Getting old is NOT for sissies, I’ll be 75 in December…
You can tell when the weather is going to change, you’re expected to be grumpy (I LIKE that) and you’re not embarrassed to take an old gun to the range…
Sitting here thinking last night I remembered back-
I remember Sputnik- My mother told me years later I begged Daddy to take me outside so I could see it go over… (Not) Today you can watch the ISS every night, and most people don’t even think about it.
I remember my first gun at age 8- A Savage Sure Shot single shot .22 (still go it)
My first knife- It was a Case Peanut, when I went out to my uncle’s place, he gave me a Sowbelly, said I’d need all the blades on it. And carrying those knives through high school. (Now days that would be expulsion at best)
My first rifle- A model 94 in 30-30 (still got that one too)
Pistols- Colt revolvers and Colt 1911s (being in the South, most officers and veterans had Colts)
B&W TV with 3 channels, and it was only on 12 hours a day
Veterans- WWI, WWII and Korea. Just everyday people, the mailman, the grocer, the little league coach, the deputy sheriff and many others. They all got dressed up and marched in the Veteran’s Day parade, even in a small town, but they never considered themselves special.
My grandfathers- What they taught me, by word and deed. Honesty, responsibility and integrity
President Kennedy being shot.
My first car- $300 for a Corvair Spyder, from mowing yards. (I was 14). Learning how to maintain and work on cars (actually started that at age 10 with Grandpa)
Cars you could actually recognize by sight AND sound (Ford V-8 vs. Chevy V-8 vs. Dodge V-8)
My first ‘paid’ job, shovelling crap for a veterinarian for $1/hr… Made the point that I was going to get an education… (at 14)
Playing sports, hunting, some fishing growing up. Learning about Buck gates, how to blood track, what a flyway was…
Going to school with either a rifle or shotgun in the car/truck and a pistol under the seat (And not even locking the car/truck)
Family reunions, real letters, my grandmother still being on a party line.
Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, everyone glued to the TV for the launches and recoveries. Watching the moon landing in a bar on the Via Veneto in Rome, walking back to the Pensione we were staying in at 0400 in the morning and every place that had a TV had it on and facing the street, with people around all of them. Random people shaking our hands and congratulating us as Americans.
Vietnam, ‘my’ first war. Wondering if I was going to be drafted, going in the Navy.
Learning FORTRAN and programming on an IBM 1190 punchcard machine.
The first space stations, Skylab, Mir, the first shuttle launch. Skipping forward to my Navy days, Challenger and the flight hours searching in vain for the capsule.
Calculators- Buying one for over $200 dollars to make doing my job easier.
My first computer- An IBM XT, single floppy, 640k of memory. Building my first computer- Spent something like $3200 buying hardware in the mid-80s from the suppliers in Silicon Valley (It was an early 386). Kept that monster in to the 90s. AOL (spit), had to cancel a credit card to keep them from continuing to charge me after I cancelled my account…
Two daughters and now three grandkids
So many other things… I’m not rich, never will be, but you know what?
I wouldn’t change a damn thing…
76 here.
The year I was born Joe Dimaggio drove in over 100 runs for the last time, there were no facemasks in the NFL, there was no rock and roll, there were still several Civil War vets alive. Oh great. Now I feel even older.
Older still. Played football in a leather helmet.
Frankensteined AT-286 for me. NEC Multi-Sync II monitor, dot-matrix printer. All for mere price of $2850 iirc. Ran at 12,but Lightning sped it up to 14, lol. That was in 1988 or thereabouts.
Thanks for the old recollections. 1st knife for me was a two blade Imperial pen that is still around somewhere. Yeah, taking a knife to school wasn’t a thing. Now get frog walked by authorities and taken to counseling. :^(
Yep, pretty much the same. I think our birthdays are about a week apart, in 1951
Wow, huh?
Seems to me you are wealthy, with that history. Salute.
I am 7 months younger than you, J.L. Most of my memories parallel yours.
Is this just a bunch of old farts here?
Nah. I’m an early 70s model. First international event memory was Camp David and the Iran Hostage Crisis, first domestic was the Bicentennial and the Tornado of ’75. Remember the early 1980s ag crisis in the Midwest a little too clearly.
Eh,you got me beat by over a decade but I also loved and reconize the roar of old American iron and still play with 4×4 toys of the 80′-70’s.
Hey Old NFO,
Very storied history my friend.
You got me beat by about 10 or so years . You are always ramblin around and doin cool stuff though with lots of cool stuff behind you in the past . You are no where near ready to have me pipe you “over the side” , although I would consider it an honor to do so Sir ! “Ramble On” – Now I’m going to have that Led Zep song stuck in my head all day .
I’ve got you beat by a bit over a decade… but mostly the same sorts of memories, though I grew up mostly in what was then rural Connecticut.
First McDonalds in the State… !
My uncles coming home in ’46, one from the Pacific, one from Europe…
so many. And so many people…
Old NFO – you are barely 4 months my senior, so the parallels are pretty much 100%, and yeah, would not change a darned thing.
