BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: Rapparee
Date: 04 May 07 - 12:16 PM

I fully intend to outlive myself.

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: heric
Date: 04 May 07 - 12:20 PM

No doubt my '88 Accord will outlive me.

"This old Accord ain't mine to keep - It's only mine for a while"




>young folk all look the same< good one

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: MBSLynne
Date: 04 May 07 - 01:51 PM

Trouble is, my mind won't accept that my body is getting older. I always used to think of people over 50 as being of my parents' generation.....and I still do. It's a terrible shock to realize, sometimes that people I'm thinking of like that are actually younger than me!

Love Lynne

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: emjay
Date: 04 May 07 - 02:17 PM

This is a great thread and I find I am in very good company.
But on folk music Mudcat, no one has mentioned this:
   Songs I remember in what most certainly was there first incarnation and now being resurrected as "Old folk tunes."
I do have reason to be thankful for the frequent wakeup calls at night. About 4 years ago, the other half got up during the night and realized he was smelling smoke. Looked around and found the top of a coffee table in the living room ablaze. A forgotten candle had started it, we got it out with a few pitchers of water but not before mini-blinds on windows had softened and drooped, the fake Christmas tree had done the same and the plants had been killed by the heat.
Forgetfulness associated with age may have caused it, but frequent wakeup calls got us up in time.
I can't think of anything else I am grateful for, though.
It takes two of us to remember one name and sometimes that takes quite a while.
Not only does skin wrinkle, it tears and bruises easily.
And the aches and pains. My 12-years younger brother tells me that if a 21-year-old woke up feeling the way he does every day, he would take himself to the emergency room in a hurry.
And all my friends seem to be old people.
Martie, 70

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 May 07 - 02:30 PM

Oh, what a world of woe and sin!
My head grows bald, but not my chin!
                                 —BurmaShave

Don Firth
(76 next month)

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: GRex
Date: 04 May 07 - 02:49 PM

I used to prefer older women, but at 80 I can't find any.                                                                      GRex

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: GUEST, Topsie
Date: 04 May 07 - 03:11 PM

Can't find any? Or can't find any that fancy you?

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: Rapparee
Date: 04 May 07 - 04:19 PM

All too many of my old friends are dead. Bob, the oldest of my friends, dead of stomach cancer. Tom, dead of an overdose. Steve, dead of throat cancer. Roy, dead of diabetes.

And the list goes on.

And on.

'Course, they're all listenin' to Hendrix and Leadbelly and...well, you know they gotta helluva band.

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: wysiwyg
Date: 04 May 07 - 05:46 PM

I do have reason to be thankful for the frequent wakeup calls at night.

Me too. If I am not up at least twice in the night, I can hardly move in the AM, I'm so stiff and sore. Twice is enough though, and I think I just about have the evening fluids calculated right.


It takes two of us to remember one name and sometimes that takes quite a while.

Yes, although thank God I can remember, usually, how I know the many, many people I run into in my husband's line of work, and what has passed between us. I remember the person, just not necessarily their name. That's OK-- they don't recall mine either! :~)

As far as outliving our cars-- my mother was quite surprised, but I was even more surprised (in a weird way) when last year it happened that she had outlived her wonderful-when-she-bought-it little red car. She drove herself all the way from Illinois to Californy, all by herself, on her first long road trip solo-- when she moved there after retiring. The rest of the family were worried about her, but I knew she'd have a ball on the trip and she did, carful of cats, lamps, and plants, and all.

But when she got it, she said it would be her last one. We all assumed she'd turn out to be correct. I'm glad she was wrong.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: leeneia
Date: 04 May 07 - 11:50 PM

I have a suggestion. Ruminate on the indignities of childhood for a while. It will cheer you up to realize that you don't have to put up with them anymore. A trade-off, if you will.

Indignities of childhood - injections in the bottom. rectal thermometers. teachers who scold and then tell you you are bad for defending yourself. big kids who tease. being sent to bed when a good party is going on. not being able to see the Lennon sisters because it's bathtime.

On a more serious note, the paper had an article today about a woman who set a pile of clothes on fire inside an apartment and left, leaving her five-year-old stepson in the apartment. (She was angry at her husband, the boy's father.) She told police that she left the child behind because she wasn't his mother and didn't have the right to take him.

How's that for indignity?

