The Golden Years
Thought up: 10.2.03 – 5:00pm
Written: 10.2.03 - 5:01 pm
#22

When people say that they’re the happiest they’ve ever been, are they really being serious about it? Or is it something deeper in their psyche that’s telling them to “think” they are happier than ever. I think that it’s very possible that people aren’t truly happy with where they are in life, but they convince themselves that they are. I’m sure this isn’t what people want to hear, but I think it’s the truth.

For example, when people are in their sixties and seventies, they claim this time in their lives to be “The Golden Years!” What does that mean? Gold as in, super old, bones breaking down, body parts sagging a little more? Gravity is NOT your friend! It won’t make you look or feel any better at ANY time in your life! There’s a 97% chance that your teeth aren’t even your own. Odds are, they’re made out of some synthetic plastic or wood like ol’ George Washington! I’ve seen those people rolling around in the walkers and whatnot time and time again. The walker is not golden by any means, but it’s apparent that the person is having fun. I don’t see the correlation here.

I’ve been to my grandparents house a time or two, and don’t get me wrong, I love both sets a TON, but I’m sorry, they just don’t seem to have fun that often. I walk in to see Grampa taking his nap on the chair, asleep with the boxing match on. Meanwhile, Gramma is either reading a book, telling Grampa to stop snoring, or not there at all and at the bowling alley. Yes, bowling is a lovely time, but honestly. You could do that stuff when you’re 24 or 25 and not have to worry about the bowling ball ripping your arm off your shoulder or your back giving out when you bend over to toss the ball! I’ll roll in there and start up a conversation with Gramps, and it ALWAYS starts, and ends, the same way:

Gramps: “Oh, hi Andy! I didn’t even hear you come in! You woke me up!”

Andy: “Yea, Gramps, actually I’ve been watching this movie for about an hour and 1/2 … Could you keep it down, it’s almost done!”

Gramps: “Oh yea, don’t worry ab…. Zzz… z.z..z…”

—30 minutes later—

Gramps: “Oh, hi Andy! I didn’t even hear you come in! You woke me up! How have you been doing!”

Andy: “Oh, I’ve been alright!”

Gramps: “Good, good! How’s work?”

Andy: “It’s going alright, they pay me every two weeks whether I want it or not still!”

Gramps: “Well that’s good, that’s really good! I remember when… [Insert old comment here that is clearly MUCH tougher than whatever you’re currently doing.]

Andy: “Yea, that’s true Grampa, but that’s the way it goes… What have you been up to?”

Gramps: “Oh, not much, went to the cabin this past weekend. The creek is getting high again! But other than that, I’m just sitting around, waitin’ my turn.

Andy: “Lovely, lovely.”

Gramps: “Are you hungry? Have you eaten anything today? I think we have some leftover SPAM sandwiches in the fridge!”

Andy: “I’d love one!”

Gramps: “Zzzzzzzzzzzz.”

So basically, it’s not stunning conversation, but I love the man to death. He’s always been there for me. Maybe, just maybe the “Golden Years” really are meant for the other people that are hanging around. It’s golden to everyone else because they’re realizing that it won’t be super fun to get older. Perhaps being the older generation, they just chose the color gold to proclaim their lifestyle, because it was “hip” at the time because the record company hadn’t invented platinum yet. Oh, if old people knew about platinum, and other things more lucrative than gold such as:

1. Platinum (clearly)

2. Diamonds

3. Yahoo Stock in the early 90’s

4. Baseball cards

5. Beanie Babies

6. Alex Rodriguez married to Kevin Garnett

I can just picture an older couple sitting on a boat somewhere in the South Pacific, living out their traveling dreams of long ago, sitting back, and really living the life, spending their “Alex Rodriguez married to Kevin Garnett Years” together. Now THAT’S a fine lifestyle. Scratch the “Golden Years.”

I’m just sure that there are far better years in your life than the late 50’s and 60’s. I have really enjoyed my time thus far since graduating college a few years back. I’m very comfortable, have a good job, a nice place to live, good car, good health, and good friends. That, right there, one-ups the “Golden Years” people by one. Good health.

