• With tongue in cheek, checking, while it's thus disposed, to ascertain whether any residual teeth are loose, this section is labeled "Senior Moments." Moments? Don't take that too seriously. A given bullet may occupy several moments -- seniors tend to become time-disoriented, as we (especially we old docs who, since young in the business, have been shouting at deaf old geezers "Hey pop, what' year is it?") all know. So keeping these wise old apothegms down to one or three or four lines is not guaranteed. When it happens, and an item is indeed short, we're in luck. When it goes on for a paragraph or two, consider it not disorientation in time, but rather the wisdom of age lavishly dispensed.
* I'm so old I remember reading from a scroll. Well, not quite. I'm so old I remember paper books, bound, not Kindled, Nooked, e-Padded or -Podded. But wait, to read this you'll be scrolling and scrolling...scrolling...scrolling...on into old age.
* When young it ’s OK to live each day as though it were your last, but when old, live each day as though you had your whole life ahead of you, which may turn out to be the same thing.
* As an old geezer, my geyser isn’t exactly Old Faithful any more.
* When I was a residency Program Director my favorite question for young applicants was, "where do you see yourself ten years from now?" Even better question for an old geezer.
* Retirement is when there is no more long-term planning, and suddenly day-to-day scheduling is wide open. Sure, I can come Thursday. Any time.
* You sure feel old when the clerk asks if you want your Golden Buckeye discount and you have to shout "What’d you say?"
* After the celebration it ’s customary to give the honored retiree a bound volume of the testimonial scripts, encomiums, and panegyrics. They gave me one of those hard-cover blank sketch books.
* If the child is the father of the man, and looking at a child you can glimpse at the man, the opposite isn’t true. Looking at the old man gives you no clue of what the young man was. He’s gone.
* I’m so old I remember when whiplash was in. Then it was the carpal tunnel syndrome. Now it's psychic trauma. Even trauma is trendy. Shall we say epidemic? No, endemic.
• And I remember when it was noodles (everything else was spaghetti) not pasta, and sherbet not sorbet.
* I’m not an old retiree with nothing to do. I’m an old retire with not enough time left to do what I want to do.
• Those were the happiest moments of my life; these, the happiest years. Fewer happiest moments now, but happiest years.
• Today's God thought. It's crucial that you realize your powerlessness and realize the sins thus incurred, and realize need to repent. That's a crucial start but only the start. If you go only that far you'll be overwhelmed by guilt and despair, to the delight of scoffers. You must now realize that God can, must, and without question will take over, relieving you of that guilt, and giving you power, and consequently the peace the passeth all understanding, to the thorough consternation of the scoffers, to which you will be oblivious.
* As I advance into old age I have less and less interest in the yard work I used to actually enjoy. Personally, the thing I’m most tired of, I mean I’m sick of it, is not yanking up weeds but yanking and yanking and yanking the cords of obstreperous small gas engines.
* Oh I don’t know. If all you feel like doing in old age is sitting around reading, or just sitting, or napping, might as well do it here as anywhere else. No point going to a lot of trouble moving. Or on an expensive trip to the Holy Land.
• I'm so old I remember facing the flag and feeling swellingly patriotic. Nowadays the only time I feel I can safely express patriotism is when standing at attention in the men's room before an AMERICAN STANDARD urinal. I come to attention and salute! But is the thing even made in America any more?
* I'm so old I just stand there at attention in front of the motion-triggered urinal, just waiting. No motion. I could wish it were emotion-triggered.
• I’m so old I remember when ministers still sensed their Great Commission to preach the gospel and deliver a message, usually of reproof. Now, to convey an award-winning experience, with laughs.
• I’m so old I remember when solidity was valued. Now sustainability. They’re not exactly the same.
• I’m so old I remember when one prayed without ceasing. Now all Twitter without ceasing.
• When I was young I bought lots of tools just because they were neat to have around and I might use them some day. As an old man, even my tool-buying pattern has changed. I don’t buy a tool unless I’m sure I need it now. I almost never do.
•When I was young I didn’t have the sense to know how to spend my time profitably; now, the energy.
• I'm so old I remember when it was the vogue for a woman to take a man's arm as they walked through life, in youth for her to be supported in frailty, in old age to keep him on his feet.
• With my particular kind of 8th nerve deafness I understand men OK but not women or PA system-amplified sermons. The silver age is the age of silver linings. I was kidding! I was kidding!
• I’m so old I remember when if you went anywhere picturesque you’d get out your camera and take pictures. Now your guitar and strum it, picturesquely. Somebody take a uTube of me.
• I'm so old I remember when Prince Valiant, not vampires, ruled the comics.
• Look where all our liberation has led us: to court. We spend more time in court than the Victorians did in church. Beset by mere guilt, Victorians have the last laugh.
• Somehow a glamor photograph of a celeb we’ve never seen seems more real than one of an old parent, or even ourselves, when young.
• Seize every opportunity. The opportunity most available to an old man to seize is a nap.
• In my retirement I’ve been working on a sequel to Superman. “AARP, AARP and away!”
• In the beginning God separated the day from the night. The distinction gets blurred for an old man laying awake all night, napping all day.
• It’s true: old age is a second childhood. We oldsters have returned to the Land of Nod. We need our bedtime stories too. And our goodnight kiss.
• It’s true: old age is a second childhood. But where’s our Operation Head Start?
• It’s true: old age is a second childhood. Infants wake at all hours demanding a drink. I get up all night, well, must I explain?
• Alas, it hasn't been that long between acne and senile keratoses.
• Because we old folks are simply bored with TV and movies, don’t think us dull and torpid. If possible, we are even more alive and alert to, excited by, a sunset, the greenness of Spring, the marvel of birds and squirrels and coons at the back door, than ever before. It’s a blessed new freedom and vision.
• Old age offers a liberation that youth cannot conceive of -- liberation from TV and smart phones.
• Life changes you so much — your personality as well as how you look. The Resurrection might seem anticlimactic.
• The legendary Dirty Old Man may say a few token dirty things but his main sensuous gratification is napping. Hey, it feels so-o-o good!
• Being deaf — and not wearing my hearing aids — will save me, oh, maybe $15,000. I can’t hear the terrible road noise my 10-year-old truck makes. It’s still as quiet as a Lincoln.
