Monday, March 21, 2011

OLD, BUT NOT DEAD YET

When I was a child I counted my birthdays by months not years. To a kid your life revolves around birthdays and Christmas. The time span between each is counted in long weeks. Every kid knows how old they are right down to the month.
The years go flying by when you get older. The older you get the faster time travels.
Well now I'm old. Not dead yet mind you. But so much older.

When I was born (an official baby boomer) Harry Truman was in the white house. George Albert Smith was president of the LDS church.
A gallon of gas was $.20. Wow! A six pack of coke was $.37, of course they were 6 oz bottles. A postage stamp cost a whole $.03, and that was the only choice you had of getting a message cross country. No e-mail yet.
And speaking of e-mail, 1951 was the year that the first commercial computer was sold. The UNIVAC 1. The massive computer was 8 feet high, 7-1/2 feet wide and 14-1/2 feet long. 46 machines were built, for about $1 million each.

I don't count birthdays in years anymore but in rounded decades. I'm hoping I still have a few years left. I come from a line of long livers. My grandparents all lived into their 80's and my paternal grandmother had a couple of siblings that lived into their 90's. I try to take care of myself. I don't get enough exercise, I kind of watch what I eat. But some things are just worth the trouble.

"I'm 93 years old, do you really think a pat of butter is going to shorten my life"
(Jacob Jankowski, "Water for Elephants")

3 comments:

Tiffany said...

I didn't realize computers have been around that long!

Jules said...

Just how long is your liver? Has anyone ever measured?

Dan said...

liver 2
noun [with adj. ]
a person who lives in a specified way : a clean liver | high livers.