When you’re in college, hell, those years should have a name too. You learn a lot of neat things there, granted, an entire new story, but they’ve got to be able to get some credit in there. Perhaps they could be dubbed the “Silver Bullet Years.” For others in the institution of “higher” learning, it could be called the “Green Years.” While some chose the path of studying and furthering their scholastic education, the “Taped-Coke-Bottle-Glasses Years.” Many of my good friends come from that spectrum, lovely folks.

This ideology can further be dumped into the area of the work (huge tangent ahead, drive carefully). Many people are under the impression that they like their jobs. This is clearly not true. They stay at their jobs because they need the money to pay the mortgage, and to feed the kids, and to pay off the blackmailers (what, you don’t?). They say that they are perfectly comfortable with what they’re doing just to spare themselves the embarrassment of having to admit that they can’t find another job, and are not motivated enough to try!

It’s 100% a psyche thing, just like being old I think. If you admit to yourself that you had way more fun when you were in college, single, and had 1,000 friends around at all times, then it’s pretty pointless living your life anymore. But if you refer to your current lifestyle as the “Golden Years” then people can’t judge you. The younger generation can’t criticize you, because you’ve always got the comeback of, “wait till you get to be my age.” I’m still fairly young, and I’ve come to the conclusion that we’ve got it good now! I’d like to find myself a way to get into an old person’s head for a day or 2, just to check it out.

I’m sure they have some top-secret pact with other old people that they can’t divulge the secrets of oldness to the younger generation, or else it wouldn’t make them want to live anymore and pay for their social security! I’m on to you geriatrics! But hell, I guess there’s really nothing to worry about, because deep down, none of us really want to die. We want to grow old like our elders, and if we want to keep the checks coming each month, we have to keep the secret. Did I just figure this out on my own, and everyone else has just been keeping it from me this long?!? Ah well, either way, the secret has been spilled…

Or you’ll get a black eye and a concussion, and an elbow to the face

This guys face was pounded on the mat not by the old guys arms, but by his MIND BULLETS!!!!

I think it is safe to say that the rest of this guy night didn’t go so well (after the ass kicking).

I do want to point out that dude’s sweet Pink Panther shirt. There is probably only about 1% of the population that can pull off a shirt like that. Wish I had a shirt that cool.

Third World Prosperity… …Or So
Thought up: 11.8.03 – 10:04pm
Written: 11.11.03 - 5:47 pm
#24
This weekend I sat out on my front porch talking to one of my good friends about how we have it so good in this life. We’ve always got food on our tables, shelter from the elements, and taxes that are so fun to pay. There are a lot of people in this world that don’t have these amazing luxuries. There are people that can’t get a decent meal, and can’t have a roof overhead made from anything more than some bushes and leaves, and that’s not fair. I guess that’s why they have so many agencies that feed the hungry and the week in different areas of the world. I think these agencies are doing a very nice thing for people. It would be nice to see some of it actually pay off though.

I always see the downside to what has happened by nobody donating money, but clearly SOMEONE has to be giving money to these organizations, or else they’re not doing the job that they’re advertising! I don’t know how many years I’ve watched these ads on television, but NONE of them have ever shown me what happens when you DO actually donate to a kiddo. I mean, granted, you’re only giving up like $0.72 per day, but that will obviously help out the child to get nourishment. How about the celebrities of the world get together a group and hit the road collecting $ to save the children. I know there’re a lot of sick kids in the world, but there are also a lot of wealthy celebrities, and what better way to promote oneself than by helping children!

I’m gonna step out on my proverbial limb here and say that if everyone in the celebrity world, making a respectable amount of money ($100,000.00 or more) would give up 72 cents per day to help people around the world, we would all sleep a little better! They could even take it out per paycheck, much like the taxes and medical, and retirement and alimony, and student loans, and more taxes that come out of my check each month before I can even deposit the $24.63!

I know, I don’t make nearly the amount that some big name celebrities make, but I do alright I think. I’m pretty sure that with the $24.63 per month I could pay $21.60 ($0.72/day * 30 days in a month = $21.60) more to feed a lil’ guy that has nothing. I really enjoy top ramen, and I think I could live off it for a while. But this is where the downside comes in. If you START to donate to this because, you can’t quit. It’d be like just dumping a kid on the side of the road after a trip to the ice cream parlor and telling him to go find a new home. He’d have to go out on the market again searching for a new place to live. I can imagine my lil’ guy hanging out on some side street in a 3rd world country with a sandwich sign promoting that he’s back on the market for a donor. That’s just not very cool.

