<p>One of my 5th graders today started a comment with this preface
“My grandpa got drafted and he had to go to a war in VietNam…”</p>
<p>OK, I know the numbers add up, but to me Viet Nam isn’t “Grandpa’s war stories” territory yet…</p>
<p>Ouch.</p>
<p>At the Marine Corps Birthday Ball they honor the oldest and youngest Marines present. I well remember the year the youngest Marine had been born the year my husband graduated from high school, then when I graduated from high school, then the year my husband graduated from college. Now we just try to distract ourselves during that part of the ceremony!</p>
<p>OP - I know what you mean about those 5th/6th grade scenarios. I was checking D’s homework today. Teacher (very young obviously) instructed kids to calculate the volume of a cylinder as radius times length. Huh? I was taught it was pi times radius-squared times length. That must have been “in the old days.”</p>
<p>Good Heavens. Best let that teacher know the truth.</p>
<p>H was in the service when the Viet Nam war ended. He’s in is middle fifties.</p>
<p>Yeah, we are old. My own Grandpas were in WWI. It’s so odd to think that ALL of the US WWI vets are gone.</p>
<p>I always feel old when people younger than me or my age are grandparents</p>
<p>I feel old when my contemporaries at the YMCA noon basketball game ask the manager for a 50 and over only court.</p>
<p>And half of them want a 60 and over game!!!</p>
<p>Thanks, but I feel old enough as it is – no additional help needed! :)</p>
<p>My daughter’s 5th grade class had a history fair this weekend, and one of her classmate’s exhibits was on World War II—the war in the Pacific. I mentioned to the boy that my father was stationed in the Pacific during that war. He said with amazement, “Your dad? Your dad was in this war that I studied?” I assured him it was true, and he asked, searching for polite words, “And he is…still on this earth?”</p>
<p>Yes indeed. 86 and doing fine. And his father fought in World War I, and his great- grandfather—whom he remembers well (I have a photo of them together)—fought in the Civil War. That’s what amazes me—that my dad, still living and healthy, has clear memories of someone who fought in the Civil War. And I’m not that old—really!</p>
<p>Realize that one of the sophomores sitting in your class is the daughter of a former student.</p>
<p>Really? Not to be contrary, but Viet Nam vets have been grandpas for a long time. Look at John McCain for example. It went on for a long time. People grew old during the Viet Nam war.</p>
<p>I was thinking the same thing–H’s dad was in the Marines during VN, though he didn’t actually serve there. He, if he was still with us, would have a 26 year old granddaughter.</p>
<p>I have a friend who is my age and his * dad* was an admiral in WWI. so I don’t feel too old & I know quite a few people my age ( and I was too young to have fought in Vietnam), who have grandkids- so that doesn’t really make me feel old.</p>
<p>I actually feel pretty young because of my friends who talk about being in college when JFK was shot & I was in kindergarten ( that and my daughter took me to see M.I.A)</p>
<p>I had a discussion with my 17-year-old yesterday about what constitutes an “old movie.” Did you know that Star Wars is an old movie?</p>
<p>Hunt, actually, I do think of Star Wars as an old movie. That’s because I saw it–the day it came out–with my ex-husband. As opposed to the current one, to whom I’ve now been married 25 years. </p>
<p>My son’s calculus teacher commented to the class one day that he’d had the school’s English teacher as a student when she was in high school. That teacher’s son is now in the calculus teacher’s class. Of course, Mr. B is in his late seventies, but he didn’t start teaching until AFTER he ended his career night-flying nuclear bombers in the south Pacific during the Cold War (late '50s).</p>
<p>well it is an old movie-
I don’t feel old- but yesterday I went to an optometrist that I hadn’t been to for about 15-20 years. ( I’d been going to an opthamologist), he looked completely different! what a shock!</p>
<p>Fans of The Closer?
Check out [Singles.]( <a href=“Singles (1992) - IMDb”>http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105415/</a>) I think Kyra looks good now, but in Singles she is absolutely a * baby*.
We should all count our blessings we aren’t actors and run into shocked fans when we go out without our makeup artist.</p>
<p>one of the worst things about being around for a while ( annoying anyway) is when they play Boston/BTO/Foreigner at the grocery store. Those bands did have a couple hits but I have heard them more times than I want to already- ( some kids have the audacity to * discover* Led Zeppelin/Doors/Kinks/Talking Heads et.al, where did they think we were, under a rock?
;)</p>
<p>Overheard in a record store (many years ago): “The Beatles? Have you heard of them?” “Oh, that’s the band McCartney was in before Wings.”</p>
<p>I felt really old earlier this month when I watched the Texas vs. Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl. They kept showing Colt McCoy’s parents and they looked so young. I remember when the players looked young. Now it is the parents of the players that look young. Ouch!!</p>
<p>Our kids today do not remember that Steve Martin plays a banjo and wears an arrow through his head. Or that Robin Williams use to always wear suspenders. </p>
<p>Finally, our kids have know clue how to work a slide rule. I remember my Chemistry teacher required us to use a sliderule because calculators were too expensive and not all the students could afford one.</p>
<p>speaking of Paul McCartney…
[David</a> Lynch? I was thinking David Byrne](<a href=“http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/01/eddie_vedder_paul_mccartney_an.php]David”>http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/01/eddie_vedder_paul_mccartney_an.php)</p>
<p>Dave - I’ve told D about Christmas our senior year when everyone in Chemistry got a calculator. For a week, we did nothing but admire them and type in .07734. Of course, they did nothing but the four basic functions, but man, they were cool! D rolls her eyes and sighs…</p>