Old people - classic or dud?

I'm not sure how this relates to the question, except to say that in my immediate-family experience, the older you get, the weirder. Last year I sat thru the Eurotrash Alternative Guide to the Eurovision Song Contest with my dad (HIS choice; he had the remote; it was abt 45,752 hours long and he didn't go to bed until it was finished....)

I have some way to go, and SO LITTLE TIME...

My granny and my great grand mother were definitely the same way- this may be a symptom of the fact that both their husbands died significantly earlier than them, leaving them with the freedom and the money to do Exactly. As. They. Pleased. (In my mother's case, my dad didn't die, he ran off to California with a mistress, but the end result was the same.) This usually involves going back to university to get another degree and re-experiencing the joys of accademic life without the problems of youth- an agreeable situation, by the looks of it.

Maybe being around young (college age) people, and being constantly exposed to new ideas and staying intellectually sharp has preserved (at least the women of) my family from falling into the "oooh, when I wuz yer age..." trap of smug conservatism. And maybe closed-minded, sheep-like young people are the ones that turn into closed-minded, sheep-like old people, so people who are free spirits and eccentrics when they are young usually end up *remaining* eccentric free spirits, no matter what their age.

So, apart from the physical problems I'm already starting to experience, I think getting old is going to be GRATE. I will go deaf, I will go mad(der), my obsessions will worsen and become more pronounced (though I hope they do not turn religious, as they do in some members of my family), and I will get more eccentric *and* better educated. My 30s are turning out to be twice as good as my 20s. So I reccon that my 60s will be four times as good! I can't wait.

I suppose living in Arizona for a while is what really embittered me to old people. The retirees there were so awful - I don't mind the old people here in NY, but in AZ I wanted to bludgeon them with baseball bats and just get it over with. They were so cranky and crappy and horrid. They would sit and complain, actually go to political rallies in order to stop the tax in AZ to fund schools, and they'd succeed, because they didn't think THEY should pay for other people's children to get a good education. Fair enough, though I disagree, but god forbid you asked one of them, "Well, fair enough, but then why do I have to pay your social security so you can drive around in a bloody RV and go golfing and bitch and moan?" Doesn't it go both ways, you get what you give, etc? They couldn't understand that, the second you'd say that it'd be all, "My husband fought in WWII*, you owe me money." Fuck that shit, I owe you nothing, go ask the British and the French for your money then. The real serious reply I'd give that would be that if there was another war similar, wouldn't you want the new soldiers to be well educated and responsible? Then they'd just get irritated and flustered and bitchy, so I gave up on talking to old people at all.

There were also a lot of "retirement communities" in Arizona that were very strict on who could stay - which first of all is discrimination in the highest degree (god forbid I started a "non- retirement community" and told old people to go away), but more importantly they were really brutal about it. There was this one poor grandmother whose daughter died and she let her grandson come live with her - the kid was like 7 years old. Well, the other retirees (you know, those great honorable people I should've been giving my extrodinarily hard earned money to, despite the fact that I was on welfare at the time and they could afford to go to the casinos on the reservations) raised a shit fit and the woman was actually told that she either moved out or put the kid in a foster home. She ended up on government assistance because she couldn't afford to buy a new home, after going thru her daughter dying in an accident. It was really the most horrible thing I've ever seen happen in my life.

It's just embittering. I reckon that if you live in an area without a lot of retirement communities and old born-agains, you would really love old people. I mean, when I worked in a retirement home - which is wholly different from a retirement community because it's not wealthy old people, it's basically prisoners of their own body - there were a lot of really cool old people, old men who'd hit on me and a really nice woman who I'd go and play cards with. I mean, all the old people in my family are pretty nice and not at all like the old people I encountered in Arizona (or, I'd imagine, Florida and Utah, two other big retirement spots). It's really a very specific type of old person that gets my goat, and after living with them for years, I am suspicious of them.

I doubt I'll become an old person though.

