"This is for the Senior members of CS, those born before 1947. Baby Boomers and Generations X & Y are welcome providing you are over 18 ๐
But this is definitely for people who are facing the last long haul. We have survived babyhood, childhood, being teens and twenties... We have learned to read and write, to drive, have probably been married and the women have survived child birth.
The challenges are constant and the near misses of death are also there. If we have become a senior we have learned to survive so much, and along the way we have, of course, gathered a great deal of knowledge about life.
The belief that age diminishes us is not true, it changes us and not all of it is bad. Yes there can be various forms of dementia for some, but that is also a disease that can happen in younger people. Alzheimer's can also occur - it is another form of dementia and generally occurs in people over 65, although that can occur much earlier too and not everyone is going to get it.
Most of us keep our mental alertness up to the moment of death, even if we lose our hearing and our eyesight, but of course this can happen at any age too.
What changes is our physical strength, which diminishes but our mental strength and patience grows, it has to of course, to deal with this aging thing.
Arthritis, heart trouble, strokes - all these things associated with age can happen at any time in your life - arthritis can happen when you are a child but they don't like giving out new hips and knees until you are in your 50s and 60s or later. We can talk about that too.
Cancer can happen any time and that is also something we can discuss here if you like.
The point of this thread is to give the Seniors a chance to talk about how they are coping with age, the challenges it presents and the fears that can come with it... loss of hearing or sight, aging spouses, living alone, retirement villages, even death...
So I will ask that the Juniors treat us in kindly fashion and remember, all this is going to happen to you too - providing you avoid death before you get here ๐
So, onward and upward. Let's go...."
Good morning all... I just got this email and thought you'd enjoy it.. I am going to put it in the threads too..
The Green Thing
Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.
The woman apologised and explained, "We didn't have this green thing back in my earlier days."
The clerk esponded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations." She was right - our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.
Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilised and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.
We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.
Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts - wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers and sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right. We didn't have the green thing back in our day.
Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house - not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Tasmania. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right. We didn't have the green thing back then.
We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn't have the green thing back then.
Back then, people took the tram or a bus, and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their mums into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerised gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.
But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?
Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart- ass young person.
Remember: Don't make old people mad. We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to p... us off.
Well they don't send me reminder, I feel left out :_|
Hope all is well Gil xx
Richo did you know men can get breast cancer too?
Yes I really hate with a passon plastic. It is lethal and dangerous and they still keep wrapping everything in it as if it's going out of fashion and they have to hurry.
WHEN they learn how to make a plastic that will disolve down like newspaper does then I will relax, but until then, as I watch my garbage bag that I keep just for plastics to go to the skip in the waste station, I will continue to use their bluddy plastic shopping bags... I will NOT be made to feel guilty for using them when I will be going home with a ton of plastic no one cares about. X-(
