How do you know if you are old?

[MightyGiants]

I have a 1993 Chevy pickup that is used to exhibit my frugality, and educate my children on how to save money by avoiding car payments and start a car without a key fob.

My cousins and my brothers are significantly younger than I am.  When my grandmother was alive, she was very frugal as a child of the great depression.   She still had a dial phone when the world had long since abandoned them. One of my visiting cousins wanted to use her phone, but they had no idea how to work a rotary phone.  I had used them as a kid, so I know how. 

[MightyGiants]

I will also add that my engineer father showed me how to use a slide rule when I was in high school.  So I am among the dwindling number of people on the planet who have ever used a slide rule

[Jolly Blue Giant]

I will also add that my engineer father showed me how to use a slide rule when I was in high school.  So I am among the dwindling number of people on the planet who have ever used a slide rule

I also learned on a slide rule before calculators came out. I remember buying the most expensive Texas Instruments calculator because it had built in trig functions so I didn't have look up the tables...lol

I still have mine. Another thing I used in the early 70s, was verneir calipers, which were a lot easier to read than a slide rule, but what a breath of fresh air when they came out with dial calipers, and eventually digital ones. Times they be a changin...for the better in most cases

[MightyGiants]

Today's generation will

Never know what it was like to use a phonebook

To read a road map

To get lost because you misread or don't have a road map

Use a manual choke

Use a rotary phone

Know what it's like to wait without having a phone to amuse themselves

Make small talk with strangers who are also waiting because of their phones

Will wonder where people you are meeting up with are, with no means to contact them

Have to go to a library to look something up (or use encyclopedias

Deal with busy signals or calling a home and getting a different resident or leaving messages

Having to get up to change the TV channel

Deal with secondhand smoke inside a restaurant or bar or sporting arena

Be able to smoke inside hospitals and other public buildings

hand crank their window down

Spend some of the weekends working on their cars

Send in or take in film to be developed

Create hard-covered photo albums

Read a newspaper with a cup of coffee or just look at a newspaper's headline

wait until late at night so that long-distance phone calls don't cost as much per minute

Get all excited because their Giants News Weekly arrived in the mail

Write letters to people or exchange greeting cards

Stop at a gas station to ask directions

Walk to school with all your classmates

Subscribe to and enjoy magazines

See a test pattern on a TV station

Play around with rabbit ears and the fine tuning knobs to maximize the TV picture

Go to a drive-in movie

See a double feature

Shop at a toy store

Get excited for the Sears Christmas catalog

Play with toys that are mostly imagination-driven

Play guns

Will use a cassett player, 8-track or VCR

Will use a floppy disk or phone modem

Use metal roller skates

Make a go cart

[Jolly Blue Giant]

I know I'm old when yesterday (it certainly seems), I held by granddaugter for the first time









And then this last Friday evening...I blinked and she's all grown up, heading to the prom with some kid I don't trust as far as I can throw him. I've told her repeatedly, "will you please stop growing up!". But that is out of my control.





I'll blink again and she'll be graduating H.S. (next year), then blink again and she'll be graduating college, then blink again and she'll be walking down the aisle, then blink again and holding her newborn baby...and on and on it goes as the sands of time keep falling down the hour glass 

[Sem]

So awesome Ric!! But, you're right about time speeding up though.

[Jolly Blue Giant]

So awesome Ric!! But, you're right about time speeding up though.

It went by so fast, like a speeding bullet

[MightyGiants]

https://x.com/Giants/status/1920977081539981470

[kartanoman]

I know I'm old when yesterday (it certainly seems), I held by granddaugter for the first time









And then this last Friday evening...I blinked and she's all grown up, heading to the prom with some kid I don't trust as far as I can throw him. I've told her repeatedly, "will you please stop growing up!". But that is out of my control.





I'll blink again and she'll be graduating H.S. (next year), then blink again and she'll be graduating college, then blink again and she'll be walking down the aisle, then blink again and holding her newborn baby...and on and on it goes as the sands of time keep falling down the hour glass 

The winning post in this thread, hands down!!!

Maybe the best part of getting old and perhaps worth all the aches and pains to be able to experience.

I hope to have that privilege one day.

Ric, you are blessed multifold beyond your years!

Peace!

[Jolly Blue Giant]

Thanks Chris, I know I'm blessed. The quiver is full - 7 grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren...so far

This girl was special because between my daughters, I already had 3 grandsons and no granddaughters, so when she was born, I finally got one and she's special because of it. We've been very close since she was born and I feel like a very lucky guy as she always wanted to hang out with grandpa. But as they get older, their school and friends become more of a focus than family, and I can feel that special relationship slipping away as she enters the adult stage of her life. No longer that "me and grandpa" time that we had for years. But that's how life goes I guess, they grow up and have their own families and their own lives to live 

[LennG]

When our late friend JimV and I used to talk, we both said it so many times, that there is simply no greater jopy than to hold your grandchild for the first time. Then watch them grow and be ther best influence on them that you can. Age has its advantages in knowledge and when we can share it with your children and then our grandchildren, it just makes us feel better.

We have a sign over our fireplace, " We never thought our hearts could grow larger until we heard our grandchildren call us Grandma and Grandpa".

My oldest is 14 so we have a few more years to get to your level, but like you, we also have a 1 year old and he is a terror AND a pure joy.

[bamagiantfan]

When our late friend JimV and I used to talk, we both said it so many times, that there is simply no greater jopy than to hold your grandchild for the first time.

Still waiting. 

[bamagiantfan]

I thought of another reason I am old yesterday. I bought about $7 worth of food at Taco Bell and paid with cash. The cashier was so surprised he took out a counterfeit detector pen and marked the $10 bill to make sure it was real.

[LennG]

Still waiting. 

What does the future look like?

[Kugs53]

I have to come back to the states to go to my grand nieces wedding.
I know I am getting old.