You know you are getting old when:

[AbbaDatDeHat]

My apologies for the post. Sometimes too many Karen threads/posts in a row get to me. My grandpa always told me to never miss a chance to keep my mouth shut. I should live by that more often.

Nahh Jack. I got the humor!
Pretty f’n funny actually.
B

 

[Hurricane Jack]

In my Senior year high school year book I wrote my career goal was to become a Chartered Accountant. I have no idea why I put that down.

Man, I just couldn’t live like that.

he offered to drive us as he was headed that way.

For many yrs I had a friend thru business who lived in the richest county of the 6 county area. Wife & 2 kids. I know he struggled some to live there. He & his wife drove little cars. When his kids got to be college age, twice each yr he would ask to borrow a leased company pickup to move a kid to college & back; 7 yrs total I think it was that he borrowed one. One yr when he was car shopping (giving his oldest Honda to one of the kids to drive) I asked him why he didn’t just buy himself a half ton pickup as a second vehicle. He told me his wife & neighbors would crap if they saw a pickup truck parked in the neighborhood. WTF?

 

[AbbaDatDeHat]

But another question.

In the 50s/60s/70s, did you have rivaling car gangs, maybe Mustang fans/Thunderbird fans/Corvette fans and so on?
I Imagine, there could have been some hardcore fans around the Mustang scene or maybe Cobra-scene? I mean, I totally understand that the Mustang is a legend, same as Cobra, Thunderbird, Vette and so on.

Trenchy, here in the midwest of the US i don’t think you’d call the gearheads gangs but just guys.
I can’t speak to the 50’s hot rodders but in the 60’s and 70’s it seemed to be Ford guys, Chevy guys or Mopar guys. In the early 70’s street racing i loved blowing the doors off the Mustangs and big boxy Mopars with my little 69 Z28. It represented the Chevy guys very well and pissed off many of those other guys.
Corvette guys were a different breed all together.
B

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^
Sheesh! Those neighbors would be apoplectic at what’s parked around here.

I just got back home from running errands. On my block are several cars that haven’t moved in months, minimally. Most are parked in driveways or on “lawns” alongside driveways, but a few others are on the street. Weeds are growing up in cracks in the pavement where they are parked. A pickup that hasn’t moved in at least a year has a length of 4x4 behind a rear wheel on the downhill side.

I’d rather those dead cars weren’t there, but I prefer this over living in one of the “covenant protected” “communities” around here. And I’d prefer the perhaps too lax code enforcement in this municipality over a hard-nosed approach. If a person looked closely enough, he could find a code violation at every property around here.
EDIT: I counted. Eight dead cars on this block.

 

[GHT]

My apologies for the post. Sometimes too many Karen threads/posts in a row get to me. My grandpa always told me to never miss a chance to keep my mouth shut. I should live by that more often.

It should me doing the apologising Jack, just like your grandfather my Dad had a similar quip. "Engage brain before engaging mouth," or in this case, the written word.

 

[belfastboy]

Man, I just couldn’t live like that.

For many yrs I had a friend thru business who lived in the richest county of the 6 county area. Wife & 2 kids. I know he struggled some to live there. He & his wife drove little cars. When his kids got to be college age, twice each yr he would ask to borrow a leased company pickup to move a kid to college & back; 7 yrs total I think it was that he borrowed one. One yr when he was car shopping (giving his oldest Honda to one of the kids to drive) I asked him why he didn’t just buy himself a half ton pickup as a second vehicle. He told me his wife & neighbors would crap if they saw a pickup truck parked in the neighborhood. WTF?

I have a wife born and raised in Alberta. When we bought a new vehicle two years ago I mused out loud about buying an EV. My common sense wife retorted....if I purchased an EV then she was going out and buying herself a pick up truck to balance the family out. We settled on an ICE SUV.

 

[EngProf]

To get an excellent overview of the car-culture of the early-sixties to early seventies car culture you should watch "American Graffiti" multiple times.
It was George Lucas' autobiographical story of car-culture in Northern California in the early-sixties.
Why the line "Where were you in "62?" was used is largely due to the fact that first-year baby-boomers - born 1946 - turned sixteen that year. Sixteen was the year you got your driver's license and a measure of freedom and independence. (see the movie)
I grew up in Nashville, TN, very far from Northern California, but my high-school experiences (graduated 1966) were *exactly* as depicted in the movie. From the first time I saw it I observed that you could pick any one of the movie characters and put them in my high-school and nobody would have noticed.
I have to admit that not everyone of the students in my high-school were part of the car-culture, but a LOT were.
The automotive technology advanced rapidly in the late sixties - thank John Delorean (GTO) and others for coming up with the "muscle car" - medium size, light body, big engine.
Our cars were like in "AG" but faster and better looking.
We also put the later engines (much more HP) in the earlier bodies (1955-1962).
The early Mustangs were not all that fast, so their fans came later.
My character was similar to Curt (Richard Dreyfuss) the English-major academic who fell in with the hot-rodders by accident.
However, I was a future mechanical engineer, so I had good academic credentials, but fell into the hot-rodder society by intent.
The future engineers in my school were part of the hot-rod-hoodlum society and had great fun being there. It also eliminated bullying since they would defend us against the other-school bullies.
Also, listen to the "car-songs" of the sixties by the Beach Boys and others.
They sang songs about and to their cars... "409", "Little Deuce Coupe", "Dead Man's Curve", "I Get Around", etc., etc.
This is a small part of the story...