• I’m so old I remember when people talked of finding God. Nowadays, of finding themselves. Or happiness. Anybody but...
• An old man’s wisdom turns out to be of use only to himself — nobody else will listen — exactly the person God intended such wisdom for.
• I’m so old I remember when feedback was expected. Now, an award. Better yet, just punch LIKE.
• I’m so old I remember when preachers searched for parables to illustrate the sermon text. Now, for funny stories and movies.
• I’m so old I remember when our church sent out missionaries. Now we send out activists and advocates and even protestors, not to foreign lands but to the steps of City Hall.
• I’m so old I remember when the question at a concert was whether to clap for a movement of a concerto. Now, whether to clap for a hymn in church. When in doubt, clap.
• I'm so old I remember when nobody thought of running a police record check on a future son-in-law.
• It’s turning out that my church generation is seen by the new generation as legalists for accepting the very idea of obedience to God. But this new generation is the one that clamors for layer upon layer of local, state, federal, global laws and regulations about the environment, oil drilling, cars that can be built, profits, discrimination, thought patterns, swimming pool drainage, labels on cans, employment, insurance, so much more. Explain to me how this isn't legalism.
• I'm old and confused. Which is it I'm subject to -- the grandfather clause or the statute of limitations?
• Rather to the bemusement of the young, old people often turn religious, because (this is a multiple choice quiz): (1) the old can see their end and know it’s high time to be sure to wind up in the Right Place; (2) their brains have turned soft; (3) they’ve lived long enough to have learned the hard way that God’s is actually the right and happiest way, the world’s is sadly not, no question, no longer any question. Correct answer (wisdom of ages): (3).
• Why is it that the more the talk about freedom and liberation, the more laws and regulations? Why is it that more liberation is less liberty?
• God has promised (in writing) to forgive the sins of our youth, but not the tattoos.
• The new birth takes away our sins. For tattoos we must await the resurrection.
• I’m so old I remember when the Old Masters were Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Rembrandt. Now, suddenly, they’re Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet. Rembrandt WHO?
• Which is the sadder, to have the old face go wrinkled or the old brain go smooth?
• I’m old and retired and just don’t have the energy to do much of anything. Back to the recliner – plop! -- another nap. But I just can’t sit around doing nothing, goofing off. Makes me nervous, ill-at-ease. Young men, just starting your career, the best preparation for retirement and old age is to cultivate lollygagging, diddling, featherbedding.
• February 3, 2009. Ttoday I segued meekly into octogenariancy. Segued? Somnambulated. Meekly? As meek as St. Peter, who, when old, stretched forth his hands and was carried whither he wouldest not, as per John 21:18. Parabolic of me, I’m thinking right now, and rather more apt than the Geritol TV commercials with the old geezers waltzing in slow motion. I’ve always found scripture more accurate than TV. Amen.
• These the stages of man: autism and Alzheimerism; adolescence and senescence; tickles, dimples, pimples, wrinkles,…tinkles. All is pun, all is pun, the Octogenarian saith, leaving his footprints on the sands of alliteration.
• In Old Testament times God smote His people with sore adversity to wake them up and make them realize their need for Him. Very old age is having the same effect on me. Ours is a wonderfully resourceful God. Whatever it takes, He uses.
• In youth I was always out of the house. It was hell to be “grounded.” 80ish, I stay inside voluntarily. Leaving, going outside, just driving to Lowes and groping the parking lot and the endless shelves and trying to understand the alien accents of the sales associates, exhausts me, bewilders and befuddles me, frightens me. Old age has me under house arrest, what a relief!
• Oh woe is me in my great age and woeful debilitation! Bewailed most of all is that just being deaf doesn't qualify me for handicap parking at Walmart.
• Normally, youth is the time for rebellion. Old age is supposed to be fixed, settled, ankylosed. Didn’t work that way for me. I did not rebel in youth. It’s in old age that I’m rebelling, not from what I was taught back then, but what IS being taught now. Now just when I’m waiting to drop, I’m finally a drop out.
• Well if nothing else Sarah Palin is bringing back lipstick. Old American values, you know.
• I’m so old I remember when sex and violence was what sold. Now paranoia, especially on Facebook: “Here’s a trick your bank/insurance agent/postman/ life coach/dentist/undertaker doesn’t want you to know.”
• I’m so old I remember when VD was "shocking." Now, at least in the Facebook ads, any new "discovery" for arthritis is “shocking.”
• I’m so old I remember -- and as a school kid in Glendale, CA, saw and felt -- Forest Lawn as the agency for the gladsome disposition of departed loved ones, especially celebrities (celebrities among the cherubims), into a Hollywoodish afterlife. Evelyn Waugh wrote a satiric novel about it, The Loved One, made into a move, twice. But now the Lawn (and multiple franchises) is just kitsch. Now we have, appropriately from Facebook ads: “give back to the earth while giving your loved ones peace of mind by choosing Smart Cremation.” (I'm not making this up.) Oh Waugh!
• At 80ish I’m being phased out. I can feel it, in my bones.
• When I was younger I got plenty of exercise walking up and down stairs all day. Now, to and from the bathroom all night.
• I’m so old I’ve lived from hickeys to gigabytes.
• The thing about the wisdom of old age is that childhood is too young to hear it, teen-age is tuned out or turned off, youth is itself learning it all the hard way, middle age is too distracted. Is anybody listening?
• Ah yes, the good old days. First it was the chaperon, then the baby sitter.
• If it’s any consolation to the child, forgetful senile parents probably forgot the ecstasy of the conception before they can forget the offspring.
• Hard breathing is old age, heavy-breathing is youth, mouth-breathing in childhood. Mouth-to-mouth breathing in desperation.
• I’m so old I don’t remember my last hurrah.
• The wisdom of old age is hindsight. The urge of the teenager is, er, ahem, rather the same.
• Napster? I’m so old I thought they were talking about me.
• Deaf old geezer friend and I were talking about the gray heads concentrated in the front pews in the old days when we were kids. In those days, before hearing aids, segregation of silver hair from dark hair was more complete in church than on any bus, not so much because the oldsters wanted to be closer to God and the source of life as to be closer the preacher and the source of the sound. I said “deaf row.” He thought I said “death row.”
• Nowadays deaf silver heads don't even show up at church. They're home watching it on TV. Who said seniors are technically retarded?
