Finally, the waiting is over...

T

The Tourist

Guest
In a little over four hours I will officially be 60 years of age. 'Bout flippin' time.

I have promised those around me that I intend to take advantage of all of the perks we folks should be granted at this age. That fact that I can lift things most twenty year olds can't should make no difference. I respected 'age' in my own youth, it's time for them to pony up. I don't care if it's only a pint of skim milk for my coffee, the grocery boy is going to start lugging it to my truck.

'Nother thing, good-bye tact and political correctness, not that I ever had much use for those ideals. Oh, I had to fake it in my adult job, after all, I was amid bankers and lawyers. Rarely saw any of them with women.

Instead of couching my comments to some pinhead akin to "Interesting concept," I can now chortle, "What the duce where you drinking?"

Heck, no more spell-checker, no more condescending excuses for my social absence, nothing but Harley T-shirts and crappy blue jeans--just like the past nine years. 'Cept now it's technically sanctioned.

I worked for forty years, paid my taxes, suffered under idiots passing themselves off as Presidents and bolstered up the sick, lame and lazy. Hey, you, dumb kid, get that door, old guy coming through--get away from the bike, it's too heavy for you to pick up...:D

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb231/TheTourist_bucket/DSC00249.jpg
 
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birthday.jpg


It may be a bit early but Hey! Isn't the point that you don't have to wait any more?
 
LOL. True story. My wife is getting me a big "store bought" birthday cake with thick frosting and dozens of icing flowers. We're going to watch "Survivor" and I'm going to sit in my underwear like Al Bundy.

Ya' know, Jay Leno is one day older than I am. I figure if he dies, I have 24 hours left...:eek:
 
happy bday Happy birthday you ole Geezer.:D

I like your attitude, but I have found the young people haven't been taught to respect old age. I just threaten them with my cane.

Larry
 
I just threaten them with my cane.

LOL. Thanks, guy.

I have a cane myself--or sorts.

It's a collapsible chrome steel affair. Deploys with a snap of the wrist. It's called an "ASP." Dandy little item.

For my money some dusty old biker invented it after years of using a two-piece pool cue. The kind of guy that was better at sinking townies than billiard balls. I scared myself the first time I cracked it out.

Looks like a folded gentleman's umbrella when you carry it.
 
I love the door mat!

I call it my "unwelcome" mat. It drives the Jehovah Witnesses nuts. My opinion is that at least they were warned.

I'm actually pretty jovial. I think that if you're retired you should get to opt out of the game, or at least be sent to The Group W Bench. I don't object to still getting up for work, but I should be able to direct more of the schedule for my participation.

I don't believe there is such a thing as an "emergency sharpening." If the sun is out, then your knives get sharpened after supper.

If that's not to your liking, then read the flippin' unwelcome mat...
 
Thanks for all of the good wishes, forumites. I woke up this morning and forgot all about officially being a "fudd."

To you younger guys who dread advancing age, my advice is to never give it a thought. I do proffer some suggestions.

Most of my schpiel you've heard before. I quit smoking early in my twenties, and I was never a "big drinker." I drank if the mood struck me. I never crossed that line of "needing it." My Mom was an alcoholic.

At the age of twenty-seven I developed the "Barbell Habit" and I started to run and use Stairmasters--a schedule I follow till this day. Get off your butt.

But there is a bigger item, and we should discuss it. I wish I would have had a mentor to advise me on this:

Stop worrying!

Live bold. Walk across an empty floor and ask that pretty girl to dance. Get your nose broken a few times, back to the wall, out-numbered and defending a true friend. Don't avoid the doctor. Pay your bills, but also pay a Harley or boat dealer--don't die with a belly full of regrets and shoebox full of cash and broken dreams buried in the back yard.

Speak your mind, always. A bully is just an untested coward. Broken bones heal, chicks dig scars. It takes thirty seconds to walk way in shame, but thirty years to shake the misery. I don't regret ever throwing a punch, but the times I didn't burn in my soul.

Here's an example. I was out riding one afternoon, and my entire being seemed to ooze caution with the flighty guise of a ballerina. "What if I run out of gas? What if I get lost? What if I cannot find my way back to the highway? What if the road degrades, or the turns are too tight, or...?

Granted, this example might be my own demons, but you have your own and you know them like a BIL who just won't leave the guest room.

There will always be demons. There will always be a jobs dangled in front of you with the demand you sell your soul. Mouthy employers. Shrill but beautiful red-heads. Brash "lemmings" who pose as 'friends' convinced that your ultimate destruction bolsters their shortcomings.

