For Old Guys Only

[fasteddy]

Dan,

The woman is 5' 1" and with that yard stick she was 8' tall and I might add bullet proof.
Darned, I just broke out into a cold sweat thinking about it.

Steve.

 

[Dan]

LOL Steve. My Mom is 4 foot and 11 and a half inches tall and still make me stamer when she is angry.

 

[xseler]

exseler,

You've been there haven't you.

Steve.

Just let me say that I've experienced 'the force'..........

 

[fredric3144]

When I was around 9 or 10 I got into archery I even got someone to help me make my own bow and was learning how to make arrows as well . I got into trouble at school teacher called my mom when I got home I tried to lie my way out of it big mistake . My mom grabbed to closest thing to her my arrows broke all 4 of them on my rear end . I quit archery decided that it gave my mom to good of available whipping sticks .

 

[xseler]

When I was around 9 or 10 I got into archery I even got someone to help me make my own bow and was learning how to make arrows as well . I got into trouble at school teacher called my mom when I got home I tried to lie my way out of it big mistake . My mom grabbed to closest thing to her my arrows broke all 4 of them on my rear end . I quit archery decided that it gave my mom to good of available whipping sticks .

Quest for knowledge ----- learning something new.

Wisdom --- knowing when to give it up.

 

[fasteddy]

I hope it was coincidence but my mother was just regaling the nieces and nephew and respective spouses/boyfriends with stories just how hard it was to raise little Stephen as a child. For someone who just turned 102 the old girl has still got a sharp memory for details.

Maybe they were burned into her memory as well

Steve.

 

[fasteddy]

exseler,

I often found that the quest for knowledge usually over came any wisdom I had. Your 100% correct with that though.

Steve.

 

[fasteddy]

Fredrick3144,

Arrows! That is a first for me. I'll bet that stung.

Steve.

 

[Dan]

Made me think of a thing Xman. Not directly related but Confucius said "Before enlightenment, one must chop wood and fetch water. After enlightenment, one must chop wood and fetch water."

Not a party kind of guy. lol

Quest for knowledge ----- learning something new.

Wisdom --- knowing when to give it up.

 

[Ludwig II]

I'm going to deal with punishment in schools. We had the strap, I got it only once, because of what I believe to be a fault in the administration of corporal punishment.

I'm left handed and we were compelled to use fountain pens. Mine used to unscrew due to the right hand threads on the bodies and the left hand twist of writing. A geography teacher wanted me to rewrite an essay as the first attempt was so badly blotted. I did this, with less blobs, but it was as good as it was going to be, so I wouldn't write any more. I was kept in after school, to no effect.

I was then sent to Big Jim Ridsdale. Over 6' tall, ex Guardsman, rugby player, careerist teacher specialising in sports, not intellect. I was walloped 6 times across the back of my little legs by a roaring, insensitive, moron.

If corporal punishment is to be used, it should not be at the discretion of a potentially extremist single individual; perhaps a 3 magistrate panel selected at random from among the staff? I don't know. Power in one man's hands with no access to reason or justice is wrong though.

For the record, I wanted to find out what happened to Big Jim. I found out. He used us a stepping stone to become headmaster of one of the city's notable grammar school until his retirement. As he grew older, he developed Parkinson's and died of it. I have no hesitation in saying it pleases me that at the end, he knew what it felt like to be helpless in the face of unstoppable evil.

 

[KCvale]

KC,
Sorry to hear about your son. There is nothing like that to give you a personal version of Hades as you watch your child spiral downwards out of control and you have no way of stopping it.

Thanks Steve and Dan,
I am pretty optimistic now that his mom and I are united as he is not a dumb kid, he was smart enough to pit me against my wife so we split and he had the freedom living with just his mom to end up where he is now, without any freedom, and knows that he will never pull that off again with us.

What I think about that hurts the most is I was never able to instill a 'work ethic' in my son like my dad did me and the defining reason my near clone son and I are so different.

