Signs of Getting Older

General Discussion FSM Ready Room
1

Before anyone says anything, I already know that after a certain age the younger generation considers a person old. For example, if you talk about VHS or floppy disks you are very old. Well, just last night My wife Becky, son Jarrod, and I attended a concert. I guess to clarify that I should say we attended the “Hella Mega Tour” featuring the Inturrupters (a new band that sounds like early Joan Jett… yes she is old too), Weezer, Fallout Boy, and Green Day. It started promptly at 5:30 and ended after 22:30. Being a person over 60 and not acclimated to the people, volume, or duration of an event like this since several years prior to Covid, this was a wonderful but draining experience.

Of course you have the hour of drive time, another 45 minutes to park, then an hour standing in lines before getting to your seats. After the show there is the hour to get out of the parking lot, another hour drive home, etc. I have my apple smart watch set up to monitor my activity. Specifically I have it set-up for 30 minutes of exercise each day, 440 calories, and so on.

Yesterday I exercise for 136 minutes, and burnt 1,694 calories, and took 19,581 steps for a distance of 11.5 miles (18.5 k’s).

Playing drums, exercising, or yard work had me thinking I am in decent shape for my age. Little did I know that I definitely do not have the endurance or stamina I used to have; I think bacterial pneumonia, cancer, and age has something to do with that. Before you say anything I do know there are differences in how you exercise. What I mean is, I can exercise using free weights and think I performed a full body work out and then go horseback riding for a couple hours just to find out that those muscles I used for one activity did not condition the muscles I used for the other.

The same can be said about your body being drained from the heat, wind, hydration, cold, etc. Well, as of yesterday I was reminded that it should also include intense sight and sound overload. The Hella-Mega concert was very well orchestrated and the performers did great, but the physical as well as sensory intake yesterday definitely reminded me that I am not 25 anymore.

There are many other signs that we are all getting older, both in our hobby and in everyday life. Here are a hand full of instances that tell you your getting old:

  1. You’re asleep, but others worry that you’re dead.

  2. Your back goes out more than you do.

  3. You quit trying to hold your stomach in, no matter who walks into the room.

  4. You remember that stringy tube cement was the only way to assemble a model.

  5. You are proud of your lawn mower.

  6. Your best friend is dating someone half their age, and isn’t breaking any laws.

  7. Airbrushes were only for professionals.

  8. You sing along with the elevator music.

  9. You can remember when you could shop at almost any store and find an isle with models costing 2-15 dollars (or pounds).

  10. When you thought Airfix, Monogram, and Revell were the premium or only brands of models (and they were).

  11. You no longer think of speed limits as a challenge.

  12. People call at 10:00 p.m. and ask, “Did I wake you?”

  13. When your only contact with fellow modelers were at the hobby shops, or clubs.

  14. When there was no “after-market” and everything not out of the box was created from scratch (without computers).

  15. The end of your tie doesn’t come anywhere near the top of your pants and your belt line is above your belly button.

  16. The time when building models was as common as buying vinyl LP’s or 45’s.

  17. You know what the word “equity” means.

  18. You can’t remember the last time you laid on the floor to watch television.

  19. Your ears are hairier than your head.

  20. You talk about “good grass” and you’re referring to someone’s lawn.

  21. You get into a heated argument about pension plans.

  22. You look at down-sizing because the kids are gone and the cost of living is pushing your budget.

  23. When everyone coming out of college looks like young children.

  24. You have a party and the neighbors don’t even realize it.

  25. Sleeping in the chair becomes part of your bedtime routine.

Come on everyone, add your input as to your light hearted thoughts towards aging in life or in the hobby. Please keep it clean and no attacking or dark humor… instead celebrate the fact the you or a person you know are getting older or have been in the hobby for a long time. OK, lets go, send in this thoughts!

Ben

2

While I’m the next youngest member of my model club…I’m 53 as of the 21st…youngest is barely 21.

Age is a mindset for me. My body has lost some of the desire to the stuff I did 40yrs ago, my mind is still 13. I get giddy over the dumbest of things. I like being this age, call it old enough to know but young enough not to care…however I now have a 10pm curfue.

As for working out…I barely jog my memory anymore.

3

When you get up from the sofa and it sounds like you’re playing castanets…

4

You had Lincoln Logs, Erector Sets and electric football for toys.

You watched the moon landing on a black and white.

When you had to get up to change the channel and there were only three to choose from.

Star Trek was new.

You had to get on the roof to turn the TV antenna and your father yelled when it was pointing in the right direction.

Your first PC had 156K of memory and you saved something using a casset tape recorder.

The Stingray bikecycle was cool…so were bell bottoms.

You could melt a model into slag by putting too much tube glue on it…and get high at the same time.

5

You spent most of your summer cutting and splitting wood to keep a fireplace and two stoves going all winter…think 6 months.

Now it’s all you can do to carry a 40lb bag of stove pellets and dump them into the hopper.

Don’t miss the old days much, but not a lot happier with current days either.

6

Rotary phones and pay phones on street corners. Cans or bottles of cola from machines for a quarter. Listening to the ball game on my transistor radio. Home delivery of dairy products. Having a ‘paper route’. Minimum wage was just over a dollar an hour. Gasoline was 53 cents a gallon. You could buy .22 ammo almost anywhere, even if you were 12 years old.

