The Elderly

[gfwgfw]

Hey Ho

Are we really a drain on the exchequer - and a aggravation to younger generation

Just two incidents I sadly witness today

Local bus was nearly full, the kindly driver asked a very attractive young lady to give her "for elderly/disable" seat to an elderly lady

She produced her ticket and screamed

I paid for my seat and she gets hers free, and I am not moving

It was quickly resolved as I gave the lady my seat

Later in a very busy supermarket, yet another smart young lady pushed her packed trolley purposefully
in front of another elderly customer with a why the f===k don't you shop midweek

Mind you it was a very hot day here in Poole Bay

Luboo all

Graham . . . yet another seriously old ****

[gfwgfw]

A very quick aged related apology

I have posted my rather boring thread in an inappropriate platform

So sorry

[david63]

... and as it is "help the aged" day I have kindly moved it for you

[jay-ell71]

Not boring but sad.

Why cant we teach our young respect? care? compassion?

from ------ Another drain on our financial resources.

[Silver_Shiney]

I've said it once, and I'll say it again - what is this country coming to. I despair of it.

[oldbluefox]

Me, me, me.

Thankfully not all young people are like that but it seems a lot are.

[Kendhni]

To be honest I have heard both those stories in various forms for many years ... so I am sure that such things happen.

However on the other side of the coin are the otherwise sprightly elderly using up disabled spaces and moaning at those they perceive should not be .. or those that waddle their way up the middle of an aisle in a shop deliberately (?) blocking others from getting past (I have also seen this on a ship as people move between the fore and aft show lounges).

To be honest I do have some sympathy with the comment about doing the shopping during the week (although not the pushing in or language) ... on Saturdays I am often running around like a mad thing trying to get things done so that I can relax on a Sunday.

[Manoverboard]

In that case, Ken, you will be pleased to note that we invariably go food shopping on a Saturday ... and NOBODY but NOBODY is going to overtake ME !!!

Actually, we get there at about 08:30 in the morning so have the place to ourselves while all you rush, rush, rush mobile clutchers are sleeping off your Friday night boozy curry nights.

Another thought and a point that was strangely overlooked by the Giant ...

Tis surely a tad pleasurable for these old farts in Poole to go shopping mid morning on Saturdays when it's really packed and then to keep meeting up with the same buzom young wenches aisle after aisle else to admire their assets as they stoop to unload their trolleys at the checkout ?

[Boris+]

It's a shame that more (potentially more 'young or younger') people fail time and time again to realise that a debt is owed to people who are older. Ok, I won't talk about the war, but simply because things naturally evolve, the older generation had to go through stuff in order for the stuff to evolve to provide things as they are today.

From my own personal point of view I reckon that life is like a bank account, and that you can't expect to take anything out unless you put make a deposit (or contribution) in the first place. Perhaps if more people could come to realise this then there wouldn't be as many people trying to live beyond their means and stressing themselves out, which leads them to have a life which is possibly not as happy as it might have been - making them unhappy, which simply put isn't nice.

I am not criticising people for stopping to enjoy a coffee in a coffee outlet (for example) who do so because of clever advertising, but if folk only stopped and thought a bit and changed these new habits (and coffee isn't the only thing which people buy due to clever advertising) maybe they would have a less stressed lifestyle and have more joy, time and consideration for the older generation.

Em

[oldbluefox]

It always amuses me when you join a queue of traffic crawling along at 20mph. There at the front, almost straddling the centre line is a little old couple who are probably saying to each other 'What a lovely ride out we had. There was absolutely nothing on the roads'.
No, it was all bl**dy well behind you!!!
I always vowed when I retired that I would never go shopping on a Saturday or after 4.30. I have some sympathy with the 'You've had all day to do your shopping' comment when you've just finished work and are dashing around to get your shopping and trying to pull everything else in. Old people don't always do themselves any favours but likewise we are very much in a more self-centred culture.

[Kendhni]

Can't say too much on that OBF .. the police had several complaints about a couple of uncles of mine .. both used to sit at a maximum of 25mph everywhere they went .. including up the motorway. They were like a mobile chicane .. what is worse, because it took one so long to get anywhere he used to set off early which usually meant in the middle of rush hour traffic .. one police officer told him that he was responsible for a tailback of several miles.

Fortunately we managed to get him to surrender his licence before it was taken of him.
The funny side of it was that he used to be a flyboy in the RAF and even though he drove at 25mph he still used to race speedboats.

[oldbluefox]

Many years ago I knew an old lady who never got out of third gear. She used to drive for a mile in the outside lane of a dual carriageway because she would be turning right and didn't want to get boxed in.

Actually we came up the M6 last week my wife and I were staggered by the number of young women 'middle lane hogging'. The inside lane was totally empty but they stuck to that middle lane. I presume they ride along in the middle lane because they don't like changing lanes and don't want to get boxed in. Or are they old ladies in training?

When we were in Ireland we came up to a junction where there was a car seemingly abandoned on the junction. We waited a while and nothing happened and I was just about to go round it when it moved off. When we got past it inside was a tiny old lady who must only have been able to see that bit of the road through the steering wheel.

[Silver_Shiney]

It's a shame that more (potentially more 'young or younger') people fail time and time again to realise that a debt is owed to people who are older. Ok, I won't talk about the war, but simply because things naturally evolve, the older generation had to go through stuff in order for the stuff to evolve to provide things as they are today.

From my own personal point of view I reckon that life is like a bank account, and that you can't expect to take anything out unless you put make a deposit (or contribution) in the first place. Perhaps if more people could come to realise this then there wouldn't be as many people trying to live beyond their means and stressing themselves out, which leads them to have a life which is possibly not as happy as it might have been - making them unhappy, which simply put isn't nice.