My Pop's owned a roofing company and I learned what real work was and what all that manual work and skill was worth for over a decade.

I was never able to give my son that, all I could offer was the computer work I as doing which was not man's work or interesting to him.

I build motorized bicycles now so there is no shortage of real man work here for him to do at chump change wages like everyone else starts at.

A rare last chance to learn how to make your own living as your own boss legally because with a Federal record, few jobs skill and no higher education his future went from so bright he had to wear shades to so dark he has to wear night vision goggles.

(sigh)

Not a good start to carrying on the Vale name and genetic traits, my pop's was the last before me, and now my son is the last so how he lives his life will decide if the name ends with his death without a son.

 

[Mike B]

Yup great stuff beating up children for making blobs on paper with fountain pens. That's why we outlawed corporal punishment.

Best of luck KC. I suggest you lay down some ground rules before he even sets foot in the house. Number one being "The first time you touch your mother or I in anger will be the last."

Amazing. The very thought of assulting my parents is so foreign to me as to be inconceivable.

 

[Otero]

I too was a victim of pointless corporal punishment & bullying
in a rather medieval military school, but bullies have a way of
getting there comeupense. I was 11 during the ordeal, short
& fat, but later at 13 I shot up to 6 ft. Some years had past
when I happened upon my tormentor on a bus. He was then
a cadet at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs where
I lived. By then I was 6'4" & I got my turn when he got off the bus.

 

[Greg58]

I have a theory about getting older, I try to learn something new everyday. That way if I gain a lot of knowledge It will take longer to loose my mind!

 

[Otero]

Aw, go ahead and lose it, you'll never miss it.

 

[Tinsmith]

Greg, that's a nice plan. Working in a machine shop there is plenty to learn even at this stage of life, but the problem is the memory is going faster than the learning end of things. My Random Access Memory makes for many an interesting day at work. The fellas just laugh and I tell them "just wait 'til you get this age".
Dan

 

[BarryT]

I fondly remember them as well but, now, I don't need to attach a playing card with a clothespin to get the desired sound!

 

[Dan]

I worry that we old folk just gave up and don't impart on kids what we think is important.

When ever an organization fails, just bet it is management's fault. As the old folks, we are the care takers of the up and coming generations.

If they fail it is only our fault and failure. We are failing them and have to do better.

Our Grand Fathers would slap us all silly for not taking care of our Children.

Lets get to work. Some kid needs us bad and needs one of us right now.
(and will soon be paying for our SSI) snork

Kids aren't our future. We will be their past and they will base stuff on us. Look sharp! or at least dress better.

 

[GearNut]

Dan, I agree with every thing you said.
Here's a theme song too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wRHBLwpASw
We are the future of our parents, our children are our future, so forth and so on.
The world has been this way for millennium.
It seems that few of the "now" generation realize this.
The newest digital generation has sooo much more knowledge at their fingertips (literally), but they seem to lack common courtesy. Computers are not courteous, it seems as if there is an important human element going by the wayside, or at least a great component of societal living is slowly slipping away.
Knowledge of all things mechanical is slowly changing into knowledge of all things silicon.
Give a kid a Tinker Toy set and an Ipad and see which one gets used more.
This is just "the tip of the iceberg".
One could spend years on this subject alone, I won't venture that far on this forum.
I want to ride my bicycle.

 

[Trey]

Yes sir.
There are young men that come and go at my job, and I'll be damned if more than half of them don't know how to start a fire! Remember, I live in Montana. That's not even touching on learning to chew with their mouths closed, or what it means to vote. So many things that don't seem important at all to younger people...

On a somewhat separate note, I had an interesting conversation with a sixty {correction; he's 80+} something year old fella the other day. The bottom line was that he, and his father and so on, have failed me. The state of this nations governance is deplorable. That didn't happen on my watch. It happened a little bit at a time over the generations. He says he cringes every time someone calls his, the greatest generation.
Huh. I hadn't thought about it like that- reap what you sow and all. It really shed light on a new perspective.