The Joys of getting old

It's all coming to back to haunt me as I approach my 67th birthday at the end of the year. I can remember joking about the old men who came out to watch us work. I remember saying "don't they have anything better to do?" We obviously weren't doing anything interesting enough to watch. That all came to a head this morning when I walked down to Palmwood and Sam Houston, just to watch the progress on a small section of road our city crews were working on. It brought back memories of freshly turned over dirt moistened by the morning dew, the smell was refreshing, as I watched the backhoe operator dig up more dirt and put it into the waiting dump trucks. Yes, like the old men who used to come watch us, I had my cup of strong steaming coffee with me. I saw a couple of young men looking my way, I wonder if they were talking about an old man watching them work?

I remember my brother and sisters used to laugh when we went into the living room; the black and white television was snowy and ain't no telling how long my stepdad had been asleep. I'm starting to do a little of that; last night I can't tell you what went on between the hours of 8:30 PM to 10:00 PM when I finally went up to bed. My stepdad had an excuse because when he was my age, he was still working pretty hard. I guess instead of counting sheep, I see visions of Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum over and over in my head, until I just naturally drift off.

There were posters saying that old people should get tested on a regular basis (6 months or so) before their license could be renewed. One old timer was annoyed but I remember taking the keys away from a stepfather when he turned 85 years old because he kept getting in accidents and we feared that he would end up hurting someone other than himself. I don't know at what age our driving skills start to deteriorate but my night vision is not what it used to be, so I avoid driving at night if possible. A lot of it is on a case by case basis, making it very difficult to set up an age at which a more frequent testing period should apply.

I don’t have the qualms about getting older because I’m enjoying myself. As I joking told my fellow coworkers “I’ve reached this age; you can’t say that.”

Subliminal Messages

 

A little background is necessary before I begin to tell you how a subliminal message worked on me. My wife and I are always trying to come up with a meatless dish other than fish for Lenten Friday.

Yesterday, I came up with the idea of eating pancakes at Skillets for breakfast this morning. For those are you who been keeping up with the recent emergence of Jakiebrown2007, the words" pancakes" and "skillet" should be familiar to you. That’s weakness of mine, I remember watching the Sopranos and having a craving for spaghetti and meatballs. I'm not affected by brand names, so subliminal messages embedded in commercials don't work on me. In the example above, IHOP was mentioned but I've had too many bad experiences at that restaurant and besides its way across town.

Researchers claim that subliminal messages can have a short-term effect but not a long-term one. A blogger recently applauded the" 60 Minutes" segment about the placebo -effect being accepted as a cure for some patients; over the medication the patients were prescribed. I don't know enough about the subject but after watching the segment, I didn't come away convinced that placebo should be accepted as a medical cure. I won't even accept the fact that subliminal messages of any sort will make people stop smoking, lose weight, or quit doing anything unacceptable to them. I'm not saying that they aren't documented cases that prove subliminal messages work, but it still comes down to willpower.

The old timers may remember a procedure called "backmasking" where a message in a song played backwards was supposed to relay some kind of message. I remembered the clergy getting all upset over something that I had no idea of what they were talking about. In the first place, I would never play a record backwards because it would ruin it with scratches and the messenger already told me what the message was the supposed to be. It was a phenomenon like the pet rock, which I never got into.

Have you ever been a victim of a subliminal message?