I am not criticising people for stopping to enjoy a coffee in a coffee outlet (for example) who do so because of clever advertising, but if folk only stopped and thought a bit and changed these new habits (and coffee isn't the only thing which people buy due to clever advertising) maybe they would have a less stressed lifestyle and have more joy, time and consideration for the older generation.

Em

You mean the world DOESN'T owe me a living??

[towny44]

I do not feel that anyone, young or old, owes me a debt of any sort, but I would just like to point out to all younger people that one day they will be old and possibly frail, and that what goes around comes around.

[Kendhni]

Towny, while I agree with you the converse also holds true ... maybe some of the older people should try to remember what it was like when they had a young family and/or had to rush around to get things done at the weekend so that they could have a bit of free time to relax.

[gfwgfw]

Good day from a "steaming" Poole Bay

I would like to square the hole if I may

Probably there are more cantankerous elderly ladies than young fillies roaming the highways and byways

. . . but the young fillies foul language wins by a country mile when they are aggrieved, don't you think

Thanks boss for moving me to the correct platform, you are a top man

Lubooo all

Graham

[Silver_Shiney]

You're right, Giant, youngsters today use the most obscene language as though it were part of normal vocabulary - and it always seems worse when it's the fairer sex using it.

[Kendhni]

Not just the youngsters ... I swear like a trooper and hardly classify as young these days .. however, I generally don't swear in company that I am not familiar with .. and, hypocritically, I would always tell Julie off if she dares to use even a mild swear word (which is very very rarely)

[Andrea S]

Ken, I can't copy from my phone but you commented on older people remembering what it was like rushing around with young children.

Life was so much simpler years ago. Life in general today is far more hectic.

Young couples nowadays have all modern things to help with the housework and washing , 24 hour supermarkets , cars to get children to school and for shopping yet all the young families I know are exhausted by the time Monday comes around.

I was going to work full time whilst nursing my Husband and looking after 2 young children. No appliances to make things easier yet we always had quality time together at the weekend.

Despite the hardships I feel I really had

[Andrea S]

Oops again. I do feel that a simpler life made things easier.
Perhaps all the extra things children do now adds to the problems facing young families. I see Mums and Dads taking little ones swimming, skating etc either in the evening or at weekends. It is premium 'child' time for them but time consuming.

[Gill W]

Towny, while I agree with you the converse also holds true ... maybe some of the older people should try to remember what it was like when they had a young family and/or had to rush around to get things done at the weekend so that they could have a bit of free time to relax.

That's very true.

I'm looking at the situation from somewhere in between the two. Now I'm at a point in my life where I work part time, I have the luxury of a little extra time to do other things, and I do my best to avoid busy times in supermarkets.

However, a few weeks ago, on a M&S cardholder event day, I ventured into the food section of M&S on a Friday lunch time. It was heaving with frazzled workers trying to get their shopping in their lunch hour. But adding to the crush were hoards of retired people who had seen people that they knew and had stopped to have a loud and long gossip with their cronies, completely oblivious to the crowds, and the obstructions they were causing. You could see all the workers becoming increasingly frustrated.

As for giving up seats, I was taught to give up my seat to someone who is less able to stand than I am, so that might be an older person, a person who is be disabled in some way , a pregnant woman, or a parent with bags of shopping and three small children.

[AngieT]

I agree with Andrea, life was much simpler when we were growing up (late 1950's onwards in my case). We didn't have a car so dad walked to work (an hour & half round trip) and he worked 3 shifts. Mum did'nt go back to work until my younger brother went to school & then she only worked 6 until 10 on weekday evenings. The rest of her day was spent walking us to school, running the home, doing the shopping at the local shops etc. I never saw my parents run around stressfully so they could spend the weekend with us yet they managed it fine - my happiest times were sitting on my dad's knee on Saturday afternoons with the TV on & my mum, dad & baby brother having an afternoon nap whilst I watched the - horse racing???? That's where I got my love of horse racing - it's all my dad's fault - call the NSPCC!

As for pensioners being expected to keep clear of the shops at the weekend so the 'young ones' can do their shopping - what happens to the likes of me who spends my weekdays caring for my 90yr old mum-in-law who has dementia? Saturday is sometimes the only day I have free to do the shopping! We don't all sit in the garden with our feet up in our non-working years (chance would be a fine thing)!

[Gill W]

I think life is simpler when you are young, and todays children will be saying the same about their own childhood when they are grown up.

I think there was a lot of drudgery for working people in days gone by. In the sixties when I was small, my dad got up in the cold and dark to light the coal fire so my mum and I could come down to a warm room, then cycled 10 miles to work. I'm sure he'd rather have had central heating and a car to go to work in.

Likewise, my mum doing the washing by hand, and if the spin dryer was broken ( which seemed to be every other week) putting it through the mangle to dry. I'm sure she would have killed for an automatic washing machine.

We never had central heating, but they did eventually get a gas fire, my mum learnt to drive in the 80's so they eventually got a car, and an automatic washing machine was purchased in the 90's

These are the type of things that most people think of as essentials, so young people have to work hard to buy these things. I imagine going back to hand washing everything is less attractive than having the things we now take for granted.

[Quizzical Bob]

We have been pleasantly surprised by the locals in a couple of places recently. In Dubai we were regularly offered seats on the metro by locals and in Bermuda the local schoolchildren offered us their seats on the buses. A refreshing change which did wonders for our memories of the places.

[Dark Knight]

old people are lovely......but I couldn't eat a whole one