and they were forbidden. In this factory town, there was a real fear that robots would take over, and calculators were the shoe in the door.
 

Maryn

Sees All
Staff member
Super Moderator
Moderator
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2005
Messages
55,442
Reaction score
25,464
Location
Snow Cave
Calculators being new, yeah, I remember that. Wow, huh?

I watched last Sunday's episode of Fargo and there was a brief scene in which a child was doing long division. (This is set in 1950.) Do kids still learn long division in the Age of Calculators? I mean, every device everywhere seems to have a calculator function or app. Or did long division join cursive writing in the Quaint and Retired Curricula?

Maryn, genuinely curious
 

Pallandozi

Registered
Joined
Dec 2, 2020
Messages
41
Reaction score
2
Location
Cambridge, UK
When it becomes easier to keep track of the bits of your body that still work, than the bits that don't.

When the professional field you trained for no longer exists.
 

MulkyWay

Registered
Joined
Nov 15, 2020
Messages
5
Reaction score
0
When you make a Nick at Nite reference and your coworkers have no idea what that is. :cry:
 

Maryn

Sees All
Staff member
Super Moderator
Moderator
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2005
Messages
55,442
Reaction score
25,464
Location
Snow Cave
When you no longer want a low-slung sports car because you're not sure you could get out without a hoist.
 

Bufty

Where have the last ten years gone?
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 9, 2005
Messages
16,768
Reaction score
4,663
Location
Scotland
:hooray: Or when you know you would need a hoist to get lowered and levered into the darned thing.
 
Last edited:

Maryn

Sees All
Staff member
Super Moderator
Moderator
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2005
Messages
55,442
Reaction score
25,464
Location
Snow Cave
Yes, there's that, too.

We have one family member who groans so much getting up from a chair that one year, our New Year's Resolution was to rise silently even when it hurt. While I don't hit 100% compliance, I'm pretty good about it. I was remarking on that to Mr. Maryn, who observed that in the last year or so, he can hear me get up from my bones making noise.

Maryn, not sure how to silence talking bones
 

RC turtle

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 1, 2020
Messages
154
Reaction score
29
Location
Where I don't belong
Calculators being new, yeah, I remember that. Wow, huh?

I watched last Sunday's episode of Fargo and there was a brief scene in which a child was doing long division. (This is set in 1950.) Do kids still learn long division in the Age of Calculators? I mean, every device everywhere seems to have a calculator function or app. Or did long division join cursive writing in the Quaint and Retired Curricula?

Maryn, genuinely curious

As of last year I know they were still teaching it (We switched to an entirely new math program this year and I haven’t encountered any division yet.) But it is getting harder and harder to convince anyone there is any value in learning it!

eta - lots of kids are still eager to write in cursive, even if it isn’t considered so important anymore.
 
Last edited:

Chris P

Likes metaphors mixed, not stirred
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 4, 2009
Messages
22,617
Reaction score
7,296
Location
Wash., D.C. area
In qualify for early retirement in 8 years. Yeah, that makes me feel old. Then I mentioned that to my parents. Who felt old then? :(
 

frimble3

Heckuva good sport
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 7, 2006
Messages
11,574
Reaction score
6,396
Location
west coast, canada
Huh. 'Regular' retirement in five years. Sadly, aside from reducing my income, this will have very little actual effect on my life.
As to 'cursive' - the PTB may want to dump it as not being 'relevant' in the 'real world', but for a lot of children, I suspect it's more of a mark of maturity, being able to do 'real' writing, fancy, like a grown-up.
As to not teaching manual math, this is plain stupid: what happens if their device runs out of battery-life, or they are (OMG) stuck somewhere without a device?
Some people will be reduced to pulling their socks off, to include in their counting.
When will the educational system realize that knowledge, not efficiency, is the point of education?
 

frimble3

Heckuva good sport
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 7, 2006
Messages
11,574
Reaction score
6,396
Location
west coast, canada
And, as to the whole 'sitting while aging' - how many of us are at the point where we scan a room on entering, in hopes of finding a chair that looks high enough to get out of with some dignity? Or, if they all look unlikely, for nearby people who look sturdy enough to 'assist' us to our feet? 'Comfortable' is no longer a major factor in choices.
 

Chris P

Likes metaphors mixed, not stirred
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 4, 2009
Messages
22,617
Reaction score
7,296
Location
Wash., D.C. area
As to not teaching manual math, this is plain stupid: what happens if their device runs out of battery-life, or they are (OMG) stuck somewhere without a device?
Some people will be reduced to pulling their socks off, to include in their counting.
When will the educational system realize that knowledge, not efficiency, is the point of education?

If you're referring to common core math, once I saw how it worked it makes sense and it really can't be done on a calculator. It turns the "plug and crank" method of math I learned with times tables, borrowing, etc. into a logic puzzle that can be reasoned through rather than memorized. I think it takes longer to solve problems and to learn initially, but once the learner gets good at it, it works just fine. The problem I see is it seems to be based on an idea that kids learn better through games than through other methods, which is true for some kids but certainly not all (like me: I'm too much dependent on rules to learn experientially).

Speaking of math, I remember being seven years old when I learned that 7 times 7 was 49. At seven, I thought I'd been alive FOREVER and couldn't imagine being alive longenough to do it all again seven times more. I'm 49 now, and some days it feels like life is still just starting, but other days it feels like I've been around for seven times forever.
 

Maryn

Sees All
Staff member
Super Moderator
Moderator
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2005
Messages
55,442
Reaction score
25,464
Location
Snow Cave
I suppose it announces my age that I remember the entire class reciting times tables in unison. (And wearing a dress to school!) Rote memorization worked--we did up to six in one grade, then seven through ten in the next grade, where the teacher did not use this method. To this day, I'm weak on seven, eight, or nine times anything.

This might be the right thread to announce that yesterday Mr. Maryn and I completed our hiking of the Wiouwash trail in the last four or five weeks, out and back, total distance 45 miles. Despite his hip and both my knees, we kept going.

Maryn, old but not infirm
 

Chris P

Likes metaphors mixed, not stirred
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 4, 2009
Messages
22,617
Reaction score
7,296
Location
Wash., D.C. area
I suppose it announces my age that I remember the entire class reciting times tables in unison. (And wearing a dress to school!) Rote memorization worked--we did up to six in one grade, then seven through ten in the next grade, where the teacher did not use this method. To this day, I'm weak on seven, eight, or nine times anything.

This might be the right thread to announce that yesterday Mr. Maryn and I completed our hiking of the Wiouwash trail in the last four or five weeks, out and back, total distance 45 miles. Despite his hip and both my knees, we kept going.

Maryn, old but not infirm

Sounds like an amazing hike!

Your post reminds me of an article I read recently on aging.

TL;DR synopsis (or if paywall or it screams at you about using an adblocker): With life expectancy extended by about 8000 days from previous generations, rather than focus on how to stay young, focus on staying healthy and look out of the box for creative ways to utilize the additional 8000 days. The point is not to act young in your later years, which is the failing of most products targetted to seniors. Don't buy something because you're old, buy something that fits your lifestyle, including "millennial" things like Uber and DoorDash, which are "assistive technologies" par excellence for their purposes. In the future aging might be thought of as a disease to be treated, and not a "natural process" we have to accept no matter what.