HOW DO YOU DEFINE OLD AGE?

I can remember when I thought 30 was old.
I had a friend who was in his mid 50's, his wife was the same age and didnt look a day over 18, he used to get so mad, everyone thought she was his daughter. [emoji1]

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I'm 69, diagnosed 3 years ago with cancer, given 6 months to 1 year to live. At that time I felt like I was in my 30s, working 60+ hours a week and going all the time. Today after 3 years of chemo weekly and numerous radiation treatments I feel somedays like 99! Am I old, not on your life, ain't gonna happen. I still reload ammo every day for three family members and two neighbors plus myself and shoot once a week at least. Fish when I want to. Not going to let age or cancer or chemo keep me from enjoying today, it may be the only one we get. And my mind is still sharp...and my mind is still sharp... and my...oh never mind. Merry Christmas to all here. Top of the world, ma.
 
The temp outside is 8 degrees.

The wind is reported at 61 mph.

It's snowing. Yes, sideways.

It's about 72 inside my cabin thanks to my wood stove. I decided it was time to read this thread.

I'm the youngest of four good friends. We're five years apart, the top guy is 81. He's my coach in the gym. He weighs 111 soaking wet; I'm about 250. He can bench press my weight; I can't do his, yet.

I visited the 76-year-old yesterday. He's hand-stitching a long horn cowhide vest for me.

I'm writing the biography of the 71-year-old: truly "the most interesting man in the world" (with no apologies to that silly beer commercial.

It's still all about tomorrow!
 
I will turn 80 next month. I have to face it: that's old. My hair is white, my left knee cannot survive without Tylenol and I can't liberally indulge in spicy food because it will come back to haunt me at bedtime. But my physical problems are minor compared to the friends I pray for every evening, roughly a dozen of them who are about my age. Their problems range from cancer to not being able to walk without assistance.

What really gets to me are the deaths that I have had to cope with over the past year. Three good friends I have known since grade school and high school passed. Speaking at one of their services led me to a cracked voice and tears in front of everyone - I could not help it. My superdog Joe died at the age of 11 from cancer. And then my eldest daughter died violently at age 56 from a freak private plane crash just a couple of months ago.

My wife is not in the best of health; she has had heart problems for the last 10 years, and my fear is that I will outlive her and then have to deal with my own heartbreak, as I have loved her since we were just kids. I don't know how I would live without her.

Thank God my brain is still fully active and as functional as it ever was.

I have lived a full life - with some regrets. For my newer friends, I tell them not to believe what they have heard about me - the truth is much worse. However, I believe the good Lord in all His mercy has forgiven my sins, so I do not fear death or the afterlife.

My concern in my old age is for my remaining children and their descendants, living in a future United States that will have changed radically from the country I lived in as a child and young adult. We are besieged with enemies, both foreign and domestic, that I swore to faithfully defend against as a young Army officer. I also swore to defend our Constitution, and I see it being infringed and literally torn apart way too regularly now. I hope that my descendants and their peers will have the guts to return the U.S. to its once proud status as the land of the free and the home of the brave. The strife between political parties and disparate groups has now stretched our tranquility almost to the breaking point, and I am saddened beyond words at this.

I am an old man; I admit it. I will in not too many years have to pass the torch to new people who may or may not have enough sense of our own proud history to work to preserve the integrity of our Nation. I will do what I can do in my remaining years.

John
 
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If you are retired. I have yet to see a young person having dinner with a bunch of old folk at Luby's at 4 P.M.
If the women you are dating look like your mother when she retired.
When you look at the mirror and you wonder who put a picture of some wrinkled sagging face over your mirror.
When you think being 50 is young.
When you get an invite to your 50th high school reunion.

Anyone that retires after they have become elderly has failed in a very basic way.
 
I have a daughter who is 62. She has a grandson who is 12. They were
here visiting a few days ago. She said something about needing to get in
to some kind of exercise program. He said they have a softball league
for ELDERLY people. That was quite a shock to her. What about my wife
and I. If our daughter is elderly, we must be ancient.
 
I figured I was old when I reached retirement at 62. It doesn't bother me. I'm 66 now and the last 4 years have been the best years of my life.
 
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