Your Most Disturbing Realizations

[Zombie_61]

There's a headstone in a graveyard, near a relative of mine, that always amuses me, it reads:
"HERE LIES AN ATHEIST,
ALL DRESSED UP,
AND NO PLACE TO GO."

Almost everyone familiar with the movie Jaws will remember this little ditty:

"Here lies the body of Mary Lee
Died at the age of 103
For 15 years she kept her virginity
Not a bad record for this vicinity"

What most people don't know is that it was ad-libbed by actor Robert Shaw on the day. After filming the scene, director Steven Spielberg asked Shaw where he'd gotten the poem and explained that they would have to pay the author royalties in order for them to legitimately use it in the movie. Shaw explained he'd read it on a tombstone in a cemetery near his home in Ireland, and joked that Spielberg probably didn't have to worry about it.

Since generation 1990, here in Germany, youth is absolutely magnetized on mobilephones, got mobilphones since childhood.

We "older" call them "smartphone-autists/smartphone-autism". The kids walking the crosswalk slowly, like hypnotized smurfs ("Beanie"-toques), that you like to get out of car and push them on the other side of the street.
And we think: "If you know, how we laugh about your mostly useless electronic-psychoses."

I've lost count of the number of imbeciles I've seen who were so entranced by their cell phones that they didn't bother to check for traffic as they stepped off of the curb to cross a street, and only survived being run over by the grace of the drivers who just happened to be paying attention.

 

[GHT]

I've lost count of the number of imbeciles I've seen who were so entranced by their cell phones that they didn't bother to check for traffic as they stepped off of the curb to cross a street, and only survived being run over by the grace of the drivers who just happened to be paying attention.

That's an accurate observation of today's lack of road sense and a neat tie-in with graveyards.

 

[Fading Fast]

Almost everyone familiar with the movie Jaws will remember this little ditty:

"Here lies the body of Mary Lee
Died at the age of 103
For 15 years she kept her virginity
Not a bad record for this vicinity"

What most people don't know is that it was ad-libbed by actor Robert Shaw on the day. After filming the scene, director Steven Spielberg asked Shaw where he'd gotten the poem and explained that they would have to pay the author royalties in order for them to legitimately use it in the movie. Shaw explained he'd read it on a tombstone in a cemetery near his home in Ireland, and joked that Spielberg probably didn't have to worry about it....

Great back story Zombie_61. That little ditty was just another perfect moment that not only developed Shaw's character but also created more contrast and tension between Hooper the scientist / thinker and Quint the man of instinct / liver of life. I know it's become a joke to some younger kids to mock the cheesy special effects - by today's standards - of "Jaws," but that's a shame as they miss in the incredible story telling talent that defines the movie.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Today published: German word of the year 2015:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Smombie

 

[Gingerella72]

This reminds me of the Mindset List that Beloit College publishes every year for college professors to get a feel for their incoming freshman students' life experiences, to better relate to them. The list for this year's freshmen who will be the class of 2019:

http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/2019/

My own realizations: I'm 2 weeks away from being older than my mom was when she gave birth to me.

Some of my friends who I graduated high school with in 1990 have grown children in college. Also, some are grandparents. This is absolutely amazing to me, since I don't have children myself.

Someone upthread mentioned that when he thinks of "grandparents", the image that comes to mind are folks that lived through WWII, but now grandparents are more likely to have grown up with disco and MTV than big band music. It's hard for me to wrap my head around. We have so many phrases that stem from the idea that grandparents, particularly grandmothers, are these little benevolent white haired ladies in print dresses and aprons....."Just like Grandma used to make" for example for food....that are probably in danger of no longer making sense to the current generation. Today's kids more likely have grandmas that are still in the workforce or take college classes for enhanced learning, or travel the world in their retirement, than are attending quilting circles and baking cookies.

 

[Trenchfriend]

2019, Los Angeles, "Blade Runner".

 

[sheeplady]

2019, Los Angeles, "Blade Runner".

BUT... can you really prove you're not a replicant?

Hmmmmm...

 

[HudsonHawk]

2019, Los Angeles, "Blade Runner".

The book is set in the future dystopia of 1992. That's worse than Back to the Future.

 

[GHT]

Some of my friends who I graduated high school with in 1990 have grown children in college. Also, some are grandparents. This is absolutely amazing to me, since I don't have children myself.

Like you, I don't have any children, and therefore, no grandchildren. Parents can relate to the passing of time through milestones in their children's life, like taking their first steps, first words, first teeth and so on. Then they are off to school and before you know it they are being hormonal/petulant/bringing boyfriend/girlfriend home, into you for money, going off to college, into you for more money, marriage, giving you a grandchild, and on and on. But, at college in 1990 and a grandparent 25 years later, I needed smelling salts and a lay down in a dark room when I read that.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The book is set in the future dystopia of 1992. That's worse than Back to the Future.

I seem to remember that 1992 was, in fact, quite dystopic.

 

[Trenchfriend]

It was Ridley Scott's "black row", I call it that way.

"Alien" > Far future (dated 2144 ?)
"Blade Runner" > terrifying NEAR future 2019, post-capitalism?
"Black Rain" > today/80's.

 

[Fading Fast]

Like you, I don't have any children, and therefore, no grandchildren. Parents can relate to the passing of time through milestones in their children's life, like taking their first steps, first words, first teeth and so on. Then they are off to school and before you know it they are being hormonal/petulant/bringing boyfriend/girlfriend home, into you for money, going off to college, into you for more money, marriage, giving you a grandchild, and on and on. But, at college in 1990 and a grandparent 25 years later, I needed smelling salts and a lay down in a dark room when I read that.

Maybe it's all what your experience as a kid was. My parents were older, my dad was 40 when I was born and his mom had been in her early 30s when he was born (similar on my mom's side with her dad - I only had two living grandparents as a kid), so, growing up, my grandparents were in their seventies and seemed very old - both had pretty major health issues. So, away from the cultural stereotype at the time, my experience was grandparents were old and, unfortunately, not healthy. I'm 51 now and several of my contemporaries are grandparents. A very good friend of mine is in (I'm guessing) her late forties and she just became a grandmother - she is an incredibly energetic, active person - so it is jarring for me to think of her in any context similar to my grandparents growing up.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Maybe it's all what your experience as a kid was. My parents were older, my dad was 40 when I was born and his mom had been in her early 30s when he was born (similar on my mom's side with her dad - I only had two living grandparents as a kid), so, growing up, my grandparents were in their seventies and seemed very old - both had pretty major health issues. So, away from the cultural stereotype at the time, my experience was grandparents were old and, unfortunately, not healthy. I'm 51 now and several of my contemporaries are grandparents. A very good friend of mine is in (I'm guessing) her late forties and she just became a grandmother - she is an incredibly energetic, active person - so it is jarring for me to think of her in any context similar to my grandparents growing up.

I know what you mean. My sister, who is less than a year older than me, just became a grandmother at 49. She is nothing like my grandmothers. Also, that makes me a great uncle. I remember my great uncles as these cigar chomping old men who played horseshoes while complaining about the government. I really hope that's not how I'm remembered.

 

[Trenchfriend]

I know what you mean. My sister, who is less than a year older than me, just became a grