| Pages:
1
2
3 |
Udo
Elite Nomad
Posts: 6343
Registered: 4-26-2008
Location: Black Hills, SD/Ensenada/San Felipe
Member Is Offline
Mood: TEQUILA!
|
|
Your maladies, George, are just related to maturity. As to myself, I got hit with a cold bug that has been going around BA for a few weeks. I still
have a little of it left, but I'm getting stronger every day.
It's just my first cold in over 14 years...I am very careful when I know someone else has one. The key here is when I know. I did not know about the
bug going around town until about a week after I got it. My vitamin supplement is quite a regiment...and I left it all home this trip!
Udo
Youth is wasted on the young!
|
|
|
Osprey
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3694
Registered: 5-23-2004
Location: Baja Ca. Sur
Member Is Offline
|
|
I'm supposed to be the wordsmith but I wouldn't hook me up any way, any how with the concept of Maturity. Ask anyone around these parts. I'll forgive
you Udo cause I know you mean that my infirmities are old.
|
|
|
Osprey
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3694
Registered: 5-23-2004
Location: Baja Ca. Sur
Member Is Offline
|
|
Might be a good time to reprise my little piece on Getting Old.
Olding
Through The Learning Channel, Discovery and National Geographic I stay in touch with the world. So much to see and be amazed by. Recently I learned
that early man had very short life spans -- Cro-Magnon, Neanderthal both about 40 years on average. I’ve known for a while the sad statistics of the
short life expectancy of people in countries like Niger (29) or Uganda (33) and others ravaged by drought, disease, war.
I live in Mexico. Life expectancy here, for a man, is 68.42. I turned 73 years old in October. I’ve already beat the curve for a lot of countries.
Now that I have, I begin to feel another kind of sympathy for those who die young, before their time --- whatever the hell that means.
When I was a young man, I did youthful, energetic things. Now I can wallow in the sloth of old age, do all the things old people are famous for. I
shall always consider myself lucky to have lived long enough to reach this age, live in this way.
Those unlucky souls who died while still very young, who were simply worn out, worn down by the conditions under which they lived and labored could
only have their youth to remember. I give them no dishonor when I speculate that a man of 35 years, living in a country where his life expectancy is
age 40, does not consider himself old by my standards. He will die before he can look old, feel old, be old. That’s the sad part.
He will never feel the pleasure of the complaint. His ills and ailments will never become his welcome bedmates, his friends and constant companions.
This man can never know the satisfaction of being the victim of time, the joy of grousing about how ageing gnaws away at the body and the mind.
It is not possible for a young man to fully appreciate the satisfaction in scolding, chiding, advising a 50 year old son or daughter -- a special
kind of fulfillment found in sharing one’s hard-won wisdom with the foolish, wrong-headed youngster. One of life’s precious secrets, learned at the
age of 25 is no more than a fuzzy footnote to the sum and substance that man would take to the grave if he died a mere 15 years later.
The same secret, about women, politics, the human condition, carried about, polished, cleaned, tuned for 60 years, takes on the importance, the
majesty of The Rosetta Stone, Hammurabi’s book of laws.
What of serious dialectic, discussion, argument? The young-old man has only children to talk with, to lecture to. A man of 80 or more years can and
will argue with anyone who has ears, vocal chords, a tongue and soft palate, lips. His most eloquent pronouncements are soliloquies -- what we
sometimes hear as mutterings, gibberish, are actually arguments won and lost with the master of the argument, the old man himself.
I’m coming of age myself. Last year I took some visitors, friends and family from the states, fishing in my little boat. We saw some marlin that
wouldn’t bite, caught two small tuna. Rays were jumping everywhere. One of the youngsters asked me why the manta rays jumped. I said “because they
can.”
Later that day my grandson Greg said “Grampa, why don’t we all go down to the beach, go for a swim?”
I said. “Because I don’t have to. Because I don’t want to.”
A statement not so much of prerogative but, considered against the millions who can never make such a gruff and gritty rejoinder, an obligatory
declaration.
He probably mis-read my grin. He doesn’t know what it means when I rub my big belly with both hands, grin that way, open another beer. He‘s lousy
at current events, geography. He doesn‘t know about the young-old people in Gambia, Ethiopia.
He’s 11 years old, lives in San Diego. Tomorrow he and I are going for a ride on the beach in my dunebuggie, sit and fish awhile. By the time we
get back to the house he’ll know just how lucky he was to be born in a place where they let you live as long as you want.
|
|
|
captkw
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3850
Registered: 10-19-2010
Location: el charro b.c.s.
Member Is Offline
Mood: new dog/missing the old 1
|
|
Osprey
Best wishes to you !!...your writing is poetic and done with a distinc touch...the Fish B
|
|
|
Kgryfon
Senior Nomad
Posts: 624
Registered: 1-27-2009
Location: East Bay, CA
Member Is Offline
|
|
Hope you are feeling better soon...even if this was just for the chuckles...
|
|
|
EnsenadaDr
Banned
Posts: 5027
Registered: 9-12-2011
Location: Baja California
Member Is Offline
Mood: Move on. It is just a chapter in the past, but don't close the book- just turn the page
|
|
Osprey the key to all this is to do what you are doing. Enjoy your life, and be close to those who care. I for one do care if you are hurting and no
one seems to know. Shout out anytime to voice your fears, concerns and yes, even maladies. We all want to know someone is listening and someone
cares about us. That never gets old, and no, it's not silly either. Even when you are "mature"
|
|
|
Iflyfish
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3747
Registered: 10-17-2006
Member Is Offline
|
|
Love your piece on getting old, wish mine had not done so.
Salud Amigo!
Iflyfishconmiantiguamigos
|
|
|
DavidE
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3814
Registered: 12-1-2003
Location: Baja California México
Member Is Offline
Mood: 'At home we demand facts and get them. In Mexico one subsists on rumor and never demands anything.' Charles Flandrau,
|
|
No! I Hope To Hll It Is YOUR Tax Dollars!
| Quote: | Originally posted by rts551
| Quote: | Originally posted by DavidE
Yeah, especially when a person pays 330,000 dollars in taxes to get free care. Or maybe you don't remember the days of 92.4% income tax on incomes
greater than 60K?
1981. Gross income 84,000 dollars, net income 16,000 after all deductions. Oh yeah it was all sure as hell free. The only thing that saved my butt was
a corporate expense account. Today's "WHINERS" earn 100,000 and scream epithets when they have to pay 10,000 dollars. Doesn't matter if their elders
paid TEN TIMES then what they do in tax now.
It's all the ME ME ME GIMME generation. GO FOR IT |
Do you really think that it was your tax dollars that earned you free care? |
Between Federal Tax FICA, SSI, and California's tax it amounted to above 92%. Of course you may want to argue with the information excerpt below which
is part of the Congressional Record...
Following World War II tax increases, top marginal individual tax rates stayed near or above 90%, and the effective tax rate at 70% for the highest
incomes (few paid the top rate), until 1964 when the top marginal tax rate was lowered to 70%. Kennedy explicitly called for a top rate of 65 percent,
but added that it should be set at 70 percent if certain deductions weren't phased out at the top of the income scale.[24][25][26] The top marginal
tax rate was lowered to 50% in 1982 and eventually to 28% in 1988. It slowly increased to 39.6% in 2000, then was reduced to 35% for the period 2003
through 2012.[23] Corporate tax rates were lowered from 48% to 46% in 1981 (PL 97-34), then to 34% in 1986 (PL 99-514), and increased to 35% in 1993.
Timothy Noah, senior editor of the New Republic, argues that while Ronald Reagan made massive reductions in the nominal marginal income tax rates with
his Tax Reform Act of 1986, this reform did not make a similarly massive reduction in the effective tax rate on the higher marginal incomes.
A Lot To See And A Lot To Do
|
|
|
David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64755
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
Member Is Offline
Mood: Have Baja Fever
|
|
You see Dah-veed, in their world, people who work hard, or smart and create wealth, jobs, and products people want or need are somehow 'guilty' and
owe everyone what they have created, beyond any reasonable fair tax.
What they don't get is that business does not pay these excessive extra taxes... their customers do, in increased costs beyond the true value of the
product. So, the consumer suffers, or the 'evil' corporation goes out of business... UNLESS they donated heavily to 'a' political party, in which case
the government bails them out! BUT... that money is OURS too... and it is becoming valueless by the reckless spending.
|
|
|
DanO
Super Nomad
Posts: 1923
Registered: 8-26-2003
Location: Not far from the Pacific
Member Is Offline
|
|
George, I don't know about all this grumpiness increasing as one ages business, but I understand that as we age, men get dumber while women get
smarter. At least that's what my wife tells me.
\"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.\" -- Frank Zappa
|
|
|
DavidE
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3814
Registered: 12-1-2003
Location: Baja California México
Member Is Offline
Mood: 'At home we demand facts and get them. In Mexico one subsists on rumor and never demands anything.' Charles Flandrau,
|
|
I like the part about he who has the biggest gun eats best. Wanna drive? Pay me twenny bucks a gallon for gas. Hey Sukka what'ya mean you want ten
dollars for a head of lettuce and forty bucks for a loafa bread? That six hundred dollar tire that Coozie ripped me off for don't fit. Don't be
pointin' that scattergun at me, ain't my fault this new economy crap. Man's gotta eat.
Speckkylashun, works like a charm
A Lot To See And A Lot To Do
|
|
|
Marc
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 2802
Registered: 5-15-2010
Location: San Francisco & Palm Springs
Member Is Offline
Mood: Waiting
|
|
At 73 my formula; Old Whiskey & Young Women
The whiskey
The Woman (and she's a nurse)
|
|
|
Pescador
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3587
Registered: 10-17-2002
Location: Baja California Sur
Member Is Offline
|
|
I am not as old as Osprey so I won't give this topic much thought for a long time but for the most part he is pretty happy living like one of the
locals and using the available services in his small community. Many people are not so comfortable and run north of the border at the slightest
sniffle. It is a good thing to have some of those discussions and a lot depends on the individual and perhaps family members when those decisions
arise.