• I'm so old I remember sitting in the train going chugety-chugeddy-chug-chug and hearing it saying "Humpity-Dumptity-sat'on'a-sat'on'a." Long gone talking trains. Now I hear the treadmill: "What-an-old-geezer; what-an-old-geezer.
• Of all the regrettable foibles of youth idealism may be the worst.
• The last message-free nature thing on TV I remember was Johnny Carson with a baby lemur nibbling his ear. Long, long ago.
• If greedy developers have spoiled the wilderness, eager Environmentalists have spoiled wilderness travelogs.
• I’m so old I remember when travelogs invited you to visit the planet, not save it.
• I’m so old I remember when nature movies included other creatures besides wolves, grizzlies, sharks, eagles, and whales. Curiously they’re all predators. How do predators get endangered?
• A lifetime of technical experience or adventure the young are eager enough to hear. A lifetime of wisdom, naw…
• Old age is that fleeting moment in life when wisdom finally happens, just before Alzheimer’s sweeps it all away. The fleeing moment is the sweetest. How’s that for consolation?
• A retiree knows it’s too late to make long term investments or plans for anything — except, if he's a retiree hobby painter, having his paint last for eternity.
• My faculties are not tenured, But my chair is endowed, even if I'm not.
• I’m so old I remember when a university curriculum was required, not course critiques; teachers graded students, not the other way around; students were old enough to decide what career they wanted but not old enough to know the curriculum necessary to achieve it. And in those days the university graduated the student. Now he graduates from the place.
• I’m so deaf I thought she said “just bilge” when I asked what was in today’s mail. Actually, I heard right, didn’t I?
• In response to questions about how macular degeneration (it’s only in my left eye) affects my vision, I can do no better than to refer you to the famous surrealist painting "La Grande Guerre" (1964) by Magritte that depicts a man in frontal view and formal attire and homburg, with the nice clouds in the background, and that oversized apple hovering surrealistically in the air exactly centered on his eyes, totally obscuring his face — only for me the apple is simply a big gray blur of nothing. If I close my right eye (good eye), that’s what you look like to me, only you're probably not wearing a homburg.
• As an old geezer what I find most puzzling about our politically correct society is that it supposes our old values are embarrassments while our rock and roll is the envy of the world.
• I'm so old I remember when people would say “there ought to be a law about that!” Now it’s, “There’s a law about that?“
• I’ve heard a lot of odd excuses for mega-amplified rock and roll in church, all to "meet the needs" of youth. So glad nobody‘s arguing all those decibels meet the needs of us deaf seniors.
• I'm so old I remember when we all would clinch our fists and squint our eyes and shake our fists and heads and through gritted teeth growl like Clint Eastwood, "absolutely no way that could happen here. This is AMERICA!" Now we just shake our heads very slowly, very slowly drop our heads and eyelids, and gro-o-an..
• I’m so old I remember when this nation was the land of the free and home of the brave. Now it’s populated by victims. Must be the new patriotism.
• There was a spelling rule all children of my era learned: "i before e except after c, and except in Alzeimer's disease, when you can't remember the rule anyway."
• I’m so old I remember when at a homicide the police looked for clues. Now they search for answers. That used to be the job of philosophers.
• Now that's downright mindboggling. Or is it mindblowing? Me, I'll settle for being boggled. Too many birthday candles I've already blown, and too many opportunities. Why would anybody want their mind blown, much less blown away? That'll happen soon enough. Any time now, at my age.
• Somehow the number of victims in this country is increasing by the minute, yet most crimes are victimLESS.
• My computer's speech recognition isn't much better than mine, and I'm deaf. Between the two of us we keep shouting at each other, WHAJASAY? I turn up my hearing aids and my Mac's feedback squeals.
• A surprising number of my friends my age cringe from computers. And those that do email use it mainly to forward cute cartoons about how funny-dumb old people are.
• Well, TV was invented just to run commercials for Advil or anti-prostate cancer medication with old couples waltzing blissfully in very slow motion in the golden fog. Isn't that demographic profiling, in the fog?
• Seriously, it would be hard to decide which is the greatest abuse of technology: e-mails just for forwarding cartoons of forgetful old coots or TV for commercials of magnificent seniors waltzing into the sunset.
• I'm so old I remember when TV pill commercials said, "ask your doctor." Now they say "ask you health professional." That's exciting! At last TV says something honest and accurate. Doctor? What's a doctor?
• Suddenly there's a War on Women. I'm so old I remember the Battle of the Sexes. Mere battle? Like Tom Brokow says, ours was the Greatest Generation.
• This War on Women Libs have discovered the GOP is waging, I'd like to join it -- I'm no shirker -- but I'm overage. Shucks! I missed WWII too -- underage.
• That War on Women Libs declared the GOP declared, apparently somebody surrendered. It wasn't women, or the Libs.
• “No news is good news.” That’s especially heartening from old people. Old people aren't abashed at being boring. That's how they're built. Am I boring you?
• I’m so old I remember when our motto was “you can do it!” Now, under the Change We Are Going to Have to Believe in, “You didn’t do it.” The govt did.
• Even "Tomorrow will take care of itself" is out of date. Now the government will.
• “Go for it.” I’m so old I remember when that motto didn't mean going for medical disability, food stamps, and/or free contraceptives. Did I forget anything?
• January 2013. I'm so old I remember when a man could be said to have courage. Now, balls or (new vocabulary among blogelitists) cojones. Thus the quality has, like all others, been degraded from a virtue to a biological function and not very cool either. And of course asexually applied. I just saw a web headline announcing "Hillary Clinton has mega cojones." What happen to chutzpah?
• Those who have made a life study of it and are the world’s experts – my mother and my wife – attest that I’m scared of new dishes, not as a senile phobia but an endearing if exasperating personal diversity, born with it. So it doesn't count as something old geezers are scared of.
• Demographic studies show that retired seniors who had in youth lived contentedly in northern red states where thermometer readings in the winter matched their age, tend to migrate, however grudgingly, to red states where winter temperatures still match their age.
• I'm so old I remember when it was altar-calling evangelists that would assume such tortured, anguished expressions. Now it's Christian pop singers that manifest extreme angst and agony. The evangelists are telling funny stories and chuckling.