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: Gurney
Date: 05 May 07 - 04:29 AM

Yeah, my pals used to die in accidents, but now they die of age-related diseases.

In a book I was reading, a centenarian was being congratulated on her long life. She wasn't convinced it was so good. "You don't get any more youth than anyone else, you just get an extra dollop of old age!"

Heric, don't buy a vintage Bently. Almost all of them have outlived TWO owners, and in the hands of the third. And still being raced-and-rallied!
Mind you, it's more fun than putting your money in the bank, and a better investment too.

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: MBSLynne
Date: 05 May 07 - 05:25 AM

I must say, though I'm just beginning, really, to see that ageing is not fun, I'm not sure I'd like to go back to all the angst and anguish of my teens. I really enjoyned being a teenager, but that side of it wasn't fun and I'm not sad to be rid of it.

Which brings to mind two things I don't like about ageing. I still vividly remember being 15 or so and how wonderful it all seemed to have life ahead. I LOVED life (some of the time). Experience and age tend to make you more cynical and jaded which is a shame.

The other thing is that all my life since I was about 14 one of my chief joys has been the opposite sex. Being a relatively attractive female I guess, I could look at all the fit young men and they would look back, or come and talk or try to get off with me or whatever. Now I look at the fit young men, some of whom are young enough to be my sons, and feel that they would be horrified if they knew the thoughts in the head of the old woman over there. It's a hard lesson to learn.

Love Lynne

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: GRex
Date: 05 May 07 - 05:45 AM

Topsie
I refuse to answer, it would deflate my ego.
         GRex

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 05 May 07 - 06:07 AM

Lynne - it's worse when it's YOUR son the old women over there are ogling...

Or so I'm told. I have that pleasure yet to come with Limpit...

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: MBSLynne
Date: 05 May 07 - 08:41 AM

YES Liz......Just watch your knee caps is all

Love Lynne

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: Donuel
Date: 05 May 07 - 09:38 AM

I wake up and ponder how to turn over without the aid of my left elbow. I reach for my medicine 'Tryopenin' but my hands are too stiff so I drop the bottle. Drat its got a child proof cap. Using 2 hands I wrench it off anyway and take one little pill and put it in my mouth. While looking for some left over coffee to take the pill, I cough sending the pill onto the carpet and into the shadows. With some effort I get down on all fours to look for it when the dog comes over and seems to have found a morsel to eat. Maybe she got a Cheerio or my pill, I don't know. To get on my feet I put my hand on a table for some support and foosh it goes over with the left over coffee splashing me in the face while I now lay flat on the carpet.
Ah Ha there is the little pill .... and I'm off to start a new day.

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: wysiwyg
Date: 05 May 07 - 09:52 AM

...It will cheer you up...

Now oddly enough, I've also gotten old enough to take the indignities with a dose of humor and appreciation. I know that means there's something wrong with me, but to me it's so clear that I outlived many of my worst fears that I am pretty relaxed about the aging part.

I'm just crabby that no one among my older friends, parishioners, and relatives had the guts to specify what some of the challenges would be, and only pissed and moaned about the totalituy of the aging thing. All they taught me was to be crabby about it! What I needed was information.

But I imagine that, any time now, today's aging standup comics will get around to some informative and hilarious routines about it, so the next generation can have their info that way. I'm just going to focus on telling our own kids what's in store, hopefully without scaring them silly about it.

I did pull that off with one of them-- she has some weight to lose and I told her what will happen to her skin elasticity after a certain age, so that if she waits until then to lose it, her potbelly skin will NOT snap back. That's my regret, if I have any myself-- that I let the mismanagement of several doctors put me past that age.

I am losing weight, and I know it's good for me, and I am NOT asking for help or sympathy with any of it-- but it's discouraging to know that if I lose as much as I could lose, now that I have the process working well, I will have trouble walking, from the skin left over. (Reconstructive surgery will not be an option.) So it's a choice I will have to make-- lose a lot more, or lose some but keep skin tone? And I told her about this in brief but graphic terms, so at least that's ONE person who has a chance to know better.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: Dickey
Date: 05 May 07 - 10:00 AM

One thing I have found indispensable is Saw Palmetto. Some nights I would get up 8 times to whizz. I tried the dry product in capsules with mixed results. Then I tried the gel caps with the product dispersed in oil. Now I seldom have to get up at all in the night to take a leak.