In fact am doing my best to inculcate the system into the grands while prodding my own “kids” to become even more self sufficient, seeing as I will likely not be around in 10 or so years to aid or give instructions. They are capable but there appears to be a streak of “afraid to start” when tackling something new with post boomers. Once engaged, they do get it done with the related learning curve. And a very happy Birthday this December, 3/4 of a century is nothing to sneeze at (well, maybe there is some of that involved given all the bugs).
Bravo zulu. Carry on.
I enjoyed that! You’re about 10 years senior to me, so I missed the Southeast Asia Games and got to that part of the world during the Cold War, on the dedicated close-in escort (170 deg. relative, 2,000 yards) for USS RANGER. My first computer was a Commodore 64, with the 5-1/4″ single-sided disk drive! One guy on board had the “portable” version of the Commie 64 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_SX-64).
Thanks for a fun read!
73 here. I guess it was Sputnik. Dad laid a blanket out on the front yard and we watched a satellite pass over Ulysses from south to north. Not sure of the year but we moved to a new house in 61.
Sigh… Yeah, we’re old… And we’re paying for all the fun we had growing up! And yes, inculcating the kids/grands with the same honesty, responsibility and integrity that I was taught. So far, it seems to be working.
As with Ian above, I’m almost a decade earlier (turn 84 a day before Halloween) but share a lot of the same experiences. All of my grands are girls (haven’t decided if that’s a blessing or a curse but leaning towards blessing) and have still been able to pass on my love of shooting.
We are privileged to live in a country that can generate such memories, I just hope our children can keep it that way.
I’m one year younger..
I remember
B&W TV with 3 channels, and it was only on 12 hours a day — signed off with the National Anthem. And UHF channel that didn’t do anything unless you lived in the right area.
President Kennedy being shot. Definitely remember that.
My husband loved Corvairs. I don’t know how old he was when he started working on cars.
“Cars you could actually recognize by sight AND sound (Ford V-8 vs. Chevy V-8 vs. Dodge V-8)” — Cars that you could actually learn and work on were a blessing.
“Going to school with either a rifle or shotgun in the car/truck and a pistol under the seat (And not even locking the car/truck)” — I didn’t see it so much in Michigan, though there were a few; but my husband was intimately familiar, being a Louisiana boy. 🙂
“Learning FORTRAN and programming on an IBM 1190 punchcard machine.” — I tended toward the easier Commodore computers when they became “affordable”. Never did pick up the programming. I do remember a punchcard machine when I was stationed at Eielson in the late 70s..
My favorite was the “portable” SX-64 also. Was my entertainment when I was stationed at Osan. Loved it, but it was a heavy portable.
I don’t remember the first McDonalds, but I remember watching the sign to see how many thousands had been sold. And gas for 25c or so a gallon when my dad would stop at the gas station.
Enjoyed the memories. God bless.
Flugelman- And we built on what you did in ASW!
Linda- I do, and it’s a blessing I’m still here!!!
“Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, everyone glued to the TV for the launches and recoveries.”
Being not much younger than you, I also grew up with these astronauts as heroes.
Some many, many decades later (2010s), I happened to be at NASA and was introduced to an astronaut; can’t recall his name. I guess I didn’t have the response expected but astronaut to me these days is a highly trained pilot doing a specific job in a craft with (most) of the bugs worked out; not like the earliest ones where they didn’t know if they’d even get off the launch pad alive (Apollo 1: Grissom, White, and Chaffee) or even Challenger (political accident) or Columbia (an EPA accident).
I’m almost half your age. Hope to be as storied by the time I catch up to you!
Tom- Sigh… yep, times have changed…
Narazza- I ‘hope’ without all the damage to the body!!!
Born 17 October 1950 — we must be close in dates about 1 year apart. I think life is getting better and hope to get a few more years behind me. I rather enjoy the perspective from here, and I hope you do too.
Libertyman- Beats the hell out of the options… just sayin…
Wow! I’m in good company here. Be 80 next month. First car was a 1938 Olds 4 door sedan with 34,000 miles. Paid $200.00. Previous owner bought a new Nash Rambler and two weeks later wanted to trade back, even up, new car knocked his hat off when he got in. Saw Telstar and Sputnik. Enlisted in the Army January 1964, one year later I was in Vietnam as an advisor. Was in Calif for Haight-Ashbury. Watched moon landing while working at the police department. Saw Watts riots, rode motorcycles and raced snow mobiles. Had 3 Corvairs at once and loved the sound of ’em. Started shooting with a J.C. Higgins 22 pistol from Sears that my dad had and a Remington single shot my grandfather gave me when I was 10 yo. First computer was a Timex-Sinclair ZX-1000, Z-80 processor and 1k (One K!) RAM, Basic only, no disk, no monitor, hooked to TV ;). At my father’s store I hung out with a Texas Ranger who had been down on the border in the 1890-1900 and a Canadian Mountie of the same generation, trading knives and drinking Dr. Pepper.