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You know you are getting old when:

Messages
15,563
Location
East Central Indiana
When I first arrived at Ft. Polk ( 1970 ), I ran into a processing E3 clerk from near my hometown in Indiana. In those draftee days that made us almost kin. He asked if I'd like a new MOS rather than 11B. Of course I said YES. He sent me to a holding company for the weekend until Monday when he would have my new job description.
While in the holding barracks I ran into a soldier in his dress greens putting his duffle bag in a locker. He had several hash marks on his sleeve showing years of service...but only a Spec 3 as rank, but you could see a slight outline of Sgt E6 hard stripes under the newer emblem.
Come to find out that he had served several tours in Nam... but had recently faced corp marshal for killing a civilian during his last tour. They busted him down in rank and forced him to retire as a Spec 3.
 

green papaya

One Too Many
Messages
1,261
Location
California, usa
When you read the obituaries and see your own name in there


just like that episode in TWILIGHT ZONE called the "HITCH HIKER" (1960)

Nan Adams is driving across country from Manhattan to Los Angeles. Apart from a blown tire, the trip has been more or less uneventful. That is until she begins to see the same man, over and over again, hitchhiking along the highway. No matter how far she goes or how far she drives, the hitchhiker always seems to be ahead of her. She also seems to be the only person who can see him. When Nan decides to call home, all is revealed (she finds out she was killed in an auto accident , she's a ghost)
 

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
^^^^^
High school reunions suck! :mad:

Ever watched a movie
where the guy wakes up and finds
out that he’s the only one left on
the planet?

Yep...high school reunions!


:D
 
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BlueTrain

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,073
I went to my 50th high school reunion three years ago and had a great time. I was very pleased to be as well remembered as I was. The interesting thing was that nobody's personality, speech patterns or mannerisms had changed at all. A couple of people even looked exactly the way I remembered them.

You also realize you're getting old when you read the obituaries and recognize names of people you knew 30 years ago, as I did yesterday.
 
Messages
11,914
Location
Southern California
I went to my 50th high school reunion three years ago and had a great time. I was very pleased to be as well remembered as I was. The interesting thing was that nobody's personality, speech patterns or mannerisms had changed at all. A couple of people even looked exactly the way I remembered them.
When my wife and I attended my 10-year high school reunion in 1989 my experience was very similar, mostly because almost everyone not only fell back into the little "clique" groups they were a part of ten years earlier, but because they also started behaving as they had ten years earlier. I was always among the "oddball/fringe" groups in school, so it was somewhat amusing to sit back and observe these "adults" acting like teenagers (particularly once the alcohol started flowing).
 

BlueTrain

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,073
My 50th reunion was the first one I attended. I passed up the next one, which was supposed to be a "60s" reunion of more than one class year but I had a conflict.

There was a table set up at the location of the reunion with photos of class members who had died and that was a little shocking. There were also several people who were not there who I had hoped to see but I later realized that some of the people I was remembering were not actually members of that class year, mostly a year ahead. We actually moved to another county when I had one semester to go, so I was really only an honorary member of that class. But I had been elected a "senior superlative:" quietest. I've changed since then.
 

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
Because of FB, I found a classmate from elementary
when I was ten.

We got together and talked about school times, friends
and teachers.

Found out that some of guys that I used to hang around
with are gone.

Before leaving, she gave me her high school yearbook.
She refused to take money.

I looked very young and skinny in those yearbook photos.
I offered to do an oil-painting for her
as a token of thanks.

She told me that seeing how happy I was
over the book was her reward.
It was nice that I was able to share my thoughts with her.
Something that I could never do with her when I was ten.
I was very shy like the Charlie Brown cartoon character
and she was the cute blonde with the pigtails that I had
a crush. And though with time we have aged, she is still
as beautiful as ever in every aspect. :)
 
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BlueTrain

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,073
I wasn't all that shy when I was going through school but I was sometimes painfully aware that we had a lot less money than some of the other kids and some of the clothes I wore to school were a little ragged. I couldn't say how much difference it made to other students, though. I usually sat next to a doctor's son in junior high and high school when we were seated alphabetically. He was one of those who hadn't changed much. But there were people there I started first grade with and whose houses I had been in. A surprising number still lived there in my old hometown, too.
 

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
^^^^
First grade was Catholic school. Everyone wore the same
school outfit.
Most of the penguins (nuns) were very strict.
Was mortified when I could not regurgitate the words or
prayers correctly.

The punishment was severe for a little kid of 6.

Later years, I attended public schools.
Everybody was in the same boat more or less
as far as clothes.
Mostly from Sears or J.C. Penney or hand-me-downs.

Looking at my high school yearbook pictures today,
I can’t believe how I dressed back then.
Or that I thought I looked “cool” at the time. :(
 
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2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
If you remember when the barber placed a high chair so that he
could reach your head and butcher your hair because no matter
what you told him about how much to take off....
he never listened.:mad:

anod90.jpg
 
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Stearmen

I'll Lock Up
Messages
7,202
If you remember when the barber placed a high chair so that he
could reach your head and butcher your hair because no matter
what you told him about how much to take off....
he never listened.:mad:

anod90.jpg
I,m still waiting for my Beatles hair cut!
 
Messages
11,914
Location
Southern California
I’m still can’t get used to saying 2017.

I miss the times when the year began with 19.
At the most recent turn of the century, while most of the people I know spent their free time wondering if the next year should be pronounced "two thousand and one" or "twenty oh one" one co-worker simply walked around saying, "I can't get used to this nineteen-two-thousand s***." :p
 

BlueTrain

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,073
The person that I mentioned noticing in the obituaries was one of the first people I got to know when I moved to the Washington, D.C., area in the early 1970s. I very quickly got involved in several social groups and made some good friends, one of whom I eventually married. One person, a musician, was someone who I kept track of after drifting away from all of those activities after we started having children. She has a website with contact information, so I sent her an e-mail mentioning that person's passing. Well, that person, whose name is Liz, happened to know all my old girlfriends and even kept up with them (so and so's sister married a good friend and band member, that sort of thing). And before I knew it, she had mentioned that she had heard from me to a couple of them. I've been married now for 38 years and then suddenly the years got rolled back. But mostly we talked about all the people who had died since then.

For a place with several million people, it can be an awfully small world.
 
At the most recent turn of the century, while most of the people I know spent their free time wondering if the next year should be pronounced "two thousand and one" or "twenty oh one" one co-worker simply walked around saying, "I can't get used to this nineteen-two-thousand s***." :p

I still know lots of people who call this year "twenty oh seventeen". It's mildly annoying. I wonder if people in the early 20th century had the same issue..."nineteen oh seventeen" and such.
 

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
I still know lots of people who call this year "twenty oh seventeen". It's mildly annoying. I wonder if people in the early 20th century had the same issue..."nineteen oh seventeen" and such.


When my folks didn't want to take me
where ever they were going, they would
drop me off with my grandmother.
To stop my crying, grandma would give me an apple and tell me stories about her youth on the farm.
She pronounced the years like you mentioned.
Was I annoyed ? No.
Afternoons in bed looking out the window
at her garden, she would sing a lullaby
and I would fall asleep.
I miss that!

I wonder if folks today sing to their
children. :)
 
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