Tonight, as we do every other Thursday, Joe and I went off to dinner at Sadie’s, then walked around the Vineyard. Okay, sometimes we walk elsewhere. Sometimes we even eat someplace else. But you get the idea.
Anyway, when we got back to my house for some reason we got to talking about reasons to feel old. I remarked that I was born (much) closer to the start of the First World War than to now. And that the Persian Gulf War ended as long ago as World War II ended before I was born.
And Joe burst out, “My great-grandfather fought at Gettysburg!”
Way to put it in perspective, Joe. Thanks.
Now I think I’ll go crawl into bed and try not to fossilize before morning.
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Because the the gulf war ended in the early nineties, you must have been born in the early sixties or very late fifties. Leo Tolstoy produced my favorite peices when he was older than yourself.
Mid-Fifties, actually. That’s all you’re getting from me.
Thanks for the encouragement…
Now I feel old, ’cause everything you wrote applies to me as well. Another one:”When I was born, there were only 48 stars on the US flag.”
Yeah – when I was born, the current Queen of England was still a princess.
I’m always happy when I can help my friends. In this case, I see, I’m helping you to feel old.
I’m humbly proud.
Yes, when I was a kid, I saw Eddie Rickenbacker interviewed live on TV. Eddie-freakin’-Rickenbacker.
(Of course, I realize I probably didn’t need the Wik’ link to tell most of my readers who Eddie Rickenbacker was. That’s because you’re freakin’ old!)
Was Eddie talking about his flying days or about Indy?
Flying mostly. This was a great long time ago – he was approaching his 77th birthday, and joked about having a “pair of 7s coming at him” – clearly a reference to German Fokker D-7 fighters from WWI. Not sure how many people got it; as a confirmed WWI airplane nut even at a young age. I did.
That would’ve been fall 1967, so I was 13.
If he talked about Indy I don’t recall. At the time I was much more captivated by WWI aircraft than auto racing. Still am, come to think of it. I still think WWI aircraft designs were the coolest ever.
Interesting to think about how airframe design has matured – by which I mean, slowed. The US, with a research budget larger than most total military expenditures of whole countries in the known history of history, still flies planes as old as I am. In WWI a design’s useful lifespan, especially for a “pursuit” (fighter) aircraft, was usually measured in months or weeks. And when the opposition introduced its response to your latest upgrade, it also sentenced huge numbers of your pilots to death in hopelessly outmoded machines.
Of course that was worst in the RAF, since the British high command (most of whom should’ve been shot, for a whole host of reasons) refused for almost the whole war to let their pilots use that invention, the parachute.
I was also a WWI airplane nut growing up. I don’t know how many models I build (especially Fokker DR-1′s and Sopwith Camels). And “No Time Left for You” by the Guess Who will forever be linked in my mind to Manfred von Richthofen – my brother played it over and over while I was reading von Richthofen’s biography.
Harvey – for me, it’s Led Zepplin and the Conan novels.
Gee, thanks. Now y’all are returning the favor by making me feel old. All over again.
Originally I wrote a more extensive reply to this thread. Then I realized it merited a blog post of its own. So check it out here.
I was going to contribute but since I was born during the Ford administration, I am just going to make a bad situation worse so I will kindly shut my trap and get offa yer lawn. ^_~
I usually leave the “get off my lawn” meme to folks half my age who write the same old tired crap about how technology is making us stupid that I’ve been reading with a sneer for forty years. And who themselves say the horrid words, “kids these days…”
If I ever say that, in the standard invidious intonation, please shoot me. It’ll be euthanasia.
I hope I die before I ever act as old as those people do. I suppose they’re free to get off my lawn. But on reflection it’d be way more fun to turn the hose on ‘em by surprise…
It occurs to me (belatedly, of course) that if I’d been afflicted with both sadism and masochism, I could’ve entitled this post, “Hope I Die Before I Get … D’Oh!”