My wife developed Lung cancer and we returned to the states and sought out the best of the best for treatment and we spent two years going almost
daily to appointments and consultations with serious surgical and radiation treatments thrown in for good measure. Our lives became enbroiled in
treatment and it was the topic of conversation for a very long two year period. The end result was that the cancer won and we spent a lot of money
and time doing whatever we could do.
I had a good friend in our area who moved down here many years ago and he married a local woman and settled in. About the same time that we were
fighting our medical battle he was diagnosed with a form of cancer and he went north for initial treatments where they thought they had caught things
early enough for a successful prognosis. When the cancer flared up in another part of his body, he instructed the doctors to prescribe him some pain
medication and he returned to Mexico. He spent his afternoons doing all the things he loved doing. We had very frequent poker games and morning
discussions but usually by afternoon ,he would be pretty tired and rested. He spent a lot of time with family and friends and took the time for
closure and instructions of what to do when his eventual demise came. He did not suffer a lot and seemed chipper right up until the very end.
I am not projecting or suggesting anything here at all, except that I was able to witness two entirely different methods of medical interaction. It
is entirely up to the reader to decide which might be the most suitable for themselves.
|
|
|
Osprey
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3694
Registered: 5-23-2004
Location: Baja Ca. Sur
Member Is Offline
|
|
Thanks for showing both sides of a slippery coin Jim. Whatever people might make of it my wife informed me yesterday that she put together the age of
our two dogs: Tino is 11 and Fea is 14 (77 and 92 if you want to count the other way).
Then, when I consider our ages, the house, built in 1933 and all our old stuff, the whole package seems to be coming to an end all at the same time.
Pretty good timing compared to the other way >> watching all those things slip away one after the other.
I was coming to a point where I thought the dogs might outlive me and would suffer for it so some years ago I began to deep fry all their food.
[Edited on 1-14-2014 by Osprey]
|
|
|
vandenberg
Elite Nomad
Posts: 5118
Registered: 6-21-2005
Location: Nopolo
Member Is Offline
Mood: mellow
|
|
| Quote: | Originally posted by Osprey
I was coming to a point where I thought the dogs might outlive me and would suffer for it so some years ago I began to deep fry all their food.
|
From one old codger to another, I just love your sense of humor.
|
|
|
DavidE
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3814
Registered: 12-1-2003
Location: Baja California México
Member Is Offline
Mood: 'At home we demand facts and get them. In Mexico one subsists on rumor and never demands anything.' Charles Flandrau,
|
|
Lucky railing...
A Lot To See And A Lot To Do
|
|
|
Mulegena
Super Nomad
Posts: 2412
Registered: 11-7-2006
Member Is Offline
|
|
| Quote: | Originally posted by vandenberg
| Quote: | Originally posted by Osprey
I was coming to a point where I thought the dogs might outlive me and would suffer for it so some years ago I began to deep fry all their food.
|
From one old codger to another, I just love your sense of humor.
|
Just like you put Prozac in the hummingbird feeder water, eh Osprey? Such a rascally devil you are!
"Raise your words, not your voice. It's rain that grows flowers, not thunder." ~Rumi
"It's the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." ~ Aristotle
|
|
|
Skipjack Joe
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8084
Registered: 7-12-2004
Location: Bahia Asuncion
Member Is Offline
|
|
Men get grumpier as they age because the effort to keep it under control just becomes too great.
Women have the same issue with flatulence. It starts in their 80's. Now and again one escapes and there is great embarassment followed by repeated
apologies. But by their 90's it just happens and nobody even cares to apologize. The great life-long battle is finally over.
|
|
|
DanO
Super Nomad
Posts: 1923
Registered: 8-26-2003
Location: Not far from the Pacific
Member Is Offline
|
|
| Quote: | Originally posted by Skipjack Joe
Men get grumpier as they age because the effort to keep it under control just becomes too great.
Women have the same issue with flatulence. It starts in their 80's. Now and again one escapes and there is great embarassment followed by repeated
apologies. But by their 90's it just happens and nobody even cares to apologize. The great life-long battle is finally over. |
I'm sorry, but I've been informed (again, oddly enough by my wife) that women do not fart. Ever. And that anyone who accuses them of doing so is a
liar.
\"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.\" -- Frank Zappa
|
|
|
Mexitron
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3397
Registered: 9-21-2003
Location: Fort Worth, Texas
Member Is Offline
Mood: Happy!
|
|
| Quote: | Originally posted by Osprey
Thanks for showing both sides of a slippery coin Jim. Whatever people might make of it my wife informed me yesterday that she put together the age of
our two dogs: Tino is 11 and Fea is 14 (77 and 92 if you want to count the other way).
Then, when I consider our ages, the house, built in 1933 and all our old stuff, the whole package seems to be coming to an end all at the same time.
Pretty good timing compared to the other way >> watching all those things slip away one after the other.
I was coming to a point where I thought the dogs might outlive me and would suffer for it so some years ago I began to deep fry all their food.
[Edited on 1-14-2014 by Osprey] |
LOL!!!
|
|
|
| Pages:
1
2
3 |
![[*]](images/xmbforum/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
