You know you're old when...

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by Esteban

I was there, once… a long time ago. Now it’s their turn.

We used to race on this dirt road through the woods in cars with all metal dashboards and no seat belts. We never would have survived if we had struck one of those many trees. I'm sometimes amazed that I survived my teens.

[Esteban]

Originally Posted by M_Six

We used to race on this dirt road through the woods in cars with all metal dashboards and no seat belts. We never would have survived if we had struck one of those many trees. I'm sometimes amazed that I survived my teens.

I agree. We used to race through the dirt roads in Griffith Park. Also in the emergency lane on the freeway.

Isn't it funny how we were immortal then?

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by Esteban

I agree. We used to race through the dirt roads in Griffith Park. Also in the emergency lane on the freeway.

Isn't it funny how we were immortal then?

Yep. Death was something that happened to other people.

[NealfromNZ]

Originally Posted by M_Six

Yep. Death was something that happened to other people.

Tell me about it. Mate and I brought and old Humber 80 for $50 for a demolition derby car.

Before the demo derby where it lasted less than a lap we took to around a south cost which is really a 4wd road. Fuel pump had died so we had a coke bottle hanging of the rear view mirror full of petrol and a tube running to the carberutor . If you squeezed the bottle a little bit we could get more RPM out of the engine. When it ran out we’d just refill it with a petrol can.

We drove about 3-4 miles before getting the car beached and almost going over a bank. I jumped from the vehicle thinking it was going to roll over. To make matters worse my mate was smoking . Nothing happened . Managed to get the car unstuck.

But it’s amazing the dumb stuff we did as young lads. Kinda Darwin awards material.

[Llarry]

Some 30 years ago I had a sobering experience on this subject: I had a older paving guy at my house for a quote and he had a younger man in his truck with him. He explained that his son had been paralyzed in a motorcycle accident years before and now he took his son with him on jobs just to get him out of the house. It made me realize that, sure enough, there were some of us that did NOT survive the stupid years intact. Thank our lucky stars!

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by Llarry

Some 30 years ago I had a sobering experience on this subject: I had a older paving guy at my house for a quote and he had a younger man in his truck with him. He explained that his son had been paralyzed in a motorcycle accident years before and now he took his son with him on jobs just to get him out of the house. It made me realize that, sure enough, there were some of us that did NOT survive the stupid years intact. Thank our lucky stars!

For sure. Four of my classmates died in our senior year when they lost control of their car at high speed and ran into a huge oak tree head-on. Stuff like that happened,but it didn't slow us down.

[wdb]

High school classmates did these things:

• Slashed his face open after hitting a light post in the school parking lot while hotdogging for his friends, and being ejected through the windshield
• Suffered paralyzing injuries after pulling his fiberglass dune buggy into the path of an oncoming car
• Died after doing pull-ups off the front end of his Corvette while it was on a lift and bringing the car down on himself
• Died after driving over a blind hill at high speed and slamming into the back end of a stopped vehicle

[Esteban]

Originally Posted by M_Six

For sure. Four of my classmates died in our senior year when they lost control of their car at high speed and ran into a huge oak tree head-on. Stuff like that happened,but it didn't slow us down.

I had a good friend in high school who took a turn too quick on his motorcycle and lost control and hit his head on a curb and suffered severe brain damage. Poor guy lives in a nursing home and has to have pretty much everything done for him. I still visit him every so often. He can hardly speak and half the time does not recognize me.

[3.0L]

Originally Posted by Llarry

Some 30 years ago I had a sobering experience on this subject: I had a older paving guy at my house for a quote and he had a younger man in his truck with him. He explained that his son had been paralyzed in a motorcycle accident years before and now he took his son with him on jobs just to get him out of the house. It made me realize that, sure enough, there were some of us that did NOT survive the stupid years intact. Thank our lucky stars!

Originally Posted by M_Six

For sure. Four of my classmates died in our senior year when they lost control of their car at high speed and ran into a huge oak tree head-on. Stuff like that happened,but it didn't slow us down.

