(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Morning Open Thread-Getting Better With Age [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2022-06-30 “There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.” ― Ernest Hemingway After watching Cassidy Hutchinson’s brave testimony, the thought occurred to me. What the hell is wrong with a young woman having to tell a middle aged man how to act/think/behave? How broken is Mark Meadows? I know, I know. This is the same dipshit that was in charge of the Freedumb Caucus, so the bar is lower than a toothpick laying on my carpet. But should age beget wisdom? Are we supposed to get better at life as we go along? I guess only to people who have been paying attention. I’ve offered up a few of this bands songs lately. It’s been 30 years since I last saw them live, yet I had no idea that they were still around. The more I listen to them I hear more age and wisdom than they even had back when we were all kids. One of the best memories I have of a funeral, we were sitting around the foyer of a funeral home with the remaining siblings of my grandparents generation. Of course the talk centered around how life can seem so short. Then one of my great aunts, a 90 year old Mormon lady, leaned over and told me something that I never forgot. “Now Sandbear, you have fun in life. One day you will wake up and be my age and wonder where the time went. I don’t feel 90. In my head I’m still 16. So go out and live.” Wow. To have a little old lady tell me something like that was liberating. I can say for certain that I took those words to heart. The worst part of that was how my dad disagreed with my decisions. But to go out and live takes courage. That’s the same courage that helped me break free of my fathers religion and live my own life. The last time I saw my dad before he passed, he told me he was proud of me for not choosing a life of following the almighty dollar. That pissed me off. Where the hell has he been for the last 30 years? I chose not to follow that path when I was 18! Too bad he wasn’t paying attention, much like Mark Meadows. Actually I can tell that was really just a defense mechanism for him. He refused to believe that he fell victim to the 21st century, dying broke, living in a relatives house, far below the financial standards he set for himself or what he struggled for for the majority of his working life. He refused to believe that socialized medicine was a good thing. Therefore he didn’t use his VA benefits to treat his otherwise treatable Lymphoma. It took four years to do him in. When panic set in about going out in and out of agony and pain pills, he finally sought out treatment. But it was too late. Looking back, I might have thought going into the military for a four year stint would have been worth the price for a lifetime of healthcare benefits. And the point there is that I am trying to get better at this thing called life. In my thirties I could see that my body was getting worn out by all the manual labor. The harder I worked, the skinnier I got. There was no large muscle mass to blunt the effects of the strains, pulls, tweaks, scraps and bruises that come with building houses. There was no way I could keep this up. And why would I? I had nothing. No savings. No mortgage. Just a bunch of tools and a paid for truck with 200K miles. I had to get better with age. The best idea at the time was to pull my own contractors license and be the boss and finally put down the tool belt. As we all know, the universe smiled on me. I went from paycheck to paycheck to a salary doing what I love. I’ve said for years that I am the luckiest man in Arizona. There’s two of us that get paid to be professional model railroaders in the state. That makes us as rare as U.S. senators! Only I don’t have my name dragged through the mud by people who don’t like me. I’ll take that. I haven’t missed a paycheck in 11 years. I have a house. I finally know what stability and security is. So what’s next? How do I keep getting better? I still don’t have a retirement account or savings. I’d like to have goals beyond that though. Ideas? [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/6/30/2107142/-Morning-Open-Thread-Getting-Better-With-Age Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/