BS: Where did the years go???

Subject: Where did the years go???
From: GUEST,Dagenham Doc
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 08:50 PM

Cleaning out the garage I came across a tin of old photos I'd long forgotton about. Most of them were of me in my teens {a little while ago now}. I stared at that teenage spotty face and thought of how I was back then, what I had coming and worst of all what my teen-age self would say to me now if we met...... apart from..F..K!! Any thoughts on what your young self would say to you today? Apart from F..K! that is .

Doc

Subject: RE: BS: Where did the years go???
From: khandu
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 09:30 PM

Where did the years go? I looked in my memories and found the place was full of them, more than I had realized.

My teen self would have little good to say to my present self. He would be in shock to see that he grew up to became his Dad.

Ah, but if I could only talk to him...boy, I'd have a lot of great advice for him. (Just like my Dad did when he was here!)

khandu

Subject: RE: BS: Where did the years go???
From: Amos
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 09:35 PM

If that wisenheimer showed up around here I'd tan his hide!! LOL!!!

Seriously, if our two identities met, and shared points of view, he would probably say, "Thanks for learning enough to keep me from getting killed between my time and yours!!"

LOL!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Where did the years go???
From: Alice
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 09:45 PM

This reminds me of an episode of "Northern Exposure" where Maggie is confronted by her teenage self who is deeply disappointed to find her not having achieved all the dreams she had dreamed. She has to defend becoming "just" a pilot in Alaska.

My teenage self would not recognize me, except that my smile looks like my mother's now.

Subject: RE: BS: Where did the years go???
From: kendall
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 10:07 PM

An interesting book is titled "Running from safety" it is about this very subject.

Subject: RE: BS: Where did the years go???
From: CarolC
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 10:33 PM

I think my teen self would say, "Way to go Carol!"

And then she would probably say to herself, "I wonder if there's any other (more pleasant) way to get from here to there".

Subject: RE: BS: Where did the years go???
From: Big Mick
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 10:37 PM

I will let you know when I grow up...........;->

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Where did the years go???
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 10:46 PM

There are a few mudcatters besides me who are aware that it only gets worse! And better. Worse, because 'time' ceases to have relevance- it's the old icecube sputtering on the hot stove top syndrome. Turn around- and it happened last month. Turn around again, and it's been 10 years. And also better, because one is continually reminded that this is just the way it is, the natural way to get us ready to leave this earth...

I read something once where the writer said, "If you can't believe you're someday going to die, go to your box of photos and get two pictures: one of you that was taken 20 years ago, and another picture taken 10 years ago. Take a good look at them. Now go to the mirror- can you still tell yourself that you are not going to die?

Ebbie

Subject: RE: BS: Where did the years go???
From: Steve in Idaho
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 11:03 PM

My teenage self - I'm not sure what he would think. I think I am with Amos - I did well enough not to get killed. He'd be amazed that I play music, still fool around with horses and Harleys, and be grateful for all of the really nice folks he has yet to meet.

Then again Mick has a point - I still look out of that kids eyes at times. And when I look in those same eyes in the mirror in the morning I see the age in them mixed with those of a kids. I'm not afraid of dying - there are a lot worse things than that. It's just part of the great circle and I intend to let that kid and me wander right to the end of it -

Did you know that everyone who gets bitten by a mosquito this year is going to die?? I find that just amazing!

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: Where did the years go???
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 11:11 PM

Great thread. What I find heartening in reflecting on how we age physically and how we feel inside was a comment made by my great-grandmother on her 88th birthday (she made it to 98). She looked at my dad and said, "I do believe, finally, that I'm starting to feel old." There's hope for us all. You're right, it is amazing how the years fly by as we get older. Life's what happens when you're doing something else. It seems like not too long ago that I started playing music with Margaret Nelson, and 20 years have passed. I think we sing and play better now than we did then. But the heart of the music was there, even at the beginning.

Subject: RE: BS: Where did the years go???
From: Gypsy
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 11:50 PM

My younger self would have no clue as to how to relate to me now. I was so very wild and reckless then, and work so hard to tread lightly now. It's almost a 180degree turn. But because of that, can relate to wild teenagers in my world NOW.