Ignore it all. Why do you think fudds smirk, "Been there, done that"?

Don't waste your youth on easy con-jobs and fear of being branded by folks your won't even recognize in a few years. I am a good friend, and a bad enemy. I do honest work, I married a stellar woman, I ride a smokin' bike and I sleep the composure of a sober judge.

I'd like to take credit for this idea, but I cannot. If you get a chance, find Davy Crockette's initial address to congress...
 
Happy Birthday!! I like your philosophy!! For me though, instead of Harley's, it's Horses. If you can take a kick from a horse, Then a punch seems light!!:D
 
Happy Birthday!! I like your philosophy!! For me though, instead of Harley's, it's Horses. If you can take a kick from a horse, Then a punch seems light!!:D

Oh, I get you. The bikes are just the thing I do. In fact, I used to live with a woman who was a barrel-racer. I know the thrill and the love she had for that horse. (Quarter horse on the top, Polish Arab on the bottom. It had to be registered as a 'paint' because of a palm sized lighter mark on the flank.)

And I'm sure you would agree that we spend far too much time parking our butts on the Lay-Z-Boy recliner. It's a trap to which I fall prey. I have cake and "Survivor" planned for tonight. Don't tell the forum.;)

My mentor was grizzly old biker named Mickey Foster, and even that isn't his real name--as I found out reading his obituary. You cannot go anywhere in Wisconsin without hearing a Mickey story. He told me that over time he had trouble figuring out what really happened.

And as I often quote from my Father, "A man's funeral should be packed--half to mourn, half to make sure he's dead.":D
 
Happy Birthday!

My 60th was two months ago -- I invited some friends over to use up some of the port that had been sitting around too long (three different 1977's), accompanied it with various cheeses and a big pot of bison chili I made from scratch. Completely ignored all my weight reduction rules for the day. It was a very good day.
 
Happy Birthday...I invited some friends over...It was a very good day.

I know the feeling. I just had a friend and former club member over this week to sharpen knives for his restaurant. We call him "Tiny" and you can read about him on our club website.

http://www.ccridersmc.org/history.php

Since I was working around sharp metal, I let him enjoy the Patron while we swapped some lies and laughter. You know the drill, when it comes to memories the bikes always get faster and the women get prettier.:D

And then he was off to work and to pick up his daughter, and I went back to doing the dishes and folding a load of laundry. Oh, I had taken a ride earlier in the day, but part of being a good friend is also supporting the people you love.
 
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I'd like to add an adenda to this "folding laundry" comment. Yes, I was doing housework.

But I also believe that people evolve and we are a composite of our talents and experiences. We are also a complicated mix of personal facets.

While most people here could define the side of their interests as being a "cutler," they also walk the dog.

To that, I have been a son, a credit manager, a college student, currently a Christian, a business owner and a husband. Each 'identity' brings with it a list of goals and responsibilities.

Now, I'm not going to blow smoke up your skirt. I joined my club at the age of nineteen, and no doubt was socialized there as you might be in the army, or your church or the Boy Scouts. I feel men should enjoy a rite of passage.

As a strict constructionist in my politics it might be easy to see that the video on YouTube called "Live By It" reflects my demeanor. But it also underlines the responsibilities to friends--and my wife's laundry--that builds you as a person people want to know.

So yes, as Betty cools in the garage, the clients get served, the counter-tops get wiped, the laundry gets folded and my Dyson Purple Ball vacuum cleaner gets a thorough work-out. That's the deal.
 
I don't know how many of you hit the gym regularly, but I go every morning. Today was primarily an aerobic day, so I decided to follow the in the steps of Jack LaLaine. He would swim towing boats, one for each year of his age by a rope in his teeth. At one time he swam towing 83 boats.

I like to use a tool of torture called "The Gauntlet." Think of an escalator with the steps running backwards. You must exert enough speed and pedal pressure to keep from getting spit off.

So this morning I went to Madison's east-side Princeton Club, fired up a Gauntlet and stepped for one minute for every year of my age. That's a full hour. I have done as much as 2.5 hours on a traditional StairMaster, but an hour on a Gauntlet is akin to a night of rap music, pardon the oxymoron.

Little kids began toasting marshmellows on my Achilles tendons.

I did have to get off and re-start this mad machine at 30 minutes. Heck, half of the exercise is trying not to run off and hide. But I started it up again.

Yikes, tomorrow is more of the same, but I have to add reverse curls to make my forearms good and toasty. Fortunately I was a fairly lustful teenager, and my forearms have always been pretty firm...

Catch you guys by the black iron.
 
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