I thought of a few more car-culture "facts" from the sixties, especially relating to the original question about brand rivalry:
There was a strong brand rivalry in those days: Ford vs. Chevy (GM) vs. Chrysler (Plymouth and Dodge).
However, there was also a recognized performance "pecking order" on the street.
Chrysler hemis were the undisputed fastest cars - no doubt - but there were not a lot of those...
GM was next, Chevrolet Chevelle, Pontiac GTO, Olds 442... quality plus quantity...
Ford was dead last...
Ford Motor Company spent/wasted MILLIONS in winning Indy and Le Mans but none of us hot-rodders cared anything about that stuff.
What was important to us was that a 396 Chevrolet Chevelle could outrun a 390 GT Ford Fairlane, first-time, every-time. As for Mustangs, remember that they were called "PONY cars", and not just from their name. They didn't get real HORSEpower until much later.
A personal "brand-rivalry" story:
Many years after the sixties, I was teaching engineering, including a first-year introductory course. On the first day of her first-year, a female student came in and sat by herself on the front row.
She had on a a very colorful T-shirt with a cartoon Mustang and the word "MUSTANG" in big print.
She was the only one in the room so I walked over and quietly said, " I hate Fords and the people that drive them."
She was shocked for about two seconds, before she realized I was a Chevy guy, and was just giving her a hot-rod hard time.
She actually owned a Mustang and had done significant work on it herself.
We later talked car-stuff on a regular basis and became friends. We still keep in touch to this day.
She is now an engineer for Nissan.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^
As I’ve noted before, I have little patience with adults who apparently think it their duty to tell kids that kind of claptrap. The one I heard at least a thousand times was “you can do anything you set your mind to.”

I knew it was pure nonsense, but I couldn’t say that lest I’d have had pain inflicted on my person.

The fool spewing that BS wouldn’t have believed it himself had he given it a moment’s thought. But thinking never was his strong suit.

Maybe I was wrong …

 

[Turnip]

…you just returned from a five weeks cure, sit at the breakfast table preparing for the first working day and think: Man, this should have gone five more weeks…

 

[Tiki Tom]

We don’t have five week cures. We have two week vacations!

 

[Turnip]

Yes, that’s possibly one reason why the average life expectancy of German Karl Heinz is 3,5 years higher than Johnny Sixpack‘s from USA..

At your end such things would have been a case for Mr. McCarthy….

 

[LizzieMaine]

When a coworker who is young enough to be your kid starts complaining about getting old.

 

[Edward]

When a coworker who is young enough to be your kid starts complaining about getting old.

Ho, yes.

And when you no longer teach anyone born in the same century as you were. And you're a University lecturer.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Even worse, when you're giving advice on perimenopause to someone young enough to be your kid. Now I know what MY mother meant when she said "Someday you'll understand."

 

[The one from the North]

I used to say my new coworkers that I begun this work when they were born. Nowadays I have to say when their parents were born...

 

[GHT]

Ho, yes.

And when you no longer teach anyone born in the same century as you were. And you're a University lecturer.

Curious that Edward. When I was a student I found University Lecturers much more worldly and "in tune." At school, the teachers came over as far more remote. Maybe it was my youth and lack of maturity that gave me that impression. School teachers and University Lecturers are similar professions yet they are world's apart.

 

[Tiki Tom]

I sometimes find it necessary to remind people that “I was born deep in the middle of the last century.” Such was the case when someone used the word “Rizz” as a verb and I had no idea what they were talking about.

Apparently Rizz is short for charisma and to use it as a verb is to charm or “play” someone.

 

[tonyb]

I sometimes find it necessary to remind people that “I was born deep in the middle of the last century.” Such was the case when someone used the word “Rizz” as a verb and I had no idea what they were talking about.

Apparently Rizz is short for charisma and to use it as a verb is to charm or “play” someone.

In my time that sort of insincere flattery was called “blowing smoke up her skirt” or “his a**.”

 

[LizzieMaine]

In the lingering-19th-Century New England of my grandfather's childhood, "riz" meant a type of biscuit made with yeast and baking soda. "Riz" biscuits, they're fluffy because they "riz."

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^^
So in some circles going back a century and more ago a person might have heard “He is riz“ on Easter mornIng?