LOL
Agent LaFoutlaud
I see my fellow quadro genarians looking less like the child in all of us, and more like our long gone grandparents with drooping jowls and deep lines in our faces and skin that still looks good when strategically stretched... sort of...
We are the stage of life that reflects back to the way things were. This is why so often the crisis' happens in our stage of life. We panic, fret, try to revert and convince ourselves through denial that we can be young forever...
It's like our life is a rocket ride to the edge of space... we launch with the most vigor we will ever know... then we arrive at the apex before we fall back into the atmosphere and back to where we came from... only this time our fuel is spent, the paint job is worn off from the ride up, rust has already settled in here and there... and the parachute ride down may take a while... but there is no denying the fact that ride is finite and it's all down from here...
It does not have to be this way in the quality of life if we at long last turn our efforts inward rather than living for the external as so many do today and our generation seems to have promoted... we who were born on the tail end of the Me generation (baby boomers of 1946 - 1964). I realize gen X now has 40 + year olds... but I believe the Me generation is responsible for a lot that the world since has gone through which it did not have to had we followed our parent's example.
We remember how things were. We remember our parents' parents... and if we think hard we can recall their parents as well. They were from the 1800s! This is a link to the past and the changes that took place in the world that shaped who they were, and their children, and their children's children... who lived and died in a time that went from horse and buggy days to flights to the moon, for nearly 6,000 years life was lived basically the same way... until their generation...
We remember how the world was... it was different. Sure there was trouble and evil but it was not idolized. It was not whined about. It was never an excuse to commit more evil. People were responsible. If one committed to someone or something... they would honor that commitment or die trying.
Everyone was expected to shoulder the burden (at least their fair share). And failure to do so was a disgrace and shame. There was a sense of purpose. The world was a big scary place but it was ripe with opportunity if one was determined, hard working, dedicated. Families were sacred. Sundays were family days of Church and rest... sometimes picnics or Church outings but blue laws kept most businesses closed.
(Footnote, everyday to me is the Sabbath this side of the cross, so a holy day a week could be any day and blue laws on a Wednesday would be just as welcome, in my way of thinking).
Actors and singers and entertainers that are gone now... some long gone... I wish I'd appreciated them more when they were alive. Life just seemed so bursting with harvest in those days that Elvis and Sammy Davis jr. and Ray Charles, and Frank Sinatra, and John Wayne were just fruits among many fruits of that harvest...
Don't get me wrong, there is talent today... but the greats who ushered in the golden years of entertainment, who wrote the book most times on their craft, who set the standards... they are all gone. And there is no one like them today. No one.
In carpentry vocational school as a teen I recall an old gentlemen who came to our shop one day looking for an apprentice. He unrolled a thick canvass tool belt that held easily 100 tools for hand carving wood. This was um, 1977 (?)... and he was getting up there in age. He offered a very sweet deal for pay in the apprenticeship... but I all too easily dismissed it.
This was the 1970's, I thought to myself. Get a machine!
He almost begged us because he was afraid his craft and the knowledge of his trade would die with him.
He brought in some carvings he'd done. Beautiful work and the detailed craftsmanship... He carved a full sized bald eagle with spread wings and feather details out of a block of wood.
I had always appreciated the "old school." I would sit and listen to the adults talk during family visits rather than romping around with cousins... the eldest of my elders intrigued me most. I somehow knew the world needed to listen to their wisdom and experience and when they were no longer around to tell it, it was gone forever.
I don't know why I was different towards the wood carver.
Just remember how it was, my fellow 19 year-olds trapped in middle aged flesh... and share with your children and their children even if the resent it. One day after we are gone, they will remember and appreciate it.
YouTube - MASON WILLIAMS - CLASSICAL GAS
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