When I was younger, I used the following “handy cheat sheet”:
WWII veterans were old men, in their 60s
Korean veterans were relatively old men, in their 50s
Vietnam vets were “adults”, late 30s, maybe just approaching middle age.
Gave me a handy reference sheet when I’d hear of a veteran of a certain war, or if Knew how old someone was (by fact or by looks) I could imagine they were the same age as someone who fought in a given war.
Problem with that is that in the 20 years since that served me well, I never bothered updating it, that system is now ingrained in my mind. So when I see an ad for $#! My Dad Says* and Shatner’s character, who I know is to be in his 70s, mentions in the clip that he’s a Vietnam vet, I think to myself: "Now that’s just wrong! He’s in his 70s! No way he’s a Vietnam vet! He’s gotta be from World War Tw … … :smack:
… you talk about what you did for Y2K, and your kids don’t even remember it. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s past Matlock Hour and I just drank a whole glass of Metamucil, I need to get going.
And has never known his or her country at peacetime. In fact, there is a very good chance s/he will reach voting age without having ever known a minute of peace. Beyond that, all bets are off.
Excuse me, I think I will go off in the corner to cry now. Anyone else going with me?
First time this feeling hit me was around the time the US was set to invade Iraq, I was talking with a coworker about the last Gulf War, and how it seemed different – I wasn’t seeing so many large military vehicles in desert camouflage on the streets and on flatbed rail cars going to and fro. His response: “I don’t really remember, I was in elementary school at the time.” And of course, that was something like seven years ago now.
I had the realisation the other day that the girls I knew who got pregnant at school could very well be grandmothers by now, if their kids had followed their examples and procreated young. That was depressing.
I new I was growing up when I could understand what the Professor on “Gilligan’s Island” was saying. I knew I was really old, when I started noticing how good looking Mrs Howell was
A couple of months ago I was out with a woman – who had a few wrinkles, mind you – who I realized was closer in age to 3 of my 4 nieces than to me. And she said that she felt old when she had to explain 9/11 to her college students. After all, they were just kids at the time.
These sorts of things always make more of an impression on me when there’s a comparison:
Jimi would be as old now as Barbra Streisand and Harrison Ford.
Jim and Janis would be as old now as Christopher Walken and Robert De Niro.
Elvis would be as old now as Woody Allen and Donald Sutherland.
For me, it was the realization that if I forgot my reading glasses at home or in the car, I am basically fucked. I can’t see the price of anything without my glasses. I am barely able to navigate debt transactions due to the familiar layout of the machines.
Thing is, I can see perfectly fine without the glasses, except for up-close reading. You have no idea how many times I’ve walked into stores and had to turn around and go back to the car to get my goggles. Damn.
As of about two years ago, I can no longer read my *OED without assistance.
I can still read my Merriam-Webster so long as there’s sufficient lighting, but I suspect that that ability will be gone in another year or two.
*It’s the two-volume set in really, really tiny print, as it is condensed from 14 volumes in regular.
I first noticed my eyesight diminishing about 8 years ago, when I was noticing that the newspaper pasted on the wall a foot in front of me wasn’t as clear as I thought it should be.
