You know you are getting old when:

[The one from the North]

What style(s) do you have in mind?

Thank you all for great ideas, I'll look into them. I prefer my staff high quality but rather plain, so I'm thinking darkish wood with round brass or maybe silver knob. Knob should be on the heavy side, so I can whack someone if the need arises... I'm rather intrigued with Foxtrot Lamont's idea of a sword cane but they are illegal here. So I need to find an antique, but don't like the idea of actually using an antique. Although I know a couple of good blacksmiths, maybe have one made.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^
I have three old canes that help fill out the umbrella stands they share with the old umbrellas and yardsticks I find hard to resist at yard sales and junktique emporia and the like. One of those canes, a simple wooden (ash?) crook, I suspect I’ll actually be using should I survive more than a couple-three more years (as seems likely), mostly because that cane is long enough for long-legged me. But that’s still pure speculation at this point, seeing how I have no experience in being cane-dependent.

I prefer simplicity in such things. I’d prefer a simple pine box over a fancy casket, for instance. Their beauty is in their being plenty good enough in their most basic form. Charles Eames’s banana-leaf parable comes to mind.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Thank you all for great ideas, I'll look into them. I prefer my staff high quality but rather plain, so I'm thinking darkish wood with round brass or maybe silver knob. Knob should be on the heavy side, so I can whack someone if the need arises...

Burger carries assortment brass and silver engraved knob sticks tailor fashioned for world class craftsmanship carved heirloom quality dependability. I've a trick knee incurred
several decades ago that necessitates a cane and I've decided to upgrade to a Burger
regular walking stick topped its custom warthog tusk handle.

 

[GHT]

You know that you are getting old when you can cough, fart, sneeze and pee....................all at the same time!

 

[AbbaDatDeHat]

You know you’re old when:
Your time proven parenting (grand parenting) skills get felony charges filed against you by a 6 year old.
B

 

[Trenchfriend]

I'm here since already 9 years? Holy cow!!

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^^
I recall an old gal telling me, a good 30 years ago now, that each year passes faster than the one before it. She’s been gone about 25 years. In the years since I’ve found her observation to be more and more true.

I’ve also found that my recall of just when some past event had occurred is becoming less and less reliable. If it happened more than a couple-three years ago it might as well have been five or six. Creeping senility might have something to do with that, but it’s likelier that such chronologies are of less importance to me and for that reason I pay them less attention.

 

[GHT]

What does an old guy with diarrhoea and
an electric car owner have in common?
They both hope that they will make it home.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
And no one ever ran out of gas, eh?

I believe the odds of my owning an electric car are excellent, should I live more than just a few more years. And I’m looking forward to an array of photovoltaic panels on my rooftop, with which to charge up that car.

It’ll run real money, for sure. I suffer no illusions on that account. But gas-burning cars run real money, too.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Why, all the 25+ kiddies talk about these "Center shocks" sweets? Is this special good?

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

Raise your hand if you know what "pica" has in common with "elite".

 

[GHT]

Raise your hand if you know what "pica" has in common with "elite".

Are they typefaces, that being the font of a typewriter?

You know that you are getting old if you ever collected trading stamps.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I got in trouble once for typing a script in Elite -- more words per page than Pica, which throws off the timing.

 

[Trenchfriend]

There are astonishing much meanings of "PICA"!

 

[Trenchfriend]

But I don't see much difference to Courier/ Courier New.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

Are they typefaces, that being the font of a typewriter?

You know that you are getting old if you ever collected trading stamps.

You qualify for the pub quiz team! I doubt that anyone under the age of 60 would recognize them.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

But I don't see much difference to Courier/ Courier New.

Not really a fair question for people whose native language isn't English. German letter forms are bound to be different from English-language ones. To start with you have four more letters, and that beta-looking one is a real puzzler for us. I once had a conversation with the Greek husband of a colleague and the subject of alphabetical order, or something similar, came up and I remember being surprised when he remarked that there are 24 letters in the alphabet. Then it dawned on me that he learned his letters in Greece!

As for other meanings, "pica" does have some interesting ones.

 

[GHT]

Not really a fair question for people whose native language isn't English. German letter forms are bound to be different from English-language ones. To start with you have four more letters, and that beta-looking one is a real puzzler for us. I once had a conversation with the Greek husband of a colleague and the subject of alphabetical order, or something similar, came up and I remember being surprised when he remarked that there are 24 letters in the alphabet. Then it dawned on me that he learned his letters in Greece!

As for other meanings, "pica" does have some interesting ones.

It's the Latin word for magpie.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Hence one of its other meanings, a disorder that causes a person to eat random objects, in the manner of a magpie. Before it became a disorder, it was the basis for a few really good vaudeville acts.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Actually, still having no trouble to get out of my (european) Futon bed. I will hold on it as long as possible. Otherwise, I could simply put something under it's feet to higher, if needed.