Yeah, I remember those days.

7

Semi-annual CEA blood test yesterday and annual CT scan tomorrow afternoon. That’s a sign. [8-)]

8

I work with a few guys in their early twenties. I mentioned the other day how I use to bartend (in the eighties and early nineties) and a customer always tipped me with $2 bills. I still have several. They were absolutely convinced no such bill ever existed.

9

Gas was 0.33 gallon and cigarettes were 0.33 a pack.

Jim [cptn]

Stay Safe.

10

Taking driving classes as a course in high school.

Gas was about 30 cents a gallon

You could buy a new car for less that 2,000 dollars and a used one for under 100.

Buying new items like a weed wacker, microwave oven and superglue.

The glue was so strong that when it touched balsa wood, there was smoke, but it held during the next accident.Nobody knew how to neutralize the glue andit was used to rob a bank by gluing everybody to the wall.

I bought a new Duster for 1,500 dollars and a new 1977 supercab truck with a 8 foot bed and special shell for under 5.000.

You could buy a Colt Python 357 magnum pistol for under 150 dollars, after Starsky & Hutch came on TV. Now the price has gone way up.

11

1972, could buy any 65-66 mustang for $500 or less, 10 years later restored coupes and fastbacks were 4,000 to $4,500 in LA, and you could name your price for a convertible.

I remember drooling over one of the Colts in the case at the BX. Couldn’t afford it then, and still can’t

12

GAS! Lots of GAS! [whstl]

13

“Gee, grandpa! Tell us again how you used to fight off the dinosaurs while you walked to school in the snow!”

[:D]

14

My business partner and i were reminiscent about ‘Click and Clack’, the tappet brothers.

Employee walks by.

“Yeah I know who they are. My parents used to listen to them”.

Bill

15

Crawling around on the floor looking for dropped parts becomes a challenge, especially the standing back up part accompanied by the strage gutteral noise.

I remeber drinking protien powder every day in high school and trying my darndest to put weight on [:|]

16

Funny to read this today. I’ve been working with a young engineer at work. I commented that today is the 39th anniversary of my first day of college. He said, “I didn’t think you were 40.” He’s around 25.

I had to pick up a prescription for my wife at CVS today. The pharmacist said she’s been flagged for a shingles vaccine (she’s 55). I had to give her DOB to pick up her prescription.

I said, “I need one too.” (I’m 57)

The pharmacist curtly says, “Sir…you have to be over 50 to get the vaccine.”

I respond, “I’m pushing 60.”

She says, “Oh, you don’t look it.”

Apology accepted.

My fitbit says I average 12,000 steps over the last 28 days. I know I hit 10,000 a day every day.

I have teenagers and workers in their 60s working for me. I think I can out pace them all.

17

Those K-Tel commercials for compilation albums, available in cassette or 8-track tapes. Operators are standing by.

Watching the vacuum tubes warm up before watching TV. My dad bought our first color TV set in 1969 to watch the moon landing.

Bicycling through the neighborhood with no helmet or adult supervision.

When digital wristwatches were cool.

Those magazine ads where doctors are quoted saying they always have a smoke to smooth their nerves. Yeah doc, that’s because you are experiencing substance withdrawl.

X-rated flcks in the movie ad section of the paper.

X-rated movie theaters in neighborhoods. That the grade school kids rode by on their bicycles, while not wearing helmets.

When full service gas stations were the norm. Cue “Mr Sandman” and run the segment from Back to the Future when Marty goes into town in 1955.

I can’t handle greasy fried foods anymore.

18

Surviving no seatbelts, no child seats, climbing trees and falling out, Pulling a wheelie in your street car and getting pulled over and just being told go home by the cop. Actually being able to work on your own car.

Hey my first computer was the Coleco ADAM.

Going to any store with my allowance to buy models

19

It still seems odd to me (at first glance) seeing a commercial with the parent driving and the single child seated alone in the back seat.

Having been raised as one of four siblings, the eternal jousting for who got the ‘prime pick’ front seat position was one of the Darwinian facts of everyday life! (“Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” My older brother favored the elbow cross-check…while I usually found simple tripping much more elegant and effective… [:D])

20

Don’t forget, that was uphill in the snow, both ways.

Not having seat belts in your car.

Bring told that seat belts were mandatory for everybody. The solution was to drill holes in the floor of your car, go to Sears, who just happened to have a supply, bolt them to the floor and run them through the space between the seat and back rest.

Bolting the mount for your new 8 track player to the metal dashboard of your car and splicing it into your AM radio. If you were lucky you might find one of the slightly more expensive units with a AM/FM radio installed. Only expensive cars like Lincolns, Caddys, and Chryslers had AM/FM built in.

Later buying a adapter for the 8 track when this new thing called a cassette tape arrived so they could be played in teh 8 track slot.

Going to the 1964 World’s Fair as well as Shae Stadium. You could see the globe from the upper layers of the stadium.

Seeing the N.J. State Police running around in unmarked Corvette Stingrays.

Counting the cars that caught fire with the mew mandatory catalytic converters when they parked on the grass and the converters set the grass on fire.