There are medications that will do the same thing but read the long list of side affects. I think it is better to use a natural product rather than something cooked up in a chemical lab.

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: Deckman
Date: 05 May 07 - 10:21 AM

As a life long carpenter, I've been beating up (badly) on my poor body for 70 years. Every day at work is an athletic event! Digging down, climbing up, falling down, climbing down, using my hands like they were hammers, etc.

Here's my laundry list of body breakdowns and repairs:
a heart remodel;
four months of spine traction;
two hand surgerys;
one new hip;
one foot surgery;
four eye surgerys.

Now for the GOOD part ... I'm still going strong. I really got back into my music 6 months ago, which resulted in two house concerts and my first CD. And, I now have more damned songs constantly popping out of my brain than ever before. And ... I've got TWO serious deck building projects going, and my business phone is ringing off the hook. (mostly from all the doctors that have come to know me ... true).

I'm following in my Father's footsteps, he lived to 95 ... good Finnish genes. (I also am enjoying this thread) CHEERS, Bob(deckman)Nelson

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: Donuel
Date: 05 May 07 - 11:35 AM

Susan, I'm serious. A quick fix is as simple as cotton undershirt etc and a wide roll Saran Wrap wrap. I saw a woman who did it and it really works. She said they do it in Europe. I imagaine that with enough collagen regeneration there could be lasting shape retention.
Maximum time of the wrap can be built up to 8 hours depending upon heat and humidity.

The Homeland Security suggestion of duct tape and plastic is a whole different thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: GUEST,AAH
Date: 05 May 07 - 12:22 PM

(This is AAF posting a friend's anonymous contribution)

AAF, thank you for the details. I have experienced the exact same symptoms. I think sometimes it can be a FLART but anecdotally I have concluded it must be Aged Ass-Hole syndrome (AAH).

Is this the precursor to hemorrhoids? These are the important questions facing us today. I will be ***ty-f*ckin-eight this year and I feel like I'm about to have a head-on collision with *0!

AAH

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: Jeri
Date: 05 May 07 - 12:44 PM

Deckman, as an aside, a neighbor of my mother's got a job in a lumber-selling place. He stacked lumber and moved it around (forklift) and did other physical stuff like that. He did this until he fell at home and hurt his back, which laid him up for a while, and he had a bunch of health problems after that. He was 82.

Can we talk about teeth? If you have any, know that your fillings will fall out and your teeth will crack until you buy a dentist a BMW with what you or your insurance company spend on crowns.

THEN, the ungrateful bastards get unruly. I asked my dentist (the last time I got a crown, about 2 weeks ago) why my front teeth were becoming uneven after years - nay, decades - of being content with their positions. He said, "It's crowding." I said, "Huh? There's nothing pushing on them or anything. The front ones are just moving around in there and pushing each other out of the way!" He said, "Well, yeah [unspoken 'HELLO? DUH!]... it's called crowding. They all try to get in the middle of your jaw and crowd each other. It happens when you get older."

I sensed an unspoken reprimand, "Didn't you read your owner's manual!?"

Just one more secret they're trying to keep...

Stay tuned for the next segment, "Where Has My Pubic Hair Gone, Anyway?"

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: Metchosin
Date: 05 May 07 - 01:01 PM

Well I'm still going strong too. LOL…..old age hasn't impaired me, nope, my mind is just fine, thank you very much!..........its just that I have been very busy lately, that I haven't been paying as much attention to little things as I should! At least, that is the excuse I have tried on my family of late, but I don't think they are totally convinced.

After a couple of cups of coffee, I spent way too long in a large building supply store the other evening and was beginning to get very uncomfortable. After a somewhat frantic search, I was so pleased to find an unusually spotless, large empty restroom. As I dropped my pants and looked around the cubicle, for somewhere to put my purse, I carefully hovered my backside over the toilet. It was with considerable relief that I congratulated myself on having made it there, in time, without the tiniest of leaks.

As I pulled up my slacks, I thought, "Oh, oh...... that doesn't feel quite right....a bit too warm for something that has been around my ankles on the cold tile floor..... I turned and looked down and saw a great flood, in my cubicle that was now flowing out under the surrounding partitions and, oh dear….. what's that? a toilet seat lid?.......in the down position…. in my rush, I'd friggin' pissed on the closed lid. LOL

I looked around for paper towels to mop up, only to discover blow dryers and a quick clean up futile, so I pulled my coat down over my now cold and clammy slacks, beat a hasty retreat and hustled my somewhat confused husband out of the store and then broke down in tears of laughter in the parking lot.

