Let's talk about older people

Ow! Don't remind me of that!! It's all too close for me. Born in '39, so I have a few and I'll come back and contribute. Later.

 

Death is where we are all headed the moment we take our first breath.

 

I was three and a half when we got our first TV. I was excited until I found out it only played baseball (it must have been the world series or something). I have not liked baseball since.

I have had a lifelong tendency to have friends older than I am, some significantly older. Over the last several years a lot of them died. It definitely is hard to lose those we care about.

 

One of my oldest male friends is 68.But he's really cool.Went to art school. Saw Pink Floyd play.Did some light shows with a couple of bands.I smoked hash with him a couple of times.I don't even think 68 is terribly old really.He's pretty fit.Personally I'll be happy for about just another 20 years of this life (I'm now 42) and after that I'm not too bothered.I tolerate pain well,both physically and mentally.

 

That's probably more common than many people think. I worked in a nursing home kitchen for 2.5 years when I was in high school. Some people seemed to have regular visitors and others rarely had visitors. They would even tell me about their families and get excited for visits because it had been a long time since the last visit.

The administrator would get on my ass about talking to the residents too much during my shift but.....what could she say? I got my stuff done faster and better than anyone else there and still made time to talk to them. On my birthday, xmas, etc. I usually got a decent number of cards from the residents. Funny thing.....the administrator gave me a hard time sometimes but when raises came around (every 6 months I think) I got the maximum allowable raise every time. I kept that to myself because I would hear the nurses aides comparing their raises (or lack thereof) and I was getting 3 or 4 times what some of them got. It still wasn't a ton of money but it was more than what they got so I must have been doing something right.

 

Older ppl usually know a lot of cool shit, cuz they been thru a lot of real ass shit in life but I never believed them till it happened to me

Live and learn they say....

 

- 1939?- Born 11 yrs BEfore me- geez Scratch, you are an old fucker- -- Ill contribute after you (( age before beauty

jj:sunny:

 

My grandfather (who has passed away) used to entertain us kids by singing *very loud and dramatically* "It's Howdy Doody Time, It's Howday Doody Time. Bob Smith and Howday Doo say Howday Doo to YOU"

 

First part is me, its all bullshit.

Second part is not me, old people smell funny

 

Do you think old people should wear colognes and perfume?

 

I love hearing older people talk about the past. The other day, I was talking to an older gent about his memories of when Bonnie and Clyde were on their robbery spree. I've read a few books about B & C and it seems so long ago, but it wasn't. I enjoy hearing about old folk remedies, the Depression, the 1920's in America, etc.

 

thank god i re-read it and you didn't actually say that you used to put on the smurfs and yank your knob.

 

I met this guy old guy in queens (sunnyside, queens)once and he told me all about how the neighborhood went thru different phases of people and it was a cycle, and how these buildings used to be this, and then something else and now it's this, and how crack came out and how it affected things for a while. He was in his eighties and I walked to the train with him and he was telling me how most people are good people but some aren't and how easy it is to see thru those people.

And he didn't not seem that old to me, still walking just fine I woulda thought he was in his sixties maybe if he hadn't told me.

 

My mom is 85 and when she calls someone in to do work for her I am sure she chatters to them. She will usually make lunch and serve them and also through the day she will make sure they have fluids. The upside is that she is a really nice person and usually gets not only the work done but often they simply throw in the little extra that makes her so happy.

Thanks for being one of those people who goes that little extra mile to make life easier for someone else.

 

My Grandpa was a cattle rancher in the 40s.

One story he told was of an old road grader he had that would stall if he tried to go too far up a hill with it because it had a gravity fed fuel system, or something like that.

He said that he had to back up while going up a steep hill, lol.

I love hearing old stories like that.

 

I love the old stories. I like hearing them told from other families as well as my own. It causes me to realize that everybody goes through the same things.

 

My grandparents hardly ever told anything about their past. I do kinda regret not getting more out of them now they are gone.
They lived on their farm their whole lifes and one story I do know is that during WW2 they were hiding people from the Nazis in their farm. Those people didn't have anything to give my grandparents, but that was okay. They took care of them during the war, feeding and sheltering them.

One time, Nazis actually visited their farm and made some sort of temporary quarters of the farm. Somehow my grandparents did manage to keep the people they were hiding out of sight. Mind you, it was a huge farm with lots of land.
When the Nazis left, they left some items behind, including a chair which is still in our family.

After the war, one of the people that were hidden visited my grandparents some years after the war and gave them a painting, as gratitude for their help during the war. This painting is also still in the family.
It is kinda weird to see those two items and the very different history behind them. They tell two stories of the war, from very different viewpoints.

Nowadays, it is so hard to imagine what that must have been like, also considering they were younger than I am now at the time that happened.

 

Thank you for the contributions, everyone. I've enjoyed reading them. :afro: