The Seniors Thread :-)

[darksideofthemoon]

"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 🙂

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 🙂

So, onward and upward.  Let's go...."

[kengillard]

It's so fantastic...hope you all don't miss the opportunity to watch....

Upholds my faith in the youth of today♥

[bluepanda555]

Walt disneys 'Fantasia'

'How Green Was My Valley'

'Mr. Chips'

'Brigadoon'

'Seven Brides for Seven Brothers'

'Carousal'

the list goes on and on and now when I see them again I am still intrigued that I can return to the kid I was who didn't know this world was coming.

O yes Darki, Mr Chips and Mrs Minerva with the fascinating Greer Garson ,,,,,, and when very young going to the local flea pit every Saturday arvo where Gene Autry would sing his (lame) songs, and when the indians appeared we all boo-ed, then on came the cavalry and we all stomped our feet on the wooden floor, and rolled lollies down the aisles. 

Then home to frankfurts and toast sandwiches, lashings of tomato sauce .... a real treat.   

[purple_haize]

O yes Darki, Mr Chips and Mrs Minerva with the fascinating Greer Garson ,,,,,, and when very young going to the local flea pit every Saturday arvo where Gene Autry would sing his (lame) songs, and when the indians appeared we all boo-ed, then on came the cavalry and we all stomped our feet on the wooden floor, and rolled lollies down the aisles.

Then home to frankfurts and toast sandwiches, lashings of tomato sauce .... a real treat.

We use to have that yummy food as well and it was a treat back then.

From memory there was no eating between meal and if you did it was fruit.

There wasnt any junk food back then.

[jvharrison]

My Nana was a brilliant cook.......used to make home made icecream and put chunks of chocolate and scorched peanut bar type thing crushed up into the icecream

First memory of a fridge was a charles hope bright green used to work like a charm

Washing machine was a simpson wringer........and clothes were rubbed on a rubbing board with sunlight soap to get really clean

Sheets were boiled in the copper and prodded with a big wooden stick

Clothes were hung on a line supported by forked sticks.........pegs were always dolly pegs and the dogs had to be chained up on wash day as the pups would like to swing on the towels lol

[bluepanda555]

[/quote]Purple-haze

We use to have that yummy food as well and it was a treat back then.

From memory there was no eating between meal and if you did it was fruit.

There wasnt any junk food back then.

[/quote]

Another treat,  the best of all,, was dripping on toast. We also ate lots of fruit, tons of it, so never had tooth decay until we were about 14.  No soft drinks from what I can recall, lots of water. 

I remember that boiling copper all too well, with its flames underneath, and the steam roaring out of it, scared the h*ll out of us kids .  Once in a while it would boil over ......   terrifying.   

[mindtoobusy]

I haven't read right through so apologies if repeating what somebody else has posted.

The Satty (SP??) arvo flicks  - I  remember them well. I came from a family of 3 girls and my mother wouldn't let us sit downstairs, as that's where the "bad kids" sat lol!!!   My OH used to sit downstairs :O.  There used to be a huge line-up of kids waiting to get in and lots of kids used to walk up and down the line swapping comics. I was envious of all the comics they had.  Mum thought it wasn't a very nice thing for girls to be doing anyway, so I wouldn't have been allowed, even Ihad lots of comics. My mother was very strict!!!! Yes, I was part of the Silent generation - trouble is I used to answer back and then paid for it with a whack from Mum with the piece of dowel stick.  She used to sit at the table with it, so if you misbehaved at the table you copped one!!!

Comics reminds me of the Charlie Chuckle's Club - I was a proud member of that for many years.  Every Friday night Dad would bring us home the Chucklers Weekly and we would do the puzzles and colour in pictures - I'm sure I won a few prizes - sixpence I think.  He also gave us a bag of popcorn each and there used to be a little toy in the packets.

He used to buy Mum a box of choclates sometimes - one night when he was later than usual (Fri night was pub after work night) she threw them back at him. Don't know if she retrieved them or not - guessed she did.  Another Friday night she threw oranges at him from the fruit bowl at the table.  Us 3 girls didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so we just sat there with oranges flying past us.  She didn't hit him with one of them and Dad just laughed which made Mum madder!!! (They really were a loving couple and were married for 56 years when Mum died).  Dad still used to tease her about lots of things and we often laughed about the night of the flying oranges!!!

Well this old Granny had better get to bed and get my beauty sleep!!!!

This thread is just the greatest Darki!!!!  Thanks for starting it. You know we may hold you responsible for lack of sleep due to things we remember as we're trying to drop off - to sleep that is :^O - not the perch!!!

[jvharrison]

As we lived in the country remember the wonderful meat and chicken.........we had our own chooks and there was always a plentiful supply of food......fresh butter was made in the churn......the churn was the bane of anyones existence that had to use it lol

[kengillard]

My Nanna used to make the most delicious light fluffy sponge cakes with strawberry jam and cream in the middle, all cooked on a wood fired stove.  As I got older and went to visit her  she would make me a sponge and expect me to eat at least half of it!.....she and her sister and BIL all in their 90's....lived on their own and looked after themselves, cooked, scrubbed the floors etc.  My great Uncle still drove in his 90's and the 3 of them would get in his mini minor and trundle off from the mid north coast down to Gosford to visit another brother.. That same grreat Uncle taught me to drive when I was 12...He used to go out in his boat at the beach and catch large Snapper fish, which Aunty would stuff with tomatoe and onion stuffing and bake in the wood fired stove...can still remember the freshness of it. Aunty was a character...I once brought some small tomatoes home that I had found growing at the bottom of a cliff, and she wanted to know "were they flavoured with Doon"???  Doon was an old hermit that sort of lived off the land.

Oh the memories.!

[mum*of*goldens]

OMG, I was a member of the Charlie Chuckles club too. I was a regular contributor to that page, and another page from one of the other Sunday papers. [if I recollect back in my youth there were 3 Sunday papers in Sydney].

I won a fair few prizes too.

This is a great thread, even if I'm a baby boomer and not a silent generation person.

I too, used to have bits of cardboard clipped onto my bicycle so that they'd get caught in the spokes as I pedaled to school, loved the sound.

I did a typing course at the Receptionist Centre in the early 80's, thinking I would find a cushy office job and get out of nursing. That didn't happen.

[purple_haize]

My Nanna used to make the most delicious light fluffy sponge cakes with strawberry jam and cream in the middle, all cooked on a wood fired stove.  As I got older and went to visit her  she would make me a sponge and expect me to eat at least half of it!.....she and her sister and BIL all in their 90's....lived on their own and looked after themselves, cooked, scrubbed the floors etc.  My great Uncle still drove in his 90's and the 3 of them would get in his mini minor and trundle off from the mid north coast down to Gosford to visit another brother.. That same grreat Uncle taught me to drive when I was 12...He used to go out in his boat at the beach and catch large Snapper fish, which Aunty would stuff with tomatoe and onion stuffing and bake in the wood fired stove...can still remember the freshness of it. Aunty was a character...I once brought some small tomatoes home that I had found growing at the bottom of a cliff, and she wanted to know "were they flavoured with Doon"???  Doon was an old hermit that sort of lived off the land.

Oh the memories.!

My grandmother was a wonderful cook as well I use to love her scones and cakes and she always seemed to be baking.

I also remember the dripping on bread that some on mentioned.

Everyone made a meal from scratch back then with all fresh ingredients.

Unlike today.