• "Have you heard,about....” our life-long gossip begins, squinting eyes, looking evil, “about….about…. [look of frustration taking over gossip’s face]…about…it’ll come to me…. [gossip looks to be straining, as at stool] …you know! You know!…. [speaker just hangs head in total surrender and sighs].” Blessed old age! No more gossip, even that's gone.
• Old people can’t remember names, sometimes their own, but one name is never forgotten. Alzheimer.
• I'm so old I remember when the big question was, do you have body odor, B.O.? Nowadays it would be, are you a victim of body odor? Followed by an ad for a legal firm and a class action suite.
• I like to think that for my 78th, or maybe it was my 80th, birthday God sent me a Birthday greeting that said, “Still kicking, I see. Too bad it’s against the pricks. Have a wonderful eternity!” Acts 9:5 KJV
• Teenagers fall in love and break hearts. Octogenarians all just fall and break hips. Hips can be replaced.
• I'm so old I remember WWII and the motto, "Loose hips can sink ships. Beware of V.D."
• 2012. I'm so old I remember when adoring parents would ooooh and aaaaah over the least little thing their amazing little child would draw, bake, make. Now they will have to inform baby him or her, "you didn't makey-poo that!"
• If an old man gives in to being bent over so that his head and eyes are pointed at the ground when he walks, he can take only funny mincing steps, like Tim Conway's shtick in the old Carol Burnett TV show (remember?) It's the way anatomy works. To take full bounding steps, or at least creditable steps, you must straighten up and look up!
• Who says old folks are inflexible and can't change? I'm so old I remember all the knowledgeable, helpful, familiar clerks at Penniwit hardware store. Pennitwit went out of business. Now it's Lowes (which took out Penniwit) and there's nobody to help among those towering shelves, and checkout is totally robot. But I've made friends with the robots and -- surprise -- actually prefer them to the probably human checkout. Robots speak better English.
• I’m so old I remember when all us husbands did our own repairs, washed our cars, some (not me) repaired them, we did everything but make our furniture. It came assembled. Now nobody does anything except assemble furniture.
• I'm so old I remember when The Great Commission was as presented in "Mark 16:15, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." Now it's "Go ye into all the world and increase awareness."
• I'm so old I remember when presidents were elected on issues like how they would handle our economy and the Constitution. Now, on the "signal it will send to the the world." And the signal seems to be that we're more advanced Socialists than they are.
• According to the WSJ nowadays the dream is the Start-up. According to Taki's Magazine, Shut Up. At my age I dream of Getting up. Naw, guess I’ll just dream a little longer. Wisdom of old age: Considering how things are nowadays, might as well dream in bed, not the breadline.
• In youth, wet dreams. In old age.... As they say, life is just a big rerun.
• I'm so old I remember when youth aspired to stand up for principle, like Martin Luther (add King if you like). Now, simply to be a stand-up, like Seinfeld. Is it great luck or a comedown to be a stand-in for a stand-up?
• Being old I'm expected to be inflexible of joint, culture, and tech. As to inflexibility of joint, I'm still pretty springy: all my joints are original equipment. As to inflexibility of culture, resistance to gay marriage seems the only evidence necessary to diagnose terminal ankylosis, without ado. But I see that as inflexibility, certainly tunnel vision. Me, I'm still flexible enough to recognize other reasons for resistance. As to technological inflexibility, I am the poster geezer, I admit it and I acknowledge it. Take the technical term LOL. I figured it meant "lots of love," but it actually means "lots of laughs." I can't handle that.
• I'm so old I remember bribery. Now it's executive waivers.
• We've heard a lot about the Death Panels under Obamacare. Actually, as a pathologist at a large hospital I participated in committees called that. But in my day Death Panels undertook to determine why patients died, not whether to allow it.
• In old age the less you remember where you’ve just been the more it seems you been there before.
• Whether out of the mouth of babes or as the wisdom of age…. All is vanity, but the NSE will monitor it anyway.
• I'm so old I remember the expression, "Too many chiefs and no Indians." That's racist. How about, "Too many consultants and no workers"?
• Studies show (or could; studies aren't done on this kind of thing) that old folks, even those that always sent out oodles of Christmas cards, cut down or stop sending out those Hallmarks altogether. It's not because so many on the list are not here any more, or because seniors have gone en masse to email or texting (what's that?), or have tremors or paralysis. We just aren't interested any more. Nothing personal.
• Whadja mean, old geezers aren't flexible? When I was young and supple I was utterly hubristically inflexibly patriotic to the flag and Detroit. Now in old age what's to salute? It isn't even made in the US so what's to be loyal to?
• 60 or 70 years ago when I took medicine I was taught to ask old people what year it was and what country they lived in, to check their sense of orientation. Now I'm a senior Medicaree and I can tell the doctor what year it is like a winner on Jeopardy, but ... what the heck country is this?
• I’m so old I remember when we men put our women on pedestals because we knew they were different, and we knew why. Vive la différence! Now when women are off pedestals and on the same boards, podiums, lecterns, even the same heavy tanks as we are, we look at them and still see they are different, even more different, weirdly different -- but why? Why!
• I'm so old I remember when -- I'm not making this up! -- everybody knew everything about the Bible. The bible was the most familiar thing round. Now the one topic that all three of the know-everything-about-rock'n'roll-and-Shakespear contestants on Jeopardy are duh about is the Bible. Alex asks, "The survivor of the flood was ...." "Adam's wife was....," and all three, duh...dead silence.
• I'm so old I remember when movies justified portrayal of corruption and filth as an honest and artistic depiction, however regrettable, of the "human condition." Now as the consummate human status to be rewarded, awarded, aspired and legislated to.
• It turns out that the community we moved to is mostly retirees. Most of us have hit on ways to spur our old selves to exercise. Mine is a treadmill. But for most it's a little dog.
• I'm so old I remember when I was afraid of dying and being taken over by corruption and putrefaction. Now I am fearful of not dying and having to endure the spoliation that has taken over my country.
• I'm so old I remember when signing up for Medicare was all it took; you're covered! Now Medicare hardly covers a box of antiseptic wipes and, after appeal and arbitration, a couple of non-catgut sutures. Better sign up for Medicare GAP too... while you still can.
• The Saviour said that if ye give food to the poor or visit the sick, ye have done it unto Me. Now I'm hearing our liturgy pastor saying that if ye dance ye dance as unto the Lord. Works the same.
• I'm so old I remember when we were most concerned with the Great Judgment of God, and how He judges our actions, upon which depends our eternal status. Now it's your legacy. Which nobody will remember
• I am no leader and certainly do not wish to be led. Even the hairs of my gray beard, each goes its own direction.
• I’m so old that I remember movies with titles like “Hot Rods from Hell,” worse. But back then no movie was ever as gory as their titles suggested. Now, no movie title can be half as bad, I mean criminally bad, as the movie itself.
• For an old man, worldly possessions, those he has cherished his whole life, are a comfort if he stays put, a curse if he moves.
• Once, upon your death your relatives awaited your will. Now your loved ones await the government’s.
• After youth declination is relentless and, alas, cannot be asymptotic.
• Regarding Matthew 25:41 The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Perhaps the most blessed thing about old age is that if the flesh is then weakened, it is by virtue of exactly that weakness that the spirit is finally willing.
• The only thing an old geezer’s memory is good for is what happened years ago — and even that he gets all wrong.
• An old man can remember only the most distant past. Or is it the old distant past that he least remembers? I can never remember which! But what's the question? I can't remember either recent or remote.
• An awkward point in the lives of an old couple is when he, a lifelong do-it-yourselfer, is no longer up to painting the house or whatever, but not ready yet to pay somebody else to do it.
• It’s a sad truth that in youth opportunities that will never happen again are wasted. Alas, it’s also true that in old age, when one is supposedly so much wiser, opportunities peculiar to old age are equally squandered. You'll never have another chance to squander anything.
• I’m so old I remember when a survivor was someone who had clung to life against adversity; in celebrity circles it is hanging on to fame — more precious than life itself. .
• I remember when you were a survivor if you were still alive after the age of 90. In celebrity circles you are a survivor if you’re mentioned after the age of 50. Who said lifespan is increasing.
• This just in: Captain Kangaroo is so old he’s changing his name to Captain Kyphosis.
• It takes only one snowfall to make one appreciate one of the major blessings of retirement. Retired, I don’t have to get up before dawn to clear, plow, sweep, shovel the snow off the driveway and front walk. It can wait until noon, or forever. Or until my wife makes a token beginning and shames me into action.
• If it’s true that an old man’s sharpest and clearest memories are of things long past, it’s equally true that his thoughts and strongest interests and hopes are of the future, the eternal future.
• It’s always been comforting that God stoops to our level . He’s got farther to go to get to me now – I’m shorter because my vertebra are compacted and discs have long ago been squeezed out, and I’m rather bent over by kyphosis.
• I’m so old I remember when men’s coats had pockets within pockets. Now pants have pockets ON pockets. You never have enough pockets.
• I’m so old I remember when the label told who the manufacturer was. Now, the distributor.
• I'm so old I remember when the label told you what the thing was made of. Now, the toxins in it. But what's it made of?
• Just what “they” would think has always been a worry, always. I’m so old I remember when “they” was your gossipy friends. Now the government.
• When I was young I had a big powerful log splitter. Now I have a pill splitter.
• I’m so old I remember when cottage cheese came small curd, large curd, medium curd, dry, creamy, with chives, with diced pineapple, peaches, strawberries, mango, spinach, whatever. Now it comes only as classic and low fat. It’s yogurt that gets the treatment and shelf space. What’s yogurt?
• You can’t take it with you. I don’t even want to go. I hate traveling.
• I’m so old I remember when anybody could teach anything anywhere. Now, not only are you told what to teach and not to teach, but in what class, or see you in court. Oh well, nowadays classes all look alike anyway.
• In old age I’m finding my computer invaluable reminding me of things I’d otherwise have forgotten -- birthdays, trash days, bills. And every night when I shut down I see writ large the Big Reminder: “Windows is shutting down.” So am I.
• Too often Windows does not shut down smoothly and willingly in easy sequence, but painfully, in jerks, a convulsion of hung up programs requiring interventional procedures and special duty nursing at every step -- when will it EVER be over!? -- and finally to put it out of its misery its nose must be held under water for 20 seconds until the last blurrble and only then comes dead silence. I hope I have better luck.
• I'm so old I remember when America said Capitalism was the goose that laid the golden egg. Marx says labor laid it. Whichever -- the goose that laid it is cooked.
• I’m so old I remember when the nation grieved at the untimely loss of great men, like JFK. Now, at the self-destruction of celebrities. Elvis lives. Rock on for Michael.
• I’m so old I remember when the Bill of Rights just protected them, not paid for them.
• I'm so old I remember when America saved the world. Now, America apologizes to it. For saving it? Oh, well, OK, yes, sure, I see the point. Are apologies enough?
• I'm so old I remember when honesty and integrity were moral. Now they're just "the right thing to do," sometimes.
• I just saw a TV clip of Senator Durbin (D) intoning that "laws to ensure equality of salary are moral imperatives." No wonder old folks are confused. And not just by the imperious tone of voice.
• "Moral" sounds too imperious, authoritative, scary. "It's the right thing to do" (As Clinton always says) sounds so harmlessly flippant that it carries a curious kind of self-evident pop force.
• That's merely the common sense way of figuring it out. Of course I know the philosophical basis. "Morality" is based on God and the Bible. "Moral imperative" is straight from the mouth of the prophet Kant.
• I’m so old I remember when “green” meant green beret. Green Berets were macho sustainable.
• I'm so old I remember when holy art depicted saints with solid rather dull gold halos atop their heads. Now, in holy resumes they are shown with degrees and doctorates and certifications and awards appended to their names.
• I’m so old I remember when Christians were famously dour and doleful, long-faced and unhappy. Now all of sudden we are perky and cheeky, smirking and snickering, rockin’ and whimsical. And happy? It must be the new birth. Lo! an extreme make-over for TV, not the Kingdom.
• I’m so old I remember the altar calls at church with the preacher asking who wanted to give their souls to the Lord, raise their hands. Last week the pastor asked how many have seen “Terminator 3,” raise their hands. More hands went up than used to.
• I'm so old I remember when cars were sexy and muscular and size mattered, like the old Cadillac, as big and solid as a boxcar. But now they're dinky-dwinky and "smart" Have you seen that Toys-r-us scrunched up little thing, punk golf cart, and they're calling it "Smartcar"? If that thing is SMART the Yugo was genius.
• I’m so old I remember when the grass roots had no community managers.
• Sigh,... senile depression has set in, definitely. Makes decisions much easier, actions harder. The decision to delete this will be easy.
• The older I get the less I want to talk about the only things left to talk about.
• I’ve just yesterday, after 80 years, discovered that the best way to eat egg-drop soup (and get the egg drops) is with a fork. Soup with a fork?
• I’ve just yesterday, after 80 years, discovered that the best way to eat egg-drop soup (and get the egg drops) is with a fork. Soup with a fork?
• I'm so old I remember when ministerial students studied homiletics. Now, hermeneutics. Oh well, it's all omelet-ics anyway.
• I’m so old I remember when we'd come home from church saying, “Best sermon I ever heard!” Now, the funniest. The buzz is that when the search committee was looking for a new senior pastor they invited Al Franken but he went into politics.
• I used to think God didn't want me to have any fun, as I thought of fun when young. Whether He does or doesn't, old age for sure doesn't.
• I’m so old I remember when the world was round but now we know it’s flat-screened and virtual.
• I’m so old I remember when a man would fight for his rights. Now his entitlements – calling THEM his...RIGHTS?
• I’m so old I remember when people CAUGHT a cold or cancer. Now, in this otherwise more submissive, passive society, they FIGHT it.
• As youth we’d say, "She's good-looking!" As oldsters, "she's looking good." Is it "sexist" to call a girl good looking nowadays? In old age, and still in the previous era when we could get away with it, we may not be sexy but we're still plenty sexist.
• I'm so old I remember when I could practice my high-school Spanish by going to Tijuana. Now, to Lowes.
• For many years we sat in our divinely appointed pew, two-thirds of the way back, on the left. But upon us the boom has been lowered. A great black evil boom now looms and hovers just over our particular pew, guided by GPS and a demon with a tiny satanic blinking red eye, seeing us full monty. I know that in heaven there can be no secrets, the books of judgment shall be opened and every twitch and yawn shall be exposed -- but that's the prerogative of Heaven, not a big ugly media boom in The Church of Our Sacred Media. So we've broken our life-long custom, at least as wrenching a displacement as breaking away from our old home in Ohio, and fled to a new pew on the right side, more ideologically suited to us, a Pew of Refuge like a City of Refuge in old Israel, out of the range, we would like to think, as Jonah thought, of The Big Blessed Blinking Red Eye
• I’m so old I’ll always feel that applause at church is alien. But nowadays, with the church service being an experience in hi-voltage theatrical and rock concert lighting and decibels, all is purples, purple faces and they glow, dashed with celestial gold, green, yellow; constellations of computerized Klieg lights, strobe lights, fog and aroma generators; props but no pulpit; overacting drama teams, puppets, red-nosed clowns; caterwauling American lady-Idols sensuously clutching phallic microphones (sobbing in unknown tongues, something about divine love), trivial in real time and space down here but with voices and images amplified like the big bang and their album covers projected vast across media screens in the sky; tribes of producers and directors and camera technicians receiving inspiration via control-room signals, tending their LED-blinking golden calves, scattered among the interacting congregation like robed Disney robo characters at a theme park; technical crews, sound mixers and gigawatt surround sound prevailing against the gates of my ear drums; girls in cocktail dresses and tattoos and cleavage; and then the anticlimax, the Power-Pointed (power-devoid) sermon abounding in jokes and video clips, no scripture; loose, untethered, roaming the now-abandoned but spotlighted nightclub stage, the pastor paces and points and pantomimes and promenades -- APPLAUSE! APPLAUSE!
• A pillar of fire once provided light for God’s people. Before my time. Painted domes, like the Sistine Chapel's, also before my time. But I do remember when the newest, most magnificent, most awesome cathedrals were endless expanses of clear glass, open to, reaching to, replicating the very vaults of heaven. Now, you look up and you behold black expanses of deadness broken by Klieg lights as numberless as the stars of heaven, constellations of Klieg lights, reproducing the very Hollywood studios, award-winning. Church architecture, and doctrine, has always been in the ceilings.
• Philippians 4:8 admonishes us to think on these things: whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous, praiseworthy. Alas, at my age what I need to think on, hard, is where I just put my glasses.
• All this unremitting whipping out of ergonometrically formed plastic bottles of water and chug-chugging of gulps, while I’m trotting back again to the de-chug station to dribble it from the other end. In and out, the tides of man.
• I’m so old that the only things that pop up around here are pop-up menus. Not me. Ratchet up (quick, Henry, the WD40), best I can do.
• “Be thankful for every day of life” was always for me just another nice routine sentiment. But in octogenariancy thankfulness for every new GOOD day of life, every good couple of hours, is the most compelling thought I have.
• The young generation pities us oldsters who had to push buttons. Nothing was automatic is it is now. Oh? All we had to do to hear the radio was push the button, that's true. That’s NOT all you have to do to get online with Verizon or with all those passwords and IDs and security, or to cure viruses or spam, or when Photoshop or your PC crashes.
• In the old days my crowd was bent on making the scene. Now they are hell bent on leaving it.
• I’m so old I remember when our big tent was for evangelistic “efforts.” (I was baptized in one complete with a sawdust floor). Now, more like a flea market. (I didn’t say “circus”).
• Here’s a free tip from your personal octogenarian physician for you manly octogenarians whose supermanly prostates send you to the john 20 times a day. Might as well stop on your way every time and do ten pushups. Pushups for pushes, why not? Get hyperplastic triceps from your hyperplastic prostate. If a stupid schedule has been forced on you, outwit it to your advantage. I’ve already done 30 and it isn’t even noon.
• I’m so old I remember the pulpit greeting the congregation as “brothers and sisters.” Or saints. Now it’s “you guys.”
• I’m so old I remember bumper stickers. Now, bumper sensors.
• To ancient ears the sound of small children playing outside is musical, however staticky it comes through your hearing aids.
• When we were young it was my wife who fingered her ears, to put on her earrings. Such a charming, endearing, poetic movement of her fingers, even more artistic and entrancing than the gold earrings themselves. She stowed the bangles long ago. Now I’m the ear tugger, putting in my hearing aids. I’m still waiting to be complimented on it.
• Youngsters are always asking me (old geezer) why I’m not interested in a smartphone. Why should I? I don’t plan to join Occupy Wall Street or riot with the Arab Spring. They need smartphones, I don’t.