We lost 2 classmates in 1965 when they got drunk one Friday night and crashed head-on into another car. Killed that driver, too. Next, another classmate was paralyzed from the waist down when the street-racing car he was a passenger in crashed into a city fountain. He spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair. He died about 3 years ago. Still another classmate crashed a motorcycle when he was about 30 and ended up in a wheelchair for life. He wanted to be an airline pilot.

[CarsAndGuitars]

My junior year of HS ~1980 one of our classmates (not a close friend, but an acquaintance) decided to join the senior trip to a lake party. He drowned.

I had a friend in HS, but I moved away after junior year. Shortly after, I learned his twin sister was driving their dad's Daytona Charger (yes the winged beast) and he was in the back seat with his girlfriend. They got into an accident, but I don't know exactly what happened except that he positioned himself to protect his GF and in doing so, broke his neck. I saw him for the last time in a whelchair the next year.

Also after moving away, I learned that another closer friend was missing for a few days and then was found dead in his car on the side of I87 just north of Albany. No idea what happened. If I had to guess, OD.

[dradernh]

Originally Posted by Llarry

Some 30 years ago I had a sobering experience on this subject: I had a older paving guy at my house for a quote and he had a younger man in his truck with him. He explained that his son had been paralyzed in a motorcycle accident years before and now he took his son with him on jobs just to get him out of the house. It made me realize that, sure enough, there were some of us that did NOT survive the stupid years intact. Thank our lucky stars!

I'm reminded of a hospital stay I had after my sophomore year in high school. I'd found a way to position myself in front of an oncoming car while bicycling and got to spend a few weeks recovering in a hospital and another four months before something like normal life resumed.

After I was able to leave my hospital room and practice walking with a full leg cast and crutches, the first thing I noticed in the hallway was another fellow doing the same thing. He looked horrible: weak, an unhealthy-appearing complexion, and extremely thin (this at a time when most males 15-25 were generally pretty slender compared to today).

Before I could ask, the nurse assisting me said that he'd been in a motorcycle accident. The kicker was that the accident had taken place six months previously, and he'd been in that hospital ever since.

Given some of the things I did later - both behind the handlebars of bicycles and motorcycles, and later behind the wheels of the cars I drove - I can't say that seeing that poor fellow nor knowing what I'd already done to myself had much influence on me. Thinking about it in that way now, I feel lucky to be here.

[sygazelle]

You know you're old when...

[Buug959]

Originally Posted by sygazelle

You know you're old when...

And if you were lucky it was a plastic hose and not rubber. Water from a rubber hose just tasted nasty. You still drank it but it was nasty.

[sygazelle]

Originally Posted by Buug959

And if you were lucky it was a plastic hose and not rubber. Water from a rubber hose just tasted nasty. You still drank it but it was nasty.

So true. I still have memories of that nasty taste. So much so, when I fill or clean my bird fountain, I run the hose for 30 seconds or so before I put water in the fountain. I don't want my precious little birdies to experience that awful taste.

[sygazelle]

....when you used to go see the Los Angeles Dodgers play baseball here.

[dradernh]

Originally Posted by sygazelle

....when you used to go see the Los Angeles Dodgers play baseball here.

...or when the SF Giants had become so pitiful they drew maybe 200-300 hardcore, down sleeping bag-wearing fans to a night game at the torture chamber called Candlestick!

[Esteban]

Originally Posted by sygazelle

....when you used to go see the Los Angeles Dodgers play baseball here.

My daughter designed the landscaping around Dodger Stadium some years ago.

[3.0L]

Originally Posted by Esteban

My daughter designed the landscaping around Dodger Stadium some years ago.

Is she a landscape architect? My son-in-law is a landscape architect.

[Esteban]

Originally Posted by 3.0L

Is she a landscape architect? My son-in-law is a landscape architect.

She did some landscape design several years ago and knew the right people. She has a degree in Landscape Architecture and Horticulture, among others.

She didn’t do it by herself, of course. She worked with a team and was a subcontractor.

[3798j]

some senior humor...

[JJ 911SC]

While in school, the last element on the Periodic Table was Nobelium.

[Lady Jane]

Which Sitcom?