A few nights later we went out for dinner and at the end of the evening I paid a quick visit to the ladies room….and I friggin did it again! Fer keeriist sake! When did they start putting lids on public toilets? Twice in less than a week! Fortunately, I was somewhat paying attention to the sound this time and somehow managed a quick mid flow stop, that even I would have been proud of, had I been providing a urine sample.

Now I can't even make a trip to the bathroom at home without some adverse comment from my husband, like, well at least I haven't removed the lids from our toilets yet. And….I'll never bitch that some insensitive male has left the toilet seat up. Yes… the indignities of old age….LOL

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: wysiwyg
Date: 05 May 07 - 01:03 PM

Can we talk about teeth? If you have any, know that your fillings will fall out and your teeth will crack until you buy a dentist a BMW with what you or your insurance company spend on crowns.


Now here at last, I have some REALLY good news.

I had always been scared of dentists, but I got over it. Until the day I went, innocently, to the oral surgeon my insurance would pay for, about 9 years ago. I'm going to pass over the details. Suffice to say that it turned out he'd almost killed a lady in the chair the year before, and he DID kill one the year after. Others came forward about their experiences.... I didn't know any of this when I filed my own affidavit, but my mauling went into the file that got his license permanently yanked, and I walked out of it all with a nice case of PTSD.

Since then our dental benfits and my terror have combined to keep me out of chairs of all similar sorts. I can ALMOST tolerate being tipped back when a hairdresser gets the shampoo out.

But now for the first time our dental benefits are pretty good, and I have met a potentially great dentist for me to try again. I also have a great doc who gave me the Xanax I know I will need to move forward with appointments. Now I just need a driver to get me back and forth for some serious drilling and periodontal work, but I have the first appointmet set up for later this month to discuss what all will be needed and how the benefits will cover the work. My mom was in the busuness, so she's been a great help estimating how long and arduous each procedure will be, so I can plan accordingly. But I am going to outlive my damned teeth and bad gums, by golly! And I don't have any fillings to fall out-- only holes waiting for brand-new fillings.

So there again is a "benefit" of aging-- sometimes the wheel turns, your way.


Regarding Saran Wrap-- geeze, I have a hard enough time using it in the kitchen, so I'll keep it in mind but I dunno....

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: Metchosin
Date: 05 May 07 - 01:05 PM

Good question Jeri.....where did you leave it? LOL

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: wysiwyg
Date: 05 May 07 - 01:07 PM

Mets, we cross-posted so I didn't see yours till mine was in.

Just know this-- it is much better to do your trick at home, especially if you have a nice rug permanently installed in the bathroom, and more especially when you are fast asleep, late at night.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: Amos
Date: 05 May 07 - 01:23 PM

I am the happy beneficiary of a couple of implanted teeth, and I am delighted with them. I had to walk half-way across Tijuana and back about ten times to get the job done (in exchange for significant cost savings) but the technical expertise and clinical competency was first-rate. If it were only cheaper, I'd get 'em ALL done. They stay where they're put, don't decay, and titanium doesn't get cavities.

I really appreciate the sorry state of affairs expressed by Lynne and others. There's just as much wink-power inside, but the advertising has gone to hell. :D

The other side of it is that all the bright and lovely young people I encounter, even the nicest and smartest, strike me as woefully lacking in experience. I seem to know much more about the world and its ways than they do, I wonder what's wrong with 'em. Then I recall that an awful lot of older folks were very tolerant of my own empty-headed brassiness when I was in my teens and twenties, and offer a small prayer of thanks to them for being so tolerant!! It is really a crackup watching them torque up over situations that seem much less dramatic or difficult to me.

I guess that's why they make managers out of the old farts.

Jeri, I do not know where your pubic hair went. I wasn't watching.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: Peace
Date: 05 May 07 - 02:18 PM

I may have something to add when I get more years behind me. I'm only 59.

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: Rapparee
Date: 05 May 07 - 02:45 PM

Why, Peace, you young whippersnapper! You're still wet behind the ears, youngun! Dadgum it, boy, I was toilet trained (mostly) when you was still in didies...now, lessee, where'd I put that...what was I sayin'?

Oh, yeah. I got some implanted teeth too. Damned expensive. Next time I'll just use a mirror and my cordless drill and do it myself, like great-great granddaddy would've.

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: wysiwyg
Date: 05 May 07 - 03:01 PM

Au contraire, Peace; it's but a few months off, some of the things described here. BOLO. You'll know them when ou see them, at least.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: Metchosin
Date: 05 May 07 - 03:29 PM

Well thankfully I haven't had to resort to golf diapers or a rubber cover over the matress.....yet, WYSIWYG. But I once took some satisfaction in my fastidious toilet habits. And to think I used to hold in incredulous contempt the practices of some females when it came to public washrooms and wonder what were they thinking? Now I know....duh. Sometimes everything is engaged except our brains.

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: wysiwyg
Date: 05 May 07 - 04:40 PM

Yes, judgment always looks a little different from the side of the other person, doesn't it? I'm more tolerant as I age, also.

But I didn't mean to imply rubber sheets-- the night remark was in direct response to your seat-down story.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: Don Firth
Date: 05 May 07 - 04:43 PM

Interesting thread. Thought provoking.

A few of my ruminations on the matter of aging:

I think I have fairly good genes, so I ought to last for a couple more months, anyway. My father died when he was eighty-five. Most of my relatives on my father's side lived well into their eighties or early nineties. Same with my mother's family. She passed away at eighty-nine.

But when it occurs to me that I'll be seventy-six next month and then I do a little arithmetic, I can suddenly feel a bit claustrophobic. I've got a number of unfinished projects going, and I'm gonna have to get crackin'!

I have all my teeth, minus one molar that I had to have extracted (yanked) about two years ago. Decay under the gum-line despite regular check-ups and daily flossing, and by the time my dentist and I discovered it, it was too late for a root-canal. I occasionally take a bit more Metamucil than I used to (which was none), probably because I'm a bit short of exercise—I'm unable to get out and walk the dog every morning (besides, we don't have a dog). But unlike many of my contemporaries, I usually sleep pretty well, and I can sleep all night without having to get up to pee. All sphincters seem to be functioning well—so far. Thank God for major favors!! I sometimes nod off during certain television shows, but that has more to do with the show than with my antiquity.

I've got another factor operating besides age, and it's a little hard to separate what is responsible for which. I had polio when I was two, and I've walked with a leg-brace and crutches all my life. I used to be able to hop along for blocks, lugging a guitar case with me. It was about a mile from the place where I taught guitar to the Blue Moon Tavern, where I often walked after an evening's teaching to have a tall-and-foamy with a few friends before heading home. About eighteen or twenty years ago, I noticed that after going just a couple of blocks, my shoulders were pretty tired. During a regular physical check-up, my quack X-rayed my shoulders. He pointed out that the human shoulder is not designed for the method of locomotion that I'd been using all my life, and my shoulder joints were just simply worn out. He advised me to get myself a wheelchair and use it whenever possible to take the load off my shoulders. "Do it while you still have the choice," he said.

During the time I was dropping into various orthopedic supply stores and kicking the tires on wheelchairs, I took a tumble in the bathroom and busted my left knee (my "good" leg!). When I got out of the cast six weeks later, I had lost sufficient strength in my shoulders and the knee was no longer reliable, so the wheelchair became a necessity rather than an option. And then, almost ten years to the day later, I did the same little fandango again and broke the same leg a second time. Femur. Three weeks in a hospital. I now have a titanium rod in my left leg. I'd probably give metal detectors in airports wall-eyed fits. (Needless to say, I've given up ballet lessons!).

Lifting myself from the wheelchair to the bed or potty and back again takes a bit of effort, but so far, no problem. The big one is getting in and out of the car. This is mainly because of the difference in seat heights. The car seat is about six inches lower that the wheelchair seat. Getting in is not so bad, but getting back out (having to lift myself up that distance) is a real grunter! There have been a couple of times when I wasn't sure I was going to make it. And Barbara just doesn't have the strength to haul me out. As a result, I plan car trips very carefully. What we really need is a minivan with a wheelchair ramp or lift. But that's wa‑a‑a‑a‑a‑ay beyond the budget!

The matter of general accessibility is a whole subject by itself, and doesn't necessarily relate to age. I've written a sort of serio-comic article about a number of accessibility gaffs that I've run into. Pretty good, I think. I'm gonna send it off to a magazine or two and see if I can get it published.