• I just now saw a web headline announcing that the UK's advanced system of socialized medicine continues to make Nobel-in-medicine-prize-winning progress: doctor visits will now be on Skype, not in the office. Exciting! 12 minutes of virtual doctor is so much better than our 6 minutes of real time. You're on TV! And the new medical school curriculum that has actors playing patients will pay off.
• Universities are for schools of thought. My mind has trains of thought. Alas, trains are almost gone. Used to be there was a train every hour. If my train of thought leaves once a day I'm lucky.
• All my life I’ve held the principle, I got it from my mother who was raised on a farm, that it’s better to do it yourself and spend the money you would have spent on hiring somebody, on tools for future jobs you’ll do. So I accumulated a ton of tools. But in my 80s I won’t be keeping tools much longer, they’ll just have to be disposed of at the estate sale, nor will I need the job done many more times, and anyway I just cannot do it anymore, even with the best tools. Better at this stage to hire somebody else, who will bring his own tools and take them away with him. But now I can’t find anybody to hire.
• I’m so old I remember upward mobility. Now it’s gender mobility.
• I’m so old I remember when you slept in a bed on the train at night, and the porter tucked you in, not on the floor at the airport.
• Senile stubbornness is more flexible than any youthful contortions.
• In youth it’s idealism. In old age, stubbornness. “Same difference.”
• What the young call senile inflexibility is really the wisdom of age.
• So Newton’s 3rd law can be thus applied: to every inflexibility there is an equal and opposite flexibility.
• Why is it that to be mindlessly doctrinaire in youth is to be idealistic, in old age, inflexible?
• I suppose the closet thing I’ll see in my lifetime to ESP is a good ISP.
• I’m so old I can remember when the selling point of a gadget was, “With the new Wondergadge you can (whatever)…” Now the new thing (usually an electronic gadget) lets you (whatever). A new and disturbing authority role, that. I blame it on the nanny state.
• I'm so old I remember when civilization and culture were exalted. Now condemned, especially if the civilization is Western (start worshiping it if it's Islamic) and if culture means beauty. God is dead, too.
• I'm so old -- this really dates me! -- I remember when it was our manufactured goods and democracy that America sold to the world, and we made a profit. Now we're doing the buying and importing, everything from TVs and smartphones to socialism, and going into debt.
• Donald Trump wants to tax imported TVs to death. I would rather tax imported socialism to death.
• Youthful indiscretions are bad enough, the poetry that comes from it, oh, a thousand times worse.
• I’m so old I’m not just wrinkled, I’m time-warped.
• You know you are old when you are worried that what you write is trite, and nobody ever heard it before.
• I’m so old I remember when people went around claiming to be holier than thou. Now, without fear of contradiction, I claim I’m oldier than thou.
• I’m so old I remember when high tech was fitting your shoes by fluoroscopy. All the shoe stores had X-ray boxes. Now shoe stores don’t even have clerks.
• I'm so old I remember when shoe stores checked your feet by X-ray. Now that would be against the law. If you want to be x-rayed just go to the air-port and have your whole body imaged.
• I’m so old I can remember when folks in various situations and with various problems went to their King James Bible. Now there seems to be a separate specialty edition of the whole Bible for each such problem — e.g., The Bible for Aging Mothers. The Divorcee’s Bible. Bible for Old Geezers Needing Consolation. The Bible for Dummies, The Bible for People Who Are Afraid of The Bible, The Bible for Atheists And Activists (wide margin for notes).
• I’m so old I remember the motto-manifesto of the Modern Design movement in architecture and furniture, “form follows function,” Actually, however, the forms given chairs were alien to the form of the creatures sitting in them, and the architecture, especially Frank Lloyd Wright’s so famous “Waterfall House,” leaked, crumbled, and slumped as though engineered to be disposable. And the halls were 5'5" tall, engineered for Franks form, not yours. “Malfunction follows form,” it should have been.
• I'm so old I remember when women expected to be raised upon pedestals and worshiped. Nowadays they are offended by all that. Instead, they demand to be radically made over, liposuctioned, photographed through dense filters, and photshopped into varpor, like a ghost, and awarded, adulated, tiptoed around, but not worshipped.
• I’m so old I can remember those huge WWII-era full color pinups (hubba-hubba!) papering the walls of every greasy garage in the nation, with dirty mechanics talking dirty. Just talk. Most were timid pussycats and wholesome husbands. All gone now. Feminists could be blamed (pinups offend them), but those beloved icons probably would have gone out of style anyway, when those greasy garages did, and as the fashion turned to hippy posters -- you'd expect them to be blatantly sexy obscene to match their liberated lifestyle, but they were right out of the nursery.
• Currently (ca 2007) the media is insisting that we “seniors” are more outraged by prescription drug bills than our tax bills. While we dodder the media spins.
• I’m so old I remember when it seemed every Jewish mother was the mother of a medical doctor, and out-loud proud of her son the doctah. The doctah has become super specialized. The Mod Jewish mother‘s pride is “my son the White House spin doctah!” Most ordinary doctors nowadays are Iranian or Indian.
• Quite deaf, I heard it as “women harangue,’ but I was actually being offered "lemon meringue.“
• The youthful heartache is pain for but a moment, the poetry that oozed from it, embarrassment eternal.
• I'm beginning to wonder which is the more threatening, the infirmities of age, mine, or the age in which I live.
• As a youth my feet were springy. Leaden are my feet in old age -- a good thing! Better to keep my balance.
• I've made it a rule not to trust feelings. But sometimes what else is there go by? I feel my pain, and no question about it. Turned out to be appendicitis. Bill Clinton says he feels my pain. I'm not so sure. Right now I feel old and unsteady on my feet, feelings that I'd jolly well better trust. So much for climbing ladders.
• I graduated with an M.D. from the College of Medical Evangelists (now Loma Linda University), run by Seventh-day Adventists. I'm such an old doc I remember when we saw ourselves as the "right arm of the message." Now we are the little finger of GovtCare. No, not the middle finger.
• A prince and a peon put their pants on the same way. But a kid and a geezer don't. At 84 I sit down to put my pants on. Here I sit, I can do no other!