I’m fairly certain that it’d be better for both of us for me to find a better job. If I had a better job, I could help him out with that $21.60 without worries, and I could stop eating Top Ramen every day (Top Ramen in your body for 30 straight days has been proved to cause AIDS, so beware)! So, in all actuality, HE’D be the one helping ME out! So I think a BETTER way to attack this would be to to have a place in these 3rd world countries where kids could come to, (online, in books, whatever) where they could evaluate prospective sponsors. This would alleviate a lot of the hassle that goes into finding a child in an area that you want. The child would be the one selecting YOU! This way, I guarantee every child on earth would have a sponsor, and everyone would be $21.60 poorer, but it’s for a good because!

To make the process even more streamlined, the bill could come in the mail each month with the return address of the city sewage system or something. That way people would HAVE to pay it, because who wants their sewers backed up? Nope, not me! Kids would be happy, healthy, and warm all around the world, and sponsors would be glad to know that they’re really doing a worthwhile thing!

I’m sure, however, that there would be drawbacks. I would probably start to get really attached to my newly adopted child and want him to come to live with me in America once he was done sponsoring me, and forcing me into getting a better job, which would, in turn, get me a bigger house in which my buddy could come and live. Granted, once he came over to live with me, he’d have to get a job, but that’d be no problem since I had already paid for his schooling. But I assume this is the point where his family would get angry with me for taking their son away from them. They’d know that I was only trying to help, but would still want to be with their child. I’d receive several weeks, and possibly months of hate mail before they realized that it might be a fun adventure for the lil’ fella to come and live with me. He’d get a job at my firm, and we’d become successful business partners. I’d show him around the city, introduce him to all of my friends, and show him how to untwist Oreos.

Now, I’m not sure how long he’ll live with me. I imagine for the first few years he’s here, at least. Who knows, maybe I’d even get married and he’d still be hanging out at my house, but that’s no big deal. The Missus and I wouldn’t care, “he’s family.” I’d say, and that’d be that. Until I’m sure he’d want to bring his parents over to the house to live because they lived in a bad part of the world, and I’m not one to go against family, so I’d agree with him, and his entire family would come to live in the house.

I’m certain that I could have a really good time with them all. We have a lot of picnics and barbeques and whatnot. We’d play lawn darts, croquet, and Frisbee a lot. However, as wives often times are, she’d get fed up with my friends, and eventually give me the ultimatum: they go or I go! I assume I’d miss her a lot, but that’s the way it goes. I mean, it’s not like she’s blood or something like my son - and his mother and father and brothers and sisters from some far off foreign land!

I can’t say that I can find a downside to this except for the fact that I’ve got a fairly soft heart. I’d probably start whining a lot to my new family, and they’d eventually get sick of hearing me sob like a helpless boob. I’d likely call in sick to work one too many times and the boss man would tell me to take a hike. I’d be out of a job, a wife, and my new son would have to take care of me for a while, as I’d likely be on a drunken binge.

He’d send me to alcohol counseling, and I’d run off because I couldn’t cut it there, and I’d find myself running around the nation working odd jobs to pay for my drinking, writing back to my boy and his family in my house from time to time, and city to city until eventually I’d find myself in Central America broke as a joke. I’d wake up one day, and look at the beard on my face, the holes in my shoes, and the dirt on my clothes and think how I got where I was. It would all be that way because I was being nice to someone; someone in a third-world country that didn’t have anything to eat or anywhere to sleep, much like myself, who would, in turn, get on the same plan and find myself a sponsor.

Boy would that sponsor be surprised when he’d find out that I wasn’t really a starving 9 year old in Nicaragua! But I wouldn’t tell him until he bought me a plane ticket back to America (I know, it’d take a year or 2, but we’re fast-forwarding) and then when he’d come to pick me up from the airport, to avoid embarrassment, I’d dress up like a cow and leisurely walk out of the airport… “Moo,” I’d say a time or 2 to avoid uncloaking…

This is sweeter than an IPOD.  I mean, check out those sweet graphics.  You can get all of your 1981 work done in NO time with a collar neck!

How to love and where to love are going to be left to the audience.

Now those dudes NEVER saw “the planes, the planes” that were flying, except ol’ Mike - and the guy in the back is pretty decent with a bottle…
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