How Old is ‘Old’?

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

Image result for images of ramesses ii

On more than one occasion, I’ve been insulted by liberals on account of my age. As in, “You still don’t get it, do you, grandpa?” as a clever way of putting down to creeping senility my opposition to one or the other of their creepy social engineering projects. If I were only young and vibrant–and ignorant–I would naturally embrace the wisdom of socialism, gender-bending, or whatever.

I saw a movie last night in which a man, the victim of a reputation-destroying lie, was described even by his loving family as “old” and all but ready for the glue factory–at 68! Like, someone that old, it’s not even worthwhile to rescue his good name: he might pop off 15 minutes later. And the actor who played him looked only a little livelier than the mummy of Ramesses II (pictured above).

Sixty-eight years old… Wait a minute! I’m 68! Doh!

Oh, you mean “68 years young“! Is there a smarmier or more condescending expression in any language in the world? And meanwhile, how did the word “older” come to mean “less old”? How is that a euphemism for “old”?

Well, lemme tell ya somethin’ about “old.”

If you’re 68 instead of 38, it means you can remember better times and better people than a 38-year-old will ever know–although he’s in better shape than a 28-year-old, and much better off than an 18-year-old. It means you have seen better ways of doing things than are done now, and you know what they look like and remember how to do them. It means you know, for a fact, that we don’t have to live like sock puppets. You’ve even seen some worse things, and you know what should be avoided.

A doctor said to me, a year or so ago, “You ride your bike no-handed. What more do you want?” I rest my case.

 

 

12 comments on “How Old is ‘Old’?”

    1. As some readers of this blog may remember, I already had my fall, and it was a doozy. February of 2016. I still can’t believe I got injured so badly, just falling down with my bike. As a boy I must’ve fallen a hundred times, at least, and never had more to show for it than just a bump or scrape.

  3. I am 84, and if the physical problems would go away, I would not be a day older than 34. The memory is getting rusty in some areas, but hey, they were probably not that important anyway. When something important needs to be remembered, I just ask the Holy Spirit. He has every answer instantly.

    Reply

    1. The only disadvantage of age is a result of our fallen state. Looking back at my life I have gained so much from experience that I wouldn’t go back to my youth for anything.

    3. Erlene, my dad always said (before computers lol) that I had a rolodex in my head and all I had to do was flip to the information or answer. As I’ve gotten older – pushing 70 – I’ve found the rolodex to be a bit slower. I attribute that to many years of information gathering. There’s so much more clutter to wade through to get to the information we’re looking for 🙂

    4. I think that is a very important point. As we have more and more experiences, our minds become ever more cluttered and it becomes a challenge to keep it all indexed, even if we haven’t actually forgotten.

    5. 🙂 Thanks, Unknowable. I do believe you’re right (and so was my dad).

    6. I forgot what we were talking about. 🙂

      Actually, I am astounded by the things I am able to remember. A few years ago, I was thinking about an old friend from my high school days and suddenly the phone number of his parent’s home came to mind. I probably hadn’t dialed that neither in well over 40 years, but it was still in my memory, just waiting to be triggered when I thought about my old friend.

      It seems that if I remember some person, place, or even song, and toss that memory around in my mind for a bit, I will open up a number of related memories as well and soon my mind will be flooded with details which hadn’t been consciously considered in decades.

      It’s all still upstairs folks, in the mental Rolodex God gave us.

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