• Yes, my dear great grandson, in my lifetime I've seen a flood of astounding inventions, from automatic washing machines (I remember when my mother washed our clothes on a corrugated wash board, that's true, seriously) to automatic garage doors, from dial phones to iPhones to drones, the personal computer to the solar-powered scooter, the hydrogen bomb to gay marriage. The latter is the most boggling of all.
• Nowadays society has gotten used to having computers do everything. Just gesture, flutter your finger on the screen and it happens. No wonder we want government to do everything for us too.
• I'm so old I remember when you snapped your fingers and -- magic! -- it happened. Now, just gesture.
• Gestures are taking over on screen -- in front of the camera and on the screen itself.
• Though a gentile I was circumcised at birth or shortly thereafter, for hygienic reasons. I understand that the orthodox Jewish reason is to have available, upon intimate inspection, proof that the bearer is divine property. Is it true that nowadays the rite is not excision but tattooing to give instant, incontrovertible proof of a permanent commitment to the god of cool?
• I'm so old I remember when bad breath was an embarrassment. Now using big words, like halitosis, is.
• I’m so old I remember when homicide detectives looked for clues. Now they search for answers. That used to be the job of philosophers.
• I'm so old I remember when Yankee ingenuity was for inventing new things to manufacture. Now, for new taxes. And regulations inhibiting or prohibiting manufacturing. If the old ingenuity was awesome, the new is...overwhelming.
• It's legendary that old age is taken over by a sense of unreality. Surreality is more like it, is my sense.
• Ancient skulls contain less memory, more noise Tinnitus is what replaces memory in the senile head. It's there to remind you that you still have a brain, or you'd forget.
• The deafer I get the oftener it seems to me I’m right in arguments. But when I finally comprehend what's being talked about, it always turns out I'm all wrong. Wasn't even talking about the same subject. As long as the only person I'm hearing is me myself, I'm right, always.
• But only now when I'm legally deaf and have hearing aids stuffed into my ears does it dawn on me that I've always been de facto deaf to other people. Your own talking drowning out the sound of other people talking renders you as effectively deaf as a dead cochlea does.
• Premises! Premises! But if you’re too deaf to hear the premise right…
• I'm so old I remember when your premise stood for something. Now (to hear smartphones and Twitter talk about it), your penis. (I hope my old friends are so deaf they didn't hear that.)
• Without my hearing aids I can't hear you at all. With them you come through loud, plenty loud, painfully loud, but not clear. It's just noise. I paid four thousand bucks for just noise? At my age I got my money's worth.
• Without my hearing aids I can't hear a word you say. With them I can't understand a word you say.
• I'm in the lab to have blood drawn for routine lab work. "Are you fasting?" The lady at the desk asks. "I don't do faxing," I answer, wondering what faxing has to do with blood sugar. Nothing more pathetic than a deaf doc.
• When I come from the bathroom I'm always rather badly out of breath. That's not because I strain really hard at stool or against my prostate but at pushups, which I have established as a routine exercise coupled with going so frequently to the b.r. I won't bother trying to explain it to my urologist.
• I'm so old I remember the bottom line. Now, the bottomless dollar.
• I remember when going to sleep at night was traveling to a lovely fragrant land of bliss. You woke up refreshed. In very old age, it’s being kidnapped to a scary far away land where you get mugged, battered, robbed of your identity, left for dead. But you have to go back.
• I’m so old I remember WWII pinups. Much more realistic and alluring than Cable News virtual manikins. Barbie Dolls are living, breathing, sweating, compared. I miss Helen Thomas.
• I had always thought the expression "I seem to remember" oxymornic. But now in old age it's the most apt, accurate, ... seems to be the best way to put it.
• I'm so old I remember when protesters held up signs for TV cameras. Now for the NSE. What does it matter?
• October 2013. I’m so old I remember sheriffs, mayors, justices of the peace. Now in this radically made-over government, a whole new set of apparatchiks: community managers, regulators, O’care navigators, life coaches. The familiar friendly national park rangers, now they’re riot police. What does it matter?
• Looking way back to my youth, my church may not have been going anywhere but at least we were all going the same direction. Now the church is splintered and going in so many different directions. The resultant vector isn't going anywhere, still.
• 2013. Hillary recently demanded, "What does it matter!?" Charles (not Chuck) Krauthammer just published a book, Things That Matter. Now Hillary knows what to 1-click-Amazon for Bill's Xmas present, as if it mattered.
• The media says the only reason why seniors are against gay marriage is because they're inflexible. But we can remember lots of reasons, oodles. So who's lost their memory -- seniors or media?
• The brains of us old people have turned soft because of years of learning the hard way. Our arteries have gone hard because of a lifetime of soft living.
• What we old people see as eternal verities, the young see as inflexibility, and the enlightened of any age as retardation.
• I'm so old I remember the cold war when America stood firm for democracy and human rights such as economic freedom, small government and big citizens, unspun voting, and moral values. But the cold is over, or was supposed to be. No, it's back! And America is still championing human rights, except all the old ones are gone. Russia didn't eliminate them, we ourselves did. Wait -- there is one, a brand new one, one America's founders never fought for or even dreamed of -- gay rights! And we're going to bat for this odd new one more zealously than for all the old ones put together! The cold war is back and bloodier than ever. Only this time I'm not sure which side I'm on.
• I'm so old I remember when I would take all I could get. Now if I can just keep what I've got.
• I'm so old I remember when immigrants flocked to America and yearned to fit in, and they reshaped America. We welcomed them. Now hordes are tunneling in and America is being reshaped to fit them, and now I don't feel welcome any more.
• I'm so old I remember when modest young maidens came to church with even their shoulders covered. Now even bare navels. Symbolism, I think I heard one of them say -- has to do with being born again, and they want the world to know it.
• I'm so old I remember the TV show "Queen for a Day." Crowned by Art Linkletter the Queen could behold Hollywood's glories. Now, the self-proclaimed queen for a day may behold the opposite sex's bathroom's glories. A higher authority than Linkletter has thus commanded.
• I collect unintelligible or easily misconstrued headlines. But this headline, from the WashPost, couldn't be more clear -- that isn't the problem. "God takes back seat in politics -- Religious leaders are playing a diminished role in 2016." No question about the content, just the implication that God is to be equated with religious leaders.
• FEB 2014 big web headline: "PRESIDENT: Signing Up for Obamacare 'Just Part of Growing Up'..." I'm so old I remember when signing up for Medicare was just part of growing old.
