I felt old yesterday when a guy one year older than me announced his retirement.
… when the grocery store box boys go from being dreamy older men to young kids.
… when you freckle instead of tan. 
… when you try to explain the 8-track tape player in your car to a kid. 
Go here:
And read the comments about the last two albums in the list, 14 and 15.
Then come back here and join me in signing up for AARP. Or shooting ourselves, haven’t decided which.
stoid
People start offering you “senior discounts.”
You start asking for them.
You remember the words to “Runaway” and you hate the cover that Roy Orbison did of it.
Tris
“Everyone says they don’t want to get old, but ya don’t see 'em dying, now do ya?” ~ Herman Semple ~
I was half-awake the other day, listening to the radio. I caught myself thinking “Yeah, some of this new stuff is pretty good.”
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It was a song by The Cars, circa 1980.
Hey Arden Ranger, got you beat. I’m old enough to be the mother of most of my college classmates! Thank goodness we have and almost 4 yaer old who helps keep the old joints moving or I’d feel even older. I remember glass milk bottles, with lots of cream on top. You use to shake up the bottle to mix it with the skimmed milk. There were paper tops that had pictures of things like presidents, or animals to collect.
Now that Pepper’s posted, I guess I’ll have to.
I’m so old that:
– I watched The Twilight Zone episodes when they were brand new. The ones with Rod Serling.
–The centerfolds in Playboy are all born when I was in my first grad school. (I’ll really feel old when they were born when I was in my second grad school).
– I used a slide rule for my first two years in college.
– I was in the last generation of Altar Boys that memorized the Mass in Latin
– I remember milk in glass bottles, too – delivered to your porch milkbox early in the morning. And I remember waxed cardboard milk cartons before they had “easy-pour” spouts.
– I still remember “party lines” on telephones, and push-button dialing was an exciting new thing. And our telephone exchange began with a word (“Clifford 7” instead of “257”).
– I rode bicycles *before[/] they had “banana seats”.
- Catholics couldn’t eat meat on Fridays, and had to fast three hours before communion.
– When I went to the grand opening of a new business they gave away, as souvenirs, pieces of cut of computer tape, because it was so new.
– I went to the 1964-65 World’s Fair
– I went to Palisades Amusement Park
(“Ride the Coaster
Get cool
in the waves
in the pool
you’ll have fun
so
come
on
over!”)
– I went to Freedomland (An amusement park inside New York City. It was literally physically bigger than Disneyland. It went broke about the ime the nearb World’s Fair opened.)
…when Alabama had THE best football team AND the best coach, ever. (sigh)
…when your daughter asks you if they had TV when you were a child. Well, yeah, they did, but only black and white, honey. Then she asks, what is black and white?
…you went to drive-ins before they all got torn down, and now are making a semi-comeback.
…you remember thinking that punk rock was a phase, rap would never make it big, and break dancing was something all your friends could do.
…gas was about 49 or 50 cents a gallon.
…you threw a fit when cigarettes went up to 55 cents a pack.
…you remember exactly what you were doing when RFK was assassinated.
…cell phones weighed about ten pounds and only the very wealthy could afford them.
…beepers cost more than your electric bill.
…you tell your oldest son that you really like that new group <insert name here> and he says, Mom, they’ve been around about twelve years now and they suck.
…you tell people you’ve seen Lynyrd Skynyrd seven times in concert. All before Ronnie Van Zant died.
…you saw some obscure group called Van Halen open for Kiss.
…your kids go crazy over this great new song they heard on the radio, and it’s “One” by Three Dog Night.
…you think you’ve really partied your brains out if you stay out past eleven.
…somebody mentions a fashion style that is totally obsolete and you realize you wore it the previous week.
…Levi’s were the coolest jeans ever. And Calvin Kleins were only worn by people that had gobs of money.
…you prefer going home to have a drink and relaxing as opposed to doing anything else.
…you look at the driver next to you and say, What is that child doing driving that car?? And your son says, Mom, he’s 24 and teaches at my school.
…you think 24 year olds shouldn’t be allowed to teach school. How can they possibly know anything?
…someone says, Oh that happened way back in the '60’s, and you think, Why are they saying “way back”?
…your 20th high school reunion was several years ago.
Man…what have we become??? Our PARENTS???
When a band that you had loved in high school-in my case Duran Duran-is on ** Behind the Music. **
When you see the same fashions you wore then making a comeback.
You’re walking with your dad, someone calls out “Mr Est!”, and you both turn and look.
You try to tell a story and any member of your immediate family can finish it word for word.
I wish I could remember who wrote it (maybe Calvin Trillin?), but one of my favorite little stories is of a guy recalling the first time he was called “Mister.” He was 17 and working in a hardware store. One day he was busy stocking merchandise and this little kid started saying, “Hey, Mister!” The repetitions didn’t even register until he felt a small tug on his apron.
He was a Mister.
Teenagers now see cars from the 1980s – K-cars, boxy Chevrolet Impalas, somewhat boxy Honda Accords – in the same context as I saw 1960s era muscle cars when I was in high school.
Kids own cars as soon as they get their driver’s license – and they’re usually late model automobiles, too. In my day, you drove your parents’ car until you could afford a junker of your own.
Kids now have their own cellphones. In the 1970s, we had one telephone. Black. Dial. Manufactured by Western Electric. Hardwired into the wall. If you had a green or red phone, it was something special. Two phones, and you were flaunting it.
Our parents worked for the electric or gas utility, “the city,” “at the plant,” as teachers, or in middle management. Their parents “offer business solutions to Global 500 corporations.”