How will you cope with old age? How do you imagine your last decade to be like?---Al

-- Al Schroeder (al.schroeder@nashville.com), June 02, 2000

Answers

How WILL I cope with Old age? At 57, I'm almost certainly on that downhill slope now. This morning someone told me they couldn't believe I was so old and that I looked 35 (I kissed her). I told a friend later, I may look 35, but my knees are definitely pushing 60.

I always imagined my last decade to be spent quietly, surrounded by my grandchildren, imparting memories from my lifetime, passing along the memories of previous generations, and spoiling them rotten. But there don't seem to be any grandchildren in the offing. Two potential breeders are gone, one is so mad at life that he refuses to bring new lives into this world, one doesn't date at all, and the other is focused on career, rather than continuing the family name. So I'm having to find meaningful activity outside of baking cookies for the grandkids.

I would hope that my last decade would be spent the way my mother, at age 80, is spending her last years, volunteering where she can, and continuing to make a difference in the world around her.

I also expect that the knees will hurt a lot more.

-- Bev Sykes (basykes@dcn.davis.ca.us), June 03, 2000.

Old Age ? I are there. Cope ? Hang tightly to the wheel of time and not be flung off. Funny I am in a ten year old mind and a creaky, seventy nine year old body. Street traffic seems to be going at seventy five mph at least, every one seems to be talking too fast too. My behind has a radar that seeks and discovers a place to put itself. Just got to thinking though, all through life we have had to put up with restrictions and limitations, they tighten and relax as the age changes but the realistic way for me to deal with those things is like I always have. Do what I can, eat what I can, have as much fun as I can and love whom I can and look forward to tomorrow.

-- Denver doug (ionoi@webtv.net), June 03, 2000.

Denial.

-- Dave Van (davevan01@hotmail.com), June 03, 2000.

Well, I hope to be still journalling. (Can you imagine the amount of K 40 or 50 years of it will take? But, of course, computers will ever so much more efficient then.) Yes, I expect to have enough agility to at least push a mouse around. And I've heard of voice- controlled computers, which should simplify the typing matter. I hope to have lots of friends, and still enjoying the things I do now. Maybe for the lack of taste buds, I'll be dumping salsa on everything just so I can taste it, though.

-- Joan Lansberry (gallae@casagrande.com), June 03, 2000.

Kind of strange really, I am 18 and I have already planned out what I will do when I am old, say 50. I have a few ideas, but haven't decided (I have plenty of time to do so). 1) I want to buy a cheap little boat, stock it with provisions, and sail out into the Pacific. Maybe I'll make it to an island, maybe I won't. I will die sailing into the sunset. Or 2) I will fill a backpack with all the necessities, suit up, and hike off into the snowy mountians of alaska, or into siberia, and never hike back out. I don't want to go an old and decrepid man, clutching to life with tubes going in and out of me in some lonely hospital room. I want to set myself free

-- Joe (bromojo@yahoo.com), February 22, 2001.