The Disappearing Faces

We were chatting, my friend and I, about disappearing people.  As you age, slowly in my case, you note people once common have disappeared.  The faces that arrived on the TV screen in the late 50's when a vast 'Ferranti' model appeared in our living room only appear today when their death is announced.  Footballers once fit grown men seen running around the field at top speed are now noted in club get togethers as small, fat men long past retirement age.  This is made worse when your great niece, now 19 years of age, posts comments on facebook grumbling that folks born in the 1990's are getting old!  OLD!  Your 19 woman!  
Perception alters as age passes by.  Once we looked to the future 'out there' with some degree of trepidation but a lot of excitement.  Now we see cynicism and despair at the world.  Once hope filled us and opportunities could be rejected for another would be along in a minute, now the only thing that takes a minute is the trying to remember why we opened this cupboard or went through to the other room, sometimes it takes much longer.   The good side is that we may no longer care to get excited about trivial happenings, rock music does not make us 'headbang' for long a we suddenly forget what we are doing, football does not have the same grip as we accept after all that we are not indeed going to make it, and fashionable occurrences bore rather than excite.  We have no faith in the press or TV, no trust in any politician of whatever party and consider ourselves able to distinguish most cons that arrive via the web.  Well usually anyway!
As my mother aged all her friends, both family and close friends from round about passed on.  Quite how she saw this I am unclear, her attitude was 'you just have to get on with it,' and so she did.  That generation always just 'got on with it.'  Being a blether as she was she could always get new friends willing to gossip about nothing for long periods so she managed well I suspect.  Yet all her family, many of their offspring, including one of her daughters, passed away.  All her friends she and my father made left us, she was the last one standing and remained so until she reached 94.  How did she view all this?
I note myself how footballers I watched have died, TV newsreaders and 'personalities,' many of whom had little or no personality that I could detect, pass away from us  year by year.  Familiar faces are the background to our lives whether we like them or are indifferent to them, yet when they go we see a gap opening.  Our minds view is amended and reality comes in.
I can recall noting men in the 50's and 60's, flat caps, overcoats and usually haggard faces.  Today such men rarely have hats, dress as fashionably as men in their 20's and often, like me, look 25 (well maybe 35).  Few appear to be 'old' and as one said to me "In my outlook I am still 25!" and I knew what he meant.  This is however not how I look to outsiders, any young woman using the term 'Granddad' in my presence reveals how they view me!  I have a photo f my grannie dating from 1926 in which she looks ancient.  She was in fact the same age as my sister is now 76 and she, while ancient, like all women these days fails to look it, he older husband however is beginning to look his age.  
We have seen many family members near and far pass on and in the next ten years a great deal more will go, my view of the world will change again, especially as the remaining TV and radio personalities disappear, yet I suspect I will plow on.  I have Jesus who cares for me in spite of it all and this alters my view considerably.  It does not however stop ageing nor the loss of familiar figures in the world around us keeping our world view together.

Summer, Rain and Old Man

Summer is with us, I can tell by the rain!
I have an old tape of a series of 15 minute programmes re King George V diaries.  These cover 1914 and the year leading up to war.  In all he details the weather first, he was after trained by the Royal Navy and weather watching comes natural to those working outside let alone at sea.  From January right into July his comments almost always feature cold winds and rain!  On occasions it is warm enough to set up the tent and work outside in the garden but even by July 22nd he is complaining of 'Rain again' and 'You would not believe it was July.'  
When war erupts (the UK war began on 4th July) the weather was lovely and people had a days holiday to scamper down to the s ea or head for country pubs.  On returning they discovered they were at war.  No doubt it rained again after that.
Now being officially old I had to confirm my details with the local council and posted the details in their letterbox this afternoon.  I then walked in the cloudy sunshine around town looking for bargains and got caught in the rain.  Innit though? 
The details posted show I am now officially too old for anything but voting Conservative and visiting the 'Derby & Joan' club.  For the past 15 years I have however been officially able to buy one of those retirement properties for the over 50's (not that I have money) and wonder why 50 is still seen as old?  With my good looks people often mistake me for someone in his twenties (oh yes they do) and I am amazed at the aged faces around me who are considerably younger and often more unfit.
One postie I have known for about 15 years has always looked to be on the verge of retirement yet she is still not of that age!  Incredible!  Next door the two folks I once thought had retired are only around 55!  They look much older but I suppose that much alcohol can have that effect.  In the museum we allow old people to enter at half price and on occasion I have to guess carefully what the age is, it is not easy to tell.  I have got into trouble once or twice this way unsettling a woman or two who was touchy about her years.  Most of course are happy for me to argue they are only 39 and chancing it.
There are times in your life when age matters.  Being a teenager, reaching 18 and officially allowed in pubs or to drive or whatever you have been banned from until then, although in other nations the age may differ of course.  Waking up one day and realising you are the age you always considered 'old' or 'Granddaddyish' and realising you are now old is another!  Now I have reached 65 and the paperwork says 'You are now useless, just death to come, please move quickly to Bournemouth or Eastbourne.'  Rejoice!  Rejoice! 