* And they always say it "W - W - Two", pronouncing the letters like that, and that's just the worst thing humanly possible. It's called "World War II". If it was such a great fantastic honorable thing, why won't you say it properly? Argh.

I believe WWI was Greater in terms of British bodycount, but I imagine WWII wins out on worldwide loss of life (certainly civilian life).

What does this have to do with how awful old people are?!?!

My greatest fear about getting older is my libido. Not in the waning sense, you understand, but I really would hate hate HATE to become like my ex-boss and be a fortysomething man completely hopelessly chasing twenty-year-old skirt. Let alone some awful wandering-hands bus-groping pensioner. I mean hopefully my morality and willpower will be strong enough but I said that about buying Radiohead records.

(OK this is not my greatest fear but sensible answers take time)

Widow = single word at end of paragraph occupying whole line to itself. Designers hate: good subs love em, as you can cut a big piece by many lines just by attending to widows (and not remove anything more substantial than the so-called writer's so- called style).

20-year-olds with brains will of course admire indeed revere you, and allow you ascloseasthis. Following your inevitable (five-times-nightly!) attack, they will naturally yea deservedly inherit yr focus- group billions. Hurrah!!

Mark S: Exactly, but I didn't want to get into that sort of technicality. I used to work at a newspaper myself (granted a US one so maybe this will get me REAMED OUT AGAIN BECAUSE EVERYONE SHOULD DO IT THE CRAPTASTICAL BRITISH WAY), and things like putting a non- dominant word in front would piss me off because it's just poor writing.

Old people, old people, must talk about old people. Well oddly in a social group I hang around with an awful lot I am the old person and they look up to me and despise me in equal ways. I am looking forward to becoming an old iconoclast, but will regret no longer being a young soul rebel.

And that's not even my worst gaffe- I met a boy (yes, BOY) at a concert, I thought he was about 24. We dated for a bit, and I was starting to wonder if he was a bit of a loser for still living at home, until I found out that he was *17* and not even out of high school yet! I was a *decade* older than him! (I even met his father once, as well... I wonder why *he* never said anything to me... guess he was sneakingly impressed with his son's pulling ability.)

I hear that women don't hit their sexual peak until the age of 39... weex! I stopped fancying a boy recently when I found out he was 9 years younger than me- then started joking that I would end up dating his *grandchildren*, in one of those Harold and Maude type situations.

Oh! Speaking of OAPs, there's a classic about old people who DON'T suck- Harold and Maude. I aspire to be Maude, really.

Old people: CLASSIC

I work in a small office - me, & 3 other people. Two of them (The Boss & his cohort - they used to be partners in the CT State Police) manage to concoct some of the most backward, prejudiced, stubborn, ignorant statements one could possibly imagine coming from the mouth of folks raised in such an enlightened country. Of course, they could be seen as victims of their environment (to an extent). These two are extreme examples, but I do find hints of this shocking type of ignorance even in the most educated folk I run into. If there's anything I loathe about "old people", it's their seemingly willful ignorance. (Impatience & crabbiness, unfortunately, can be found in folks of all ages, though it's often seen as "spunk" & "moxie" when you're younger, and it doesn't involve getting 10-cent coffees at McDonald's.)

I think my naivete is taking root again, but I think the so- called "inevitabilities" of old age - close-mindedness, crabbiness, etc. - can be staved off, if you want to. Granted, it's hard to stay idealistic & open-minded when dealing with the daily grind of day-to- day bullshit that Modern Life craps in your path. It's even harder to deal with OTHER people's day-to-day bullshit - yet, that's what most people talk about; that's what forges their common bonds. That's what defines their lives. That's what defines our lives, in some sense. If you allow this crap to RULE your life, though, you're going to get crotchety & bitchy & expect more from life (since, of course, you're putting in so much, with your taxes, and your votes, and so on).

Living life wears you down. It takes a lot of strength to keep going in the face of all these seemingly impossible obstacles. But, damn it, you can't let the bastards win!

