How to Know You're Old

I understand - we had our 50th 6 years ago, any future ones are to be combined with other classes. I get notices from our "organizer" about illness and deaths. Many I don't remember, we had roughly 250 in the class.

Something can be sad and funny at the same time - got a notice one lady from our class died and my wife asked if I knew her. I said she was head cheerleader, very popular. She said, oh. you didn't know her then. Gee, you know how to hurt a guy. Of course she was right, the lady was way out of my league.

I've lived in Phoenix suburbia so long I forgot the smell of alfalfa hay drying in the Wisconsin sun. Until the day I and the wife traveled back to visit our son and grandsons. We took a long road trip up to Door county for a camping trip. Drove by freshly-mown hayfields and rolled the window down to catch the aroma. Took me back a long ways to my farmboy days. They seemed sooooo long ago. It was rather warm outside; the car's AC was running. I sat at the open window like dog with its face to the wind. My youngest grandson asked from the back seat "Grandpa? What are you doing?" I told him "Smelling the hay." Everyone in the car gave a little giggle. Except my wife of 45 years. She knew.

I'm pretty sure I got a little bit older that day.

A few of my hairs have gone white instead of grey.

That could be cool. No salt and pepper for me thank you.

Just looked down at my feet, and I'm wearing ankle socks and slippers - In my mind, that's a total, 100% "Old Lady" look.

*Runs out to buy some Ben-Gay*

Well, the good news is you can still see your . . . um, feet.

SJCress said:

I was talking to a kid (early 20s) at work the other day about libraries & I mentioned something about the card catalog & Dewey decimal system. He gave me a blank look. "The what?" he said.

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The issue wasn't that the person you were talking to was young. He just doesn't know how libraries work. The Dewey Decimal System is still the standard by which libraries organize their books. The technology might have changed over the years, but the system didn't.

Don't feel old. That "kid" just doesn't know any better.

I think Michael Clarke Duncan would be perfect for that role. Dwayne can't act.

Maryn said:

My class was about 550 students

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How could they get into one class? In my country, in my time schools (high schools included) had classes of up to 40 students (now the limit is 25), and at Uni, the groups (how they were called) had about 20 or 25 students.

...Or are you talking about series/ generations? (i.e. all the classes of the same year in school/ uni?) We had in school up to I, i.e. 9 classes in our series, and in uni, at my faculty, at night courses where I attended, 6 groups.

Maryn said:

I felt old on Twitter this morning. Last week Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson announced he's got a new movie in the works about John Henry. This morning, he announced that most of the responses amounted to "Who?" I presume schools no longer teach American mythology.

Maryn, who'll tell you all about Old Stormalong and Pecos Bill

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I can still see the cover of a book I had as a kid with a story about Pecos Bill and Paul Bunyan.


When a famous local person dies and he was exactly my age, it's a reminder. Especially when there are so many reminders around here. I remember watching Michael Jackson's Thriller playing on a huge screen at the EMP. And the sci-fi museum (downstairs), the original Forbidden Planet's Robbie the Robot is in that museum.

I assume one of the key signs is when you watch a show or movie about the kids and their crazy hijinks, you find yourself relating more to the adults who have to put up with all the kids’ crap.

Lavern08 said:

Just looked down at my feet, and I'm wearing ankle socks and slippers - In my mind, that's a total, 100% "Old Lady" look.

*Runs out to buy some Ben-Gay*

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Nothing wrong with preventing our hot flashes from making our slippers sweaty.

Maryn said:

Except for Duncan being dead and all...

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Oh. Didn't know. But still . . .

Yesterday I realized I have been in the computer world for fifty-three years. I started programming using plug boards in 1965. Now I can edit programs on my smart phone. From transistors to multiple processor chips. From hard drives which used huge platters for a few meg of data to tiny solid state drives with gigs of data. Quite a change in the world of ones and zeroes.
Now I feel real old!

Ink-Pen-Paper said:

Yesterday I realized I have been in the computer world for fifty-three years. I started programming using plug boards in 1965.

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My mom used to bring home computer punch cards from work, since I was always hunting for paper scraps to cover with horse drawings. I still remember sifting through the cards, looking for the ones with the least amount of punches. Once I found a card with no punches at all, and it felt like I'd discovered a hidden treasure. More drawing space!

Gah, I'm old.

I feel old when I tell my clients "We've all done dumb shit. The government doesn't make my dumb shit criminal."

By most other people's standards, I'm not old... but I certainly feel that way.

Like the other day when I got an invitation to my 20th high school reunion.

Or when I'm having a conversation with a coworker and reference a movie or other bit of pop culture from the 80s or 90s and the other person doesn't have a clue wth I'm talking about.

I knew I was getting old similar to what others have said - random body aches for no reason. Granted, falling at the race track while braking from one-hundred plus down to eighty-six miles per hour didn't help. That, and my hair line has receded like a solid inch over the past ten years. *blows out a deep breath.