The Friday Evening Cud Chew

As I ambled slowly along to post another one of my begging letters I could not help but notice the sky above.  Sadly I didn't notice the edge of the pavements, but several motorists kindly informed me of my position, and what to do about it.  The blue of the sky itself, quite unusual in recent days, was filled with small puffy white clouds and interspersed with masses of vapour trails.  Stansted Airport has been busy this morning and the vapour trails were taking a long time to disperse.  However it was an enjoyable sight, all that pollution sitting up there, blocking the sun, enabling climate change, poisoning those down below.  Sitting in the hot sun (gosh it still got through!) and watching over the recreation ground the huge sky was enthralling.  The wind hurried the clouds along and they scudded off bringing even more interesting sights from the south.  Maybe it's all those years in London, maybe it's being indoors too much recently, maybe it's the bang on the head, I know not but I do know I like looking at interesting skies, nature views, and wide open spaces.  All I need is a seaside and I would be (almost) content.   

The other day you will recall I posted This, regarding the changes that have occurred between 1915 and today.  Well that great man BigRab, he of the great Ben Lomond Free Press a blog worthy of your company, made a remark that struck me, and that made a change from bricks.  He said there was less time between 1915 and the year of his birth, than between the year of his birth and today.  This struck me also.  You see I was born 36 years after the 1915 picture, but now I am a further 61 years from it.  I found this intriguing, and still do.  

My thinking, my attitudes, and much within me may indeed be nearer 1915 than 2012.  Are you still with me?  Because all my readers are young things, one or two more thing than young (all the Ladies being sweet young things under 25 years of age I note) the age gap may not strike you as it did me, but it is worth a ponder.  For some reason this sticks in my head and will not leave me.  Time passes by and we remain the same.  For instance I woke up one day when I was merely 56 years old and suddenly realised I am a granddad, well not actually a granddad, but I was indeed an old man!  In my head I knew what old men were, I had seen plenty,  but suddenly I realised I was that age!  I look much younger, I still have hair and teeth!  I still saw myself as late 20's....?  I remain the same as always but much of the body disintegrates beneath me.  

Further ponder.  I was born in 1951, my dad in 1908, and his dad in 1845!  This being 2012 mean the three of us cover three centuries.  The world is a different place since 1845, but at heart remains the same.  Whereas granddad left the farm, as thousands did at that time, and joined the railway and climbed on the new world around him, we can see pictures taken from Mars!  As people we are no different but the complexity of life has changed.  Is it better?  Actually it is no better or worse, depending on your circumstances.  Humanity remains the same, the culture changes a wee bit.  Horse don't wander the streets, bad drivers do!  But in spite of the changes, many very much for the better, our hearts are still the same, human nature does not change, the surroundings do.  My world view is influenced by 1915, the year my mother was born, probably more than by 2012.  Family influences, the fifties influence,  Baby Boomer influences are possibly still affecting me, they certainly affect me more than the pap that is 'cutting edge' today.  Sadly age wearies the heart from such as we can see the emptiness it hides.  

There is something in Rabs comment I cannot quite place, but it intrigues me that I was born nearer 1915  and that world than I am to my own (much heralded) arrival.  

    

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How Old?

 

                                                                       Young at Heart

                                                                         Slightly older

                                                                       In Other Places

 

                                                                          Don't Worry

                                                                    About Your Health

                                                                          It'll Go Away

 

                                                                           I'm Retired

                                                                 I was Tired Yesterday

                                                                I'm Tired Again Today

 

                                                                            At My Age ....

                                                                    Happy Hour is a Nap

 

                                                                        Live Each Day

                                                                    Like It's Your Last

                                                          One day, You'll Get it Right

 

                                                                           Life is Easy

                                         It's the Freakin' People Who Make It Difficult!

 

                                                            I Always Cook With Wine

                                                Sometimes I Even Add it to the Food

                                                                I'm Speeding Because

                                                            I Have to get There Before

                                                             I Forget Where I'm Going

 

                                                                           At My Age

                                                                        "Gettin' Any?"

                                                                         Means Sleep

 

                                                                Be Nice to Your Kids

                                                              They Will Choose Your

                                                                      Nursing Home

 

                                                              I Believe in Having Sex

                                                                    On the First Date

                                                                  At My Age, There

                                                               May Not Be a Second

 

                                                   The Only Trouble with Retirement

                                                     You Never Get a Damn Day Off

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Fifty Seven Today

Despair, despondency, gloom, melancholy, hopelessness, dejection. All these burden me this morning. I awake to skies covered in gray clouds, a slow dismal rain edging down painfully from above. A listlessness that once I thought fit only for Grandpa Broon in the Sunday Post grips me. Sluggishly I wander through from the west wing and ponder the day ahead.

Today I will note how not only are the policemen younger than they once were, so are grandmothers, although round here that may not mean too much of course. The traffic will be faster than yesterday, the pop music will be totally unintelligible and the stuff the kids talk about will be less so. However, once again that may not mean too much. Rude cards may arrive later, you know, the ones with a picture of a hill covered in little animals and the question, 'Which one are you?' on the front. Inside it reads, 'Your the one that's over the hill!' As she pushes the cards through the letterbox I will hear the postgirl muttering, 'Next time its one from the queen!' Although of course she has never liked me since she rejected my advances and I remarked 'Well your mother liked it!' Had there been a cake I suspect someone would organise the local firemen to turn out 'just in case.' And they are much younger than me also!

I look at the list of things to do, job hunt, exercise, lumbago ointment, and begin to despair again. I would say, 'I am not old, just mature.' But far too many folk have disagreed with me too often on that point to bother trying it. So I will sit here and wonder where all those years have gone. When was 1978 and that good thing happened? The things I wanted to do, the places to visit, the hope. The energy I had in my thirties, he future I planned, where did it all go and how did I end up here in the back of beyond......?

Who said 'Rejoice in all situations, I say again, rejoice?' Well you can get stuffed! If you want me I will be howling at the moon.