Of course, hippies in the '60s were saying this sort of stuff ad nauseum, and they're proving (by & large) to be better @ the Old Person shtick than their parents were. And, really, if you try & hold on to the "youthful" portions of your life, the majority of the folks in the world will label you "eccentric" or "kooky". So, fuck it - I say you can grow old gracefully & not degenerate into a obituary-reading, gossip-trading, plastic-furniture-covering, Lawrence-Welk-loving, discount-lunch-buying shell of your former self. I'd like to try, at any rate. Living fast & dying young might work for some, but I like to think of it as just a waste of potential (though, really, the folks that seriously think like that might be better off left to their own devices.)

Age does not necessarily equate to obsolescence.

(I'm cranky because I'm tired. I'll use my sleep-deprivation as an excuse if the above makes little or no sense to anybody, too.)

Not strictly true, of course. Not that I'm planning to die young or anything. And anyway, I'm all for pre-emptively calling myself a dud. Why else would I worry about aging?

These people invented the concept of "classic" as we know it, as far as I'm concerned. Besides, I believe that my parents' generation (born in the 1940s) produced far more Republicans. My grandparents on both sides are considerably more liberal than their children. They remember what it was like to be an underdog or a scapegoated immigrant, when it wasn't a crime to have socialist sympathies, and have always been very pro-union. Shit, my grandad used to go to anarchist meetings in the 30s. My grandma was one of those women who fought to keep her job in the steel mills when the boys came back home. I'm all for giving old people lots of money, 'cos I wanna live like they live when I get old. Rock on, old people!

"What is that noise??"

(every time someone's (or even their own) mobile phone goes off).

we're all going to become Old People eventually. You want to pre-emptively call yourself a Dud, go for it.

otm

very otm

i think i will make a great old person. my best dud years are ahead of me.

PP and I were eating breakfast at ihop around 4pm last weekend and as I looked around at all theold people eating their earlybirdspecial dinners I got so excited to be old and retired. I hope i make it. i think it's going to be pretty sweet.

don't wanna eat dinner at that hour tbh

Those things exist? I thought it was just some Futurama thing.

the other day I read some person writing about an "old person" - who was 40. EFF OFF. >:|

Wait I think they were describing themSELVES as old. I mean jeez.

it's almost impossible to sit on a public bench around here because they're all occupied by old people. if the weather is nice all the old people will just sit on the benches all day & chat with each other and wait for their meals. sometimes they'll smoke or read a newspaper. but most of the time they're just sitting.

See. How could get better than that??

I would kill for that.

Classic when trying to do stuff like skateboard or ride a bike etc... (See you've been framed)
Dud when in front of you in a queue.

They get up at 6am and decide to go the the shops at the same time 90% of the world have their lunch hour!?!

Yeah srsly sitting in a nice park in the sun on a bench with bunch of old homies all day Granpa Simpson stylee? I could dig it big time.

Old people on the average are much more likely than your average 20 year old to say they are happy. Happy. Yes. Happy.

btw everyone under 55 is going to have to work until they drop.

also, don't wanna eat any meal at 4pm.

So glad to be 55. I squeaked under the deadline!

I'll drop before i'm 55 so kinda doesn't matter.

Roger Daltrey to thread!

I don't understand this anti-4pm dinner stance. You do realize it means you get to go to bed around 6ish, right??

sunny OTM

Totally classic unless you're related to them.

Do you like old people? I do.

Who are some of your favourites?

I liked this old lady who was at my old knitting group. She lived until age 10 in England, and then lived in Texas for the next 90 years of her life, so her accent was crazy. I think I was the first atheist she ever met, and she used to always give me a (funny) hard time about it. She learned to use her camera phone just so she could show me what her corgis looked like. Mostly, she called things awful and gave people hell. I loved it.

that duane zarakov dude is 47 now

man in my nursing school days I dreaded convalescent rotation. gimme any number of challenging patients but the convalescent ward is just hard fucking work.

i seem to be even more fucking kick ass with every passing year so by 90 i should be pretty amazing

my 99 yo grandma is a riot (gonna be 100 in a couple months)

My family's exceptionally long-lived, and the old woman don't tend to lose their minds either. My great-great aunt died at 96, was still signing checks, and bitching about Hurricane Katrina.

