# Ways You've Felt Old Recently **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 2, 2023, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ways-youve-felt-old-recently/986436 "2023-07-02T05:00:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Tzigone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Tzigone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tzigone)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2023, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ways-youve-felt-old-recently/986436/122 "2023-07-14T02:08:33Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Sorry, this is a bit of a hijack. I probably should take my ranting and puzzlement elsewhere. Well, you can add this sort of talk to things that make you sound old, at least. You talk about all the things the you know about your parents’ and grandparents’ generations, but are oblivious to all the thing you never bothered to learn about those times, and it’s likely at least one older person thought you are ridiculously ignorant as you think so many young people today. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2023, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ways-youve-felt-old-recently/986436/123 "2023-07-15T03:33:08Z")
I was tall for my age (never got taller than 5’5, but I was 5’3 at age 12, and had a 34" bust, no I am not kidding. I started wearing a bra when I was 11. I also had a long face and high cheekbones, which I’d had since I was about 3, but there you are. Couldn’t get the child’s price at the movies until I started bringing the only form of ID I had-- my passport. My son is very tall, and the last time I flew with him, had just a little stubble growing on his face. He was only 14, and maybe 5’9, but at his teacher’s recommendation, I paid $7 for a state ID. It’s a catch-22. You don’t need an ID to fly until you are 18, but if you look 18 (or a TSA thinks you do), and you don’t have an ID, it doesn’t matter much that you are actually 14. Good thing I had the ID. Only got challenged once, out of 8 possible points, but it was so much nicer to whip out the ID and be done with it, than have to wait, argue, etc., etc. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2023, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ways-youve-felt-old-recently/986436/124 "2023-07-15T03:40:06Z")
I got used to that as a teenager. My friends were going to see _16 Candles_, or some crap, and I was at the art house watching the 1942 version of _To Be or Not to Be_ (my all-time favorite movie). Or maybe something even older-- maybe Cary Grant & Irene Dunne in _My Favorite Wife_, or even Lillian & Dorothy Gish in _Orphans of the Storm_. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2023, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ways-youve-felt-old-recently/986436/125 "2023-07-15T03:47:49Z")
I saw _Orphans of the Storm_ here in Kansas, at the annual Silent Film Festival here in Topeka. Did you ever see _Broken Blossoms_? That movie tore me up, Talk about a depressing ending. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2023, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ways-youve-felt-old-recently/986436/126 "2023-07-15T03:58:54Z")
The ending of the original story _Broken Blossoms_ is based on is _even more depressing_ (and unfortunately titled “The Chink and the Child,” but you will find it in a book called _Limehouse Nights_; quite fascinating-- reads like a bad translation of something very good in the original, which is probably due to the author being a fan of hasty translations of Chinese literature into English dime-novels). There’s a story, and Lillian Gish told it a few times, but so did DW Griffith’s favorite cameraman, Billy Bitzer, that after filming the closet scene, which Gish did in one take, Griffith was in tears, and said to Gish “My God, I didn’t know you were going to do it like **that**!” I love that movie, and have seen it more than once-- and was fortunate to have seen it at the correct speed every time, the first time on screen at 16mm, with live piano accompaniment. Only sadder film I know of is _Penny Serenade_, which I saw once around 1984, and have never been able to watch again. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2023, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ways-youve-felt-old-recently/986436/127 "2023-07-15T04:50:41Z")
Since Gish’s character was supposed to be fourteen or so, she asked Grittith why not get a younger actress. I think she was around twenty five at the time. He is said to have replied that what he was going to put her through a younger person wouldn’t be able to take. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2023, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ways-youve-felt-old-recently/986436/128 "2023-07-15T08:56:30Z")
The character is explicitly 12 in the source material, but Griffith made her older in the film-- I don’ think her exact age is stated, but I’ve seen sources that give it as 14, although 16 is more common, and just “teenaged” pops up as well. Given marriage laws and ages of consent in 1919 when the film was made, the effort to make the leading man’s character less creepy is clear, and probably worked for audiences at the time. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ways-youve-felt-old-recently/986436.md?page=6)