To all of my friends 50 years old and up… most of us are going through the next phase of our lives. We’re at that age where we see wrinkles, gray hair, and extra pounds. We have run households, paid the bills, dealt with sickness, sadness, and everything else life has assigned us. We are survivors… we are warriors in the quiet… we are men and women…like a classic car or a fine wine. Even if our bodies may not be what they once were, they carry our souls, our courage, and our strength. We shall all enter this chapter of our lives with humility, grace, and pride over everything we have been through, and we should never feel bad about getting older. It’s a privilege that is denied to so many.
While the young point and laugh, snickering about how ‘dumb’ we are, they don’t realize most of the ‘technologies’ they enjoy today were developed or improved by us. And many of us stood proudly in the line of patriots that have defended this country for over 246 years.
They also don’t realize how good they have it, both in the freedoms they enjoy, and the bounty of America, yet they continue to run both the country and us down.
I pity them…
Well said (from the vantage point of 80 winters). I pity them — but I also worry about what they are going to have…
We allowed the commie left to take control of the Media, Education and every other important social construct. We have no one to blame for what America is facing but ourselves. The commies TOLD US explicitly what they were going to do….and have been telling us since at least the 50’s. America owes Joe McCarthy an apology.
Spot on.
One should not lump “the young” into a mass anymore than any other group (including “us”). All of this was happening around us as we “defended this country”.
A portion of the young are just as patriotic as we are; and a number of “us” are still leftist numbskulls. I count myself privileged to know some of the former and actively avoid the latter group when they make themselves known.
My kids are having no part of it.
Neither do mine. But my kids are pretty hard core Trump base.
Mine either. You get what you raise. Raising good kids is hard work, something that most of the last 2-3 generations don’t seem to care much for. So we get some good kids and a lot of ungood ones.
It’s going to be an unpleasant retirement.
Agreed. I know a number of great young people.
Don’t forget that the media highlights those they like and hides those they don’t like.
Reality is much better than it appears.
+1
The young progs out there should keep in mind that a life sentence really doesn’t look that bad to us old pharts. I need to get one of these shirts–
https://www.medalsofamerica.com/never-underestimate-dd-214-t-shirt
Damn right, sir.
When Covid started I had a student who actually said that maybe Covid would kill off all the old people and then the young ones left could fix everything we’d screwed up. Sigh.
The hubris of youth.
I had that once.
Love long enough, pay attention and you can grow out of it
Just had my 77th birthday this past week, and this past week we lost another classmate of our high school graduating class of 62 people, lots of them gone now and two days ago I had an older cousin pass away. My thinking is those fine women no longer have to worry about the current situation because they are set for eternity, life happens and we don’t get out alive. A real fine shooting buddy of mine passed away a few years ago, he was in his 90’s and he reached a point where he no longer wanted to talk about current issues and politics, he would say “I don’t care, I don’t give a shit, tell me about your life and family and stuff that matters.” I think there was some old man wisdom with him.
All- Understood that there ARE both good and bad on both sides of the age equation… Thanks for the comments!!!
NOT ALL. And thank GOD for that fact.
Attended a reunion of former fellow employees last month. One, a “Pave Low” helicopter pilot had just returned from Ft. Bragg where his son was just awarded his Green Beret.
His buttons were bursting. And it gave me hope that all is NOT lost.
We could be Ukraine soon… or some third-world Central America piece of garbage.
Let’s hope this core bunch of patriotic kids are strong enough to weather the coming storm.
Hey Old NFO;
Freeholder was on to something, a lot of people let the state and TV raise their kids rather than do the job themselves. so we have a bunch of kids that have mush for morals and crap for independent thought.
GB- Good point!
Bob- Sigh… Yes.
ah me, the son-in-law, a good husband, still has the Bernie sticker on his pickup tailgate…
My daughter OTOH has homeschooled grandson(12) and grand daughter(16 OMG), has stocks of food, water, silver, and other necessities, AND is holding on the farm-away-from home.
My hat is off to those of you old fucks that didn’t dump the current mess on us. Were you guys the majority I can only imagine where we’d be.. Probably living some popular mechanics level bit of utopia.
That said, you’ve always got a place around my fire as the world burns.
Well said!
Excellent, I share these same thoughts. Thanks once again for another reminder.
Grace and dignity? Mebbe some days…
Most of the time, it’s more of this, courtesy of Big Country Expat
(keyboard alert):
https://i.imgur.com/xhMzaFs.jpg
Darn it. No one told me I needed bagpipes.