*women

my grandma's short-term memory is completely shot but otherwise her personality and wit are intact. she doesn't remember that she made that same joke 10 minutes ago.

she JUST doesn't

I have no old relatives. My family all dies young, it seems. This is why I am fascinated by the old wherever they may be.

I LOVE it when old people act like you are a genius because you know your way around a fucking Windows 98 PC

Reset my grandfather-in-law's default printer settings in and he told me to tear up my return ticket home (lol e-tickets grampa!!!) so I could stay on as RESIDENT GENIUS.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/nyregion/want-to-be-happy-think-like-an-old-person.html

Older people report higher levels of contentment or well-being than teenagers and young adults. The six elders put faces on this statistic. If they were not always gleeful, they were resilient and not paralyzed by the challenges that came their way. All had known loss and survived. None went to a job he did not like, coveted stuff she could not afford, brooded over a slight on the subway or lost sleep over events in the distant future. They set realistic goals. Only one said he was afraid to die.

Continue reading the main story
Gerontologists call this the paradox of old age: that as people’s minds and bodies decline, instead of feeling worse about their lives, they feel better. In memory tests, they recall positive images better than negative; under functional magnetic resonance imaging, their brains respond more mildly to stressful images than the brains of younger people.

...

Their examples were so life-changing that I wrote a book about it. But this is their story, not mine.

...

“What keeps me going is when you’re lively,” she said. “You’ve got to be lively. You can’t be an old beckyhead.”

She smiled at her own invention.

...

With the new year approaching, Ms. Moses considered what she was looking forward to. “Just a nice old age,” she said.

What did that mean to her?

“To tell you the truth, I don’t know.”

Was she living one now?

Ms. Moses did not hesitate.

“Yeah,” she said.

...

Now, she said, “We seldom talk about bad things. We keep ourselves happier. Try your best to keep your mood up. I’m getting old. I want to live a peaceful life here. No arguments, and we can talk with each other without any difficulties.”

...

“These are the things that keep me going, to tell you the truth,” she said. “I really enjoy taking care of my plants and seeing them flourish. And then of course my family, every weekend somebody comes.”

She said she still did not want to live to 100. But maybe she would consent to a party next year for her 95th birthday, she said.

She brightened at the afternoon sun filling her apartment.

“And here I am,” she said. “And I’m really so happy that I overcame that. The hardest thing of getting old is becoming infirm,” she continued. “That’s what scares me. It could be the end. Many of us are afraid. Just go already. Who wants to live?”

...

Mr. Mekas also published a book of anecdotes and autobiographical images this year, “A Dance With Fred Astaire,” named for a Yoko Ono and John Lennon movie in which Mr. Mekas and Mr. Astaire both make dancing cameos. Another five or six books were almost ready, and a couple of films still needed finishing. After that, he said, “I’d like to travel.”

For now, he said, “I’m thinking about resistance. What does it mean, resistance? What kind of resistance do we need today? Technology is now being used, much of it, for negative purposes. So to resist all what is happening negatively in humanity or technology is to develop the — O.K., this banal word, spiritual aspect.”

He remained sanguine, despite some reservations about current world leaders. Totalitarianism, in his experience, did not endure, whereas art, nature and the teachings of the saints all were as powerful as ever — they were what composed his life. He did not use the word optimistic, but he felt that solutions were more durable than problems.

Had a meeting with my principal today where we were supposed to discuss "Learning Goals" and all the "21st-Century Learning" going on in my class. I thought I'd preemptively bring up the second, except it came out "Here's some of the 20th-Century Learning we're doing." Which is better than if I'd said "19th-Century Learning," but still not exactly what she wanted to hear.

So: We're accidentally pretty funny sometimes.