Humor-Wild Ramblings- Aging Gracefully

Grandpa is sitting across the table from you and his nose hair practically flows out in a thick gray mustache across his wrinkled grinning face. As he talks it blows back and forth in his breath and you are wondering if this is what is going to happen to you next. You went gray at twenty and bald by the time you were thirty.

It seems that when the gene pool came flying at you it didn't exactly throw you a lot of the desirable genes. Damn it, and yes, you also have the gene that makes you gain weight by simply looking at a piece of chocolate cake.
You haven't had a beer in years and yet your belly stretches out like you've spent half your life in an old British Pub. It would seem that the only positive note on the whole situation is that by going bald early you got rid of the premature gray hair.

So with morbid fascination you sit and stare at the grandfather that everyone says you are the spitting image of. Your mind is reeling trying to figure out what other genetics he could possibly have thrown in your direction.

Grandpa takes a deep breath in, releases it, and throws you a beaming smile that reveals the remnants of his long ago lost teeth. You are not sure whether you should laugh or cry.

You are just silently praying that he doesn't notice how quiet you are today. He wheezes, coughs smiles at you again, and gets up to get himself another cup of coffee. You're thinking that you might give the stuff up and that you had better invest in a pair of tweezers.

Maybe it is just middle age affecting your mind but, as grandpa reaches back to relieve an itch on his ancient over-sized behind, you are busy re-evaluating your positioning in the human race. Where did the wide eyed optimism of youth go? That, "what a stud I am attitude" that you carried with you through your twenties. That arrogant attitude of yours, disappearing along with those last gray wisps of hair from your head. It seems that life hasn't a lot of options for you at the moment and there is just no way of stopping grandpa's genes from creeping in and messing with what little is left of your once virile masculinity.

It is at about this moment that grandpa goes into a wheezing, coughing spasm that leaves him red faced and gasping for air. You jump from your chair to pat his back and search his eyes for reassurance that he is going to survive this one.

Tears flowing from his eyes, hands trembling, he grabs his coffee cup and throws back a swig. It seems to help. He smiles and hoarsely whispers, "I sure ain't the man I used to be.", and in those few words everything is suddenly okay.

You nod your head in agreement and grandpa begins to quietly chuckle at his thoughts. Watching him and imagining what he might be thinking you start to chuckle, and then to laugh, tears filling your eyes you just can't get yourself to stop and...

Everything really is okay.

The problems associated with growing old are very similar to the problems associated with growing up. Each new day you spend a lot of time, and energy trying to remember everything that is expected from you, or that you are supposed to accomplish that day. You spend a lot of energy concentrating on being able to stand or walk without falling, and you cross your fingers that you will make it through a day without wetting your pants ....Read Full Article.

How do you tell if that copper colored penny rattling around at the bottom of your piggy bank is really made of copper?

Over the many years that pennies have been around, they have been made from varying combination of copper, zinc, nickel, and tin, so how do you tell if your penny is copper or zinc?

How do you know if your penny is actually a genuine copper......Read Full Article.

New Year's Eve is one of those evenings that I have come to dread. With each passing year, as the date draws closer, I find my thoughts encompassed by an ever increasing degree of fear over the upcoming event. Irrational? Yes. Something that I can control? Nope, I've tried!

Years and years ago when I was a wee child, a comment made at one of our family's famous New Year's Eve Parties by a drunken guest, burned into my subconscious, and has remained there to this day. He was just an old neighbor who had drank far too much whiskey that night, but as he grasped desperately onto one of my aunt's arms, he mumbled into her face a disturbing fact that has remained with me ever since.....Read Full Article.