Here's an experiment to try sometime:    assume that you're unable to stand up. Try putting on a pair of pants.

One thing that's a bit grumpy-making is that because of range-of-motion problems with my left shoulder, I can't play a full-size guitar anymore. And sitting in a wheelchair, the lower bout of a standard guitar and the right wheel of the chair want to occupy the same space. Doesn't work. But I have a couple of travel guitars (GO-GWs made by Sam Radding of San Diego) that look a bit like canoe paddles with strings, but they play like a regular guitar, and despite the small soundbox, they sound pretty much line a regular guitar, even if the bass is somewhat "attenuated."

Probably age-related is that I've noticed that I have to lower the keys of some of the songs I sing. The voice still feels strong (actually, I know a lot more about singing than I used to), and people who are not especially inclined to jolly me along tell me that it still sounds good; some say better than ever (that's nice to hear). A top note or two that I used to have to reach for a bit but could hit okay have just gone bye-bye. But I can now go a bit lower than I used to. I'm having to drop several songs from D to C, or C to A, etc.. And many of my guitar accompaniments were pretty carefully worked out, so this means a lot of rearranging. Fortunately, I enjoy this kind of problem-solving.

But I can feel the lead horse drawing time's winged chariot snapping at my rear end. I've got a book that I've been working on for years to finish and get off to a publisher (reminiscences of the Seattle folk scene back when), and, following Bob the Deckman's example, I'm determined to make a CD—maybe a whole bunch of CDs. And Bob and I are planning to do a house concert (actually a church concert—great acoustics, and it can seat about 200 people) this coming fall. Other than singing a couple of duets with Bob and three other songs at the 2003 Northwest Folklife Festival's "Geezer's Concert," I haven't done anything like that since I sang a concert at "The Nightingale" in the early Eighties.

Lots to do.   So I'd better get busy!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: JennieG
Date: 05 May 07 - 06:35 PM

I was put on this earth to accomplish a certain amount....and right now I am so far behind I don't think I can ever die.........!

My grandparents all made it into their 80s but my parents were younger, mother 75, father 70. Can't help wondering sometimes how much longer I have - not being morbid, just curious.

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: Deckman
Date: 05 May 07 - 08:20 PM

Trying to follow up on one of Susan's themes: Knowing what I now know, I would do everything possible to caution young men to NEVER consider a full time career in carpentry. It's simply way too hard on your body. And of course this advice really applies to many of the other construction trades, such as roofers, carpet layers, etc. Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: Rapparee
Date: 05 May 07 - 09:19 PM

Here's a video for all you old foogies out there -- happened today.

844 arrives.

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 05 May 07 - 11:42 PM

Sonnet

Time, that renews the tissues of this frame,
That built the child and hardened the soft bone,
Taught him to wail, to blink, to walk alone,
Stare, question, wonder, give the world a name,
Forget the watery darkness whence he came,
Attends no less the boy to manhood grown,
Brings him new raiment, strips him of his own;
All skins are shed at length, remorse, even shame.

Such hope is mine, if this indeed be true,
I dread no more the first white in my hair,
Or even age itself, the easy shoe,
The cane, the wrinkled hands, the special chair:
Time, doing this to me, may alter too
My sorrow, into something I can bear.

-E. St Vincent Millay

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: Gurney
Date: 06 May 07 - 01:43 AM

On the brighter side, I was born in 1941, when my relatives and their distant cousins were trying to defeat each other with bombing raids. I survived that (you guessed!) and even the frailties that age brings are still better than the only alternative to being my age.

Jeri, I've been wondering where the hair that is growing in my ears and nose was coming from.   Hmmm.

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: MBSLynne
Date: 06 May 07 - 05:50 AM

Well genetically things look fairly optimistic. My Mum and Dad, as I said, are 81 and 77. Three of my grandparents reached 82, 85 and 94, though the other one died around his early 50s. On my Mum's side, three of my great grandparents got to over 80, the other one dying in her 60s and at least a couple of my Dad's grandparents reached over 80. With better nutrition and medical care these days I figure that, barring accidents I ought to manage a fair age.

Love Lynne

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: Deckman
Date: 06 May 07 - 07:36 AM

Rapaire,

I checked out that video you posted! You shouldn't post such exciting viseos without a better warning. I mean, at my age, the excitment in this film is simply too dangerous. One could die of a heart attack as the climax arrives. Is that YOUR voice I hear on camera? Bob(deckman)Nelson

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 May 07 - 10:04 AM

No, that's a guy named Gene Wiggers. Lives down the street from me, in fact. Gene is in his early 70s and is trying to get train service from Montpelier (home of the Oregon Trail Museum) to West Yellowstone as a touriod attraction. There's some right purty country 'long that route....

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: Donuel
Date: 06 May 07 - 10:59 AM

Don Firth

Acessibility gizmos

sounds like a great theme for a wheel chaired Wile E Coyote

borrowed from the air bag like devices that they use to lift trains, cars etc...

I thought of a raising seat pad on the wheel chair powered by a air compressor that plugs into a cigarette lighter.

IT works great and rises 3 feet up with great stability rods on the chair.

but when Wile E Coyote tries to plug it in the car he can't reach the socket.

I have invented several helping devices with ease probaby due to my dyslexia. 38years ago I devise a cochlear electronic device for the deaf. My forst attempt was howver an external device. It sent signals that confused an entire lobe of the brain. Ever hear of synthesia?

Ideas come to me as easy as reading comes to George Bush.

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: Donuel
Date: 06 May 07 - 11:12 AM

I remember Queen for a day and the gong show, now we have who wants to be a Millionaire and American Idol.

We need a next generation of TV tripe.

How about a new version of American Idol -- American Villain

In conjunction with the new Amerikas most wanted, a group of 10 annoying criminals ... be they Enron, Blackwater or spyware execs or Halliburton war profiteers, Each eliminated contestent gets punished a bit more than the last. we narrow it down to the last one who gets executed live on TV.

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: wysiwyg
Date: 06 May 07 - 11:29 AM

I haven't decided if this is Oldtimer's Disease or more menopause-specific, but I'm so cotton-headed and/or busy that I'm leaving myself more and more clues where to find things I've put away. Like, putting the winter hat and scarf in the drawer where the winter sweaters live instead of in the back of... which closet? Cuz when I rotate the seasonal items, I do remember that drawer.

Maybe this is an early sign of being, as Tony Soprano would say, a complete loopty-loo. Or maybe I'm just getting smarter, and simplifying my life.

Or-- a case of CRS with CRAFT.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: Donuel
Date: 06 May 07 - 11:34 AM

nope its not

We used to run around from pillar to post and climb up to find those lost items.

Now the search itself is an impass so organization is one solution.

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: Donuel
Date: 06 May 07 - 11:56 AM

good tip for the gel palmetto.

There are many prostrate drugs for urination out there like Flomax.

I have a few of my own name inventions, Sleepeez and my all time favorite:
Niagrin.

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 06 May 07 - 12:36 PM

Right at the moment I am awaiting with interest the lab report on last Wednesday's biopsy of a mass in my mediastinum. That's the space in the center of the chest between the lungs.

The laid-back tone of the previous paragraph is because of several factors:
1. I've enjoyed excellent health for almost all of my 76 years. I seem to have selected the right grandparents.
2. I'm a constitutional optimist, and a stoic, so I don't waste emotional energy on what is unknown and/or beyond my control.
3. My doctor tells me there's about an 80% likelihood that it's a lymphoma.
4. If a lymphoma, there's a substantial possibility that it's benign.
5. Even if it's cancerous, it's highly treatable, says the good Doc.
6. Refer again to #2.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: jacqui.c
Date: 06 May 07 - 12:43 PM

Fingers crossed for you Dave - keep us updated, won't you.

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: GUEST
Date: 06 May 07 - 08:45 PM

Last time I crapped by pants was in 5th grade.

Squeezed, puckered my way home.

Timing was crucial. No one home. The hidden key took too long to use...and pants became pooh.

This week, first time ever. In bed .... fifty years later, let a fart and shitted the sheets.

This material is COPYRIGHTED - and may not be used in any comedic performance.

Now THAT pretty well put the kabash on any variation of "I'm not sheet slitter" for all future humorists

Subject: RE: BS: Indignities of Aging: the Sordid Truth
From: Peace
Date: 06 May 07 - 08:47 PM

Sorry, but a good friend of mine did something similar on his wedding night many decades ago. I could post the story, but I'll change the names to protect my friend. Helluva songwriter he is.