# Age and other horrors **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 25, 2015, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/age-and-other-horrors/723412 "2015-06-25T00:30:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2015, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/age-and-other-horrors/723412/21 "2015-06-26T02:50:44Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > When I was 15, I saw _Jaws_ in the theater. When _Jaws_ premiered I was married with a job and everything. Feel better now? ---
**Author:** ![Whatever4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@Whatever4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whatever4)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2015, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/age-and-other-horrors/723412/22 "2015-06-26T05:33:25Z")
I never saw Jaws, but I did see Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation. I wasn’t even in school then. President Kennedy - I was in Freshman (high school) English, sitting next to one of the rich kids who had a transistor radio, so the two of us knew he was dead before the rest of the class. My little dog is the last. I’ve always assumed I’d outlive any dog I had; but I can’t be sure of that now. I’ve taken to wearing long sleeves year 'round because the sight of my crepey skin scares me. It’s all downhill from here. ---
**Author:** ![kiz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7feea3/32.png) [@kiz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kiz)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2015, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/age-and-other-horrors/723412/23 "2015-06-26T11:34:58Z")
_Jaws_, _Grease_, and the original _Saturday Night Live_ are my popular culture touchstones. I once wrote about the day I saw _Jaws_ in a small movie theatre down on Cape Cod on one of the hottest days of the summer and immediately headed to the beach with my little yellow raft afterward 😃 No shark, of course, but I got the worst sunburn of my entire life. What kills me are those anniversary memes on Facebook, like this being _Jaws’_ 40th anniversary. Most of my coworkers weren’t born then. Hell, neither were some of my neighbors. My husband dimly remembers some of it but he’s a few years younger than me. Then I go to my PCP for a 5-year checkup. She tells me my garden-variety issues are all age-related as in “You don’t listen to your body, do you? Your brain still thinks you’re in your 30s, right?” ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2015, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/age-and-other-horrors/723412/24 "2015-06-26T21:15:15Z")
When I watch movies like _American Graffiti_ and _Lenny_ and realize that those movies are much, _much_ closer to the times they portray than today. But back when they came out, they were about “olden” times it seemed. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2015, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/age-and-other-horrors/723412/25 "2015-06-26T22:45:10Z")
> [@The Great Sun Jester](#): > > Piss on you! I just did the math and now I have to admit I was born closer to the end of WW1 than to today. Jesus, I can almost say I was born closer to the 18th Century than to today! Perspective sucks. That’s an age thing too, ain’t it. I was born closer to the Spanish American War than today. (But not the invention of the telephone.) There are way too many 50th anniversary celebrations these days of things I experienced as a teenager. The real scary thing was that I was programming before many of the people around here were alive. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2015, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/age-and-other-horrors/723412/26 "2015-06-26T22:48:24Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > The real scary thing was that I was programming before many of the people around here were alive. Did you learn how to program on a Jacquard loom :)? ---
**Author:** ![seal\_cleaner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@seal\_cleaner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seal_cleaner)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2015, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/age-and-other-horrors/723412/27 "2015-06-27T00:48:33Z")
To steal from Tom Lehrer- by the time Mozart was my age, he had been dead for 40 years. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2015, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/age-and-other-horrors/723412/28 "2015-06-27T01:01:22Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > I was born closer to the end of WW2 than to today. I am now well over a billion seconds old. There are more transistors in my pocket than there were in the entire world at my birth. I was born in 1940. I’m not positive but I don’t think there were any transistors (in the modern sense) at that time. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2015, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/age-and-other-horrors/723412/29 "2015-06-27T03:18:55Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > Not a Pageant - Cabaret, old chum; life is a cabaret… Nah, it’s a **bucket** of chum. > [@Whatever4](#): > > …President Kennedy - I was in Freshman (high school) English… I was a sophomore in high school-- geometry class. > [@LouisB](#): > > I was born in 1940. I’m not positive but I don’t think there were any transistors (in the modern sense) at that time. It’s immensely comforting to me that I’m not the oldest person here. I used to post on a board where there was only one person older than me. Stay healthy, Old Dopers! The other day at the vet a guy came in with a big dog and a tiny dog and I looked at them and said, “Mutt and Jeff.” He didn’t know what I was talking about. ---
**Author:** ![movingfinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@movingfinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/movingfinger)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2015, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/age-and-other-horrors/723412/30 "2015-06-27T06:59:44Z")
When you go to your high school homecoming game and you look at the cheerleaders and wonder what their grandmothers look like naked …You’re old. Talking with a new client, I mentioned I moved down from West LA to the South Bay in 1965, He said, “I was born in 1964.” For some reason I felt like apologizing for not meeting his mother a few years before. ---