Subject: RE: BS: Where did the years go???
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 04:04 AM

I think my teen self would be amazed that I'm a) still alive and not alcoholic, b) married, c) a mother (still amazes me now, that one ....), d) that I work FOR the Government, e) that I'm not a world famous singer, f) that I can (and have) lived without Andy Smith for nearly 2 decades! (It's a long story, you don't want to know.....)

I find it very VERY scary that I can remember something happened only a few months ago, then work out it was actually 20 years ago.....

I hope the younger me would approve of some of the things I do now, like actually owning a motorbike, something I wanted when I was 16 and never got... it's only taken me 20 years to get one.... or doing all the decorating... I wanted to be a painter and decorator (Interior Designers they call them now) but it was at a time when no firm would take a female apprentice.

I'm sure she'd approve of my taste in music - that hasn't changed much over the years, I still like Martin Carthy, The Kippers and Alice Cooper... although she'd be made up to think I'd met two out of three (and even slept in the same bed as one of them! - another long story, you really DON'T want to know....) of them, been kissed by an MBE and an hereditary peer of the realm, and I know she'd recognise some of the records and tapes I play still....

She'd be stunned to know I voluntarily listen to Radio 2, although they play the same stuff as Radio 1 did 20 years ago, that I had the same job for 8 years, that I haven't been arrested for any crime, and that I still have my liver more or less intact.

I hope she'd like to know me.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Where did the years go???
From: Mooh
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 06:05 AM

My teenage self would be impressed that I still play music, that I have quit drinking, that I've remained with the same girl for 20 years, that having kids is a good thing, that I prefer fishing to partying. My teenage self would be really pissed off at getting overweight, not making enough money, not owning a big boat. But my teenage self had something to learn about humility, modesty, greed, and the shallowness of youth.

Perhaps too, my teenage self would be glad that I came to understand my father before he died.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: BS: Where did the years go???
From: catspaw49
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 09:36 AM

I have no idea what I would think of me now. I think that's because although I have lived through many phases and parts of my life, I still see it as one long continuous thread. That's very odd in a way because some of the time periods have been wildly divergent and several times it seems as though I lived several of my "lives" at almost the same time.

However it works, I have both good and bad feelings about the past and indeed the present. There were few things that I passionately wanted to do that I didn't do and there are a few things that I wish I had done although I would have sacrificed something else. Overall I like the choices. There also came the day when the realization struck me that there was no more time to do some of those "other things" because I had past the age where it was feasible or another choice had precluded me doing it.

Sometimes I think it would have been great to have kids earlier but if I had, I wouldn't have met Karen and I wouldn't have Tris and Michael......and I can't imagine life without the three of them. Every moment of life we make a choice that influences the rest of our lives and if a decision was wrong in retrospect, it wasn't at the time......and we cannot replay the past and change it. I'm really not sure I'd want to anyway. I have never looked far into the future and any goals I have set have always been in the short term. This causes some problems as I think about what Karen and I don't have but at the same time we enjoy the daily things we do.

If there was anytime that my young self DID speak to me, it was about 10 years ago when I looked in the mirror one day and suddenly asked myself, "What the hell happened to YOU?" .........I realized the 3-piece suit phase was over and it was time to go back and find the values and motivations that had been so important to me. It was the only time I remember a distinct break in the continuous thread but it lasted only that moment because life went on and we made those changes as we went.

The young guy pretty well likes the old guy I guess........he's a little surprised possibly, but he likes him.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Where did the years go???
From: Deckman
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 09:45 AM

My teenage self would probably say: "Hey Stupid! You SHOULD have had the guts to ask Virginia Fox for a date!" CHEERS, Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Where did the years go???
From: catspaw49
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 09:57 AM

LOL Bob..........Yeah, that's the fun part of this isn't it? Back to those "moment by moment" decisions! And if I had done A then what would B have been and is there anyway I would be where I am now....wherever that may be?