**Author:** ![Gretchion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8edcca/32.png) [@Gretchion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gretchion)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2015, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/age-and-other-horrors/723412/31 "2015-08-22T14:40:16Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > I wish someone would call me “old man,” so that I can reply “I’m 37. I’m not old.” I’ve got 9 months left… (maybe I should stop plucking those gray hairs). Well they can’t just call you “man”. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2015, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/age-and-other-horrors/723412/32 "2015-08-22T14:49:58Z")
> [@The Great Sun Jester](#): > > Piss on you! I just did the math and now I have to admit I was born closer to the end of WW1 than to today. Jesus, I can almost say I was born closer to the 18th Century than to today! Perspective sucks. That’s an age thing too, ain’t it. Wow, you are more than 160-some years old? ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2015, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/age-and-other-horrors/723412/33 "2015-08-22T16:24:37Z")
> [@LouisB](#): > > I was born in 1940. I’m not positive but I don’t think there were any transistors (in the modern sense) at that time. Quite true, though the first patent for a transistor-like device was taken out in the 20s, but Shockley’s work at Bell Labs was circa 1947, and the first commercial transistors were made in the early 50s. I am thus old enough to remember the modern miracle of transistor radios, small enough to hold in the palm of your hand and yet fully functional radios! They were rated according to the number of transistors inside, because those were by far the most expensive components. My first radio was a two-transistor job, and my next one proudly displayed the legend “8 Transistors”!! This computer has a couple of billion zillion of them in the video card alone, but I think they’re cheaper now. 😉 > [@eschereal](#): > > Wow, you are more than 160-some years old? He’s a teenage vampire. ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2015, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/age-and-other-horrors/723412/34 "2015-08-23T03:08:20Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > When I was 15, I saw _Jaws_ in the theater. > > Just a few years later, I was walking through Target, I think, and the horrifying JAWS: THE 30th ANNIVERSARY EDITION jumped out from behind a pillar and like to scared me to death. > > And today, I took my 15yo to _Jaws: The 40th Anniversary Showing_. > > Dear ghod, does it ever stop haunting you? No. I saw The English Beat in Daytona Beach at a free concert for Spring Break in 1984 or so. Heard on the radio that they’re playing at some end-of-summer event locally this week. And then I realized how long ago that Spring Break concert was. ☹ And to make it even better, the “new wave/college/alt rock/indie rock” club I spent a lot of time at as a teenager is having a reunion in a couple of weeks. A THIRTY YEAR reunion. I suppose having time go by beats the alternative. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2015, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/age-and-other-horrors/723412/35 "2015-08-23T03:16:35Z")
I was cheated out of the moon landing. My dad decided that would be the week to get a good campsite in the Hoh rainforest, because everyone else would be home watching the moon landing on TV. So I had to listen to it on the radio. The _transistor_ radio. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2015, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/age-and-other-horrors/723412/36 "2015-08-23T14:20:58Z")
I’m 55 years old and when I grow up, I want to be a principal or a caterpillar. I love you, Principal Skinner. And now, back to “Arthur.” ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2015, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/age-and-other-horrors/723412/37 "2015-08-23T14:34:01Z")
My high school foundation has a memorial page for each graduating class member who checked out. My class page is getting rather long. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2015, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/age-and-other-horrors/723412/38 "2015-08-23T15:24:09Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > I was cheated out of the moon landing. My dad decided that would be the week to get a good campsite in the Hoh rainforest, because everyone else would be home watching the moon landing on TV. So I had to listen to it on the radio. The _transistor_ radio. I was born on the day they took off for the moon. So maybe I saw the moon landing but I don’t remember. 😉 Aging sucks, yes. The big shock for me recently is looking in the mirror and seeing someone who looks like “that old guy”. It’s not me! ☹ ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2015, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/age-and-other-horrors/723412/39 "2015-08-23T15:35:21Z")
In just a few years, I will celebrate more 29th birthdays than all the others. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2015, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/age-and-other-horrors/723412/40 "2015-08-23T16:30:18Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > > [@The Great Sun Jester](#): > > > > Piss on you! I just did the math and now I have to admit I was born closer to the end of WW1 than to today. Jesus, I can almost say I was born closer to the 18th Century than to today! Perspective sucks. That’s an age thing too, ain’t it. > > Wow, you are more than 160-some years old? 18th Century is/was 1700-1799. From 12/31/1799 to today is ~215.7 years. As long as he’s over ~108 yo today, he’s in. Not sure where you got 160 from. I’m pretty sure he meant the 19th century, 1800-1899. From 12/31/1899 to today is ~115.7 years. And those of us older than ~58 can say they were born closer to then than now. I’m not there yet, but I’m getting close. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/age-and-other-horrors/723412.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/age-and-other-horrors/723412.md?page=3)