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Where did the years go???
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 10:02 AM

Dylan - Bob that is, said, "The times they are a changin'"

That was my generation talking. I now agree. Things have changed. Are things better?

WARS ? I doubt it. RICH v POOR No contest. RACISM I seriously doubt it.

I could go on....

Technology has improved. But why wouldn't it?

Love of mankind?

No way.

We've gone way back.

BS

Subject: RE: BS: Where did the years go???
From: Deckman
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 10:04 AM

Yes SPAW ... you are so right. Tomorrow will be my Father's 94'th birthday. I was going through some papers of his the other day and I found some notes he had written on his 90th birthday ... memories and some regrets Very powerful stuff. Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Where did the years go???
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 10:29 AM

Danged, your gray! And what's with the pony tail anyway? What's with that ugly chrome quitar? You play that thing? That your wife? She ain't bad for an old gal. You still drive a Ford? .... What's a Toyota? Hey, lets go down to the soda shop and get a cherry Coke and talk awhile... Hey, what ever hap...........

Subject: RE: BS: Where did the years go???
From: Ebbie
Date: 07 Apr 02 - 03:53 AM

Last fall when I visited Oregon, where I grew up, I had one of those mind-blowing experiences. My brother, his wife and I visited a couple whom we hadn't seen 1958, when we were all in our middle 20s. And now we are all in our middle 60s. We sat around the table and reminisced- and I'm sure we were all in shock.

Ebbie

Subject: RE: BS: Where did the years go???
From: Cappuccino
Date: 07 Apr 02 - 04:11 AM

In the opening chapter of David Niven's autobiography, he uses the very honest words: "I beg you to consider the possibility, dear reader, that I was a thoroughly poisonous young boy."

As a teenager, I too was a complete *******. I don't think the young me would have had the courtesy to regard the old me with any consideration at all, nor any intelligent conversation.

But I should certainly like to tell him precisely what I think of him...!

- Ian B

Subject: RE: BS: Where did the years go???
From: GUEST,Dagenham Doc
Date: 07 Apr 02 - 04:08 PM

Amazing stuff this folks and I thank you. Like Ebbie I went home after 25 years, my old man was dying.I sat with him through his last hours of life, he was 95,and he said to me "If there's anything you want to say to me good or bad now is the time to say it". I just told him there was nothing to say other than I loved him..... and with that he drifted off. Man am I glad we had that time. He also told me that by the time you are 90 you know everything. Trouble is, you've got to try and remember it.!

Doc.

Subject: RE: BS: Where did the years go???
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Apr 02 - 04:18 PM

I had pretty much decided who and what I was by the time I was 17-18...but my teen self would look at me now & say..."but why haven't you done all that stuff you planned better?"

....unlike 'spaw, I think I have lived 3-5 distinct 'lives', due to sudden changes... with that continuous thread of 'me-ness' holding it all together and building some sort of character if not identity. I like who I've become, but not how I got there-- and I suspect the idealist teenager would admonish me a bit for not accomplishing more.

Subject: RE: BS: Where did the years go???
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 07 Apr 02 - 04:20 PM

My teenage self would probably say "hey mister, if I give you five bucks would you buy me and my buddy a 6 pack?"

Subject: RE: BS: Where did the years go???
From: khandu
Date: 07 Apr 02 - 04:36 PM

It seems it has been a natural progression. Little khandu had big plans and dreams; the realities intruded upon those plans and dreams, and gradually Little khandu began to lose those plans and dreams and become somewhat conformed to those realities. Subtly, he became the khandu that I am now.

I believe the one thing Little khandu would admire about me is that I maintained a sense of individuality and did not allow myself to become completely conformed to the realities.

Poor Spaw, I am certain that Little Spaw would stand aghast at the reality that, in his growing up, his teeny peeny did not grow with him!

khandu

Subject: RE: BS: Where did the years go???
From: reggie miles
Date: 07 Apr 02 - 05:13 PM

Where'd they go? They went that a way ->

Subject: RE: BS: Where did the years go???
From: GUEST,Dagenham Doc
Date: 07 Apr 02 - 05:28 PM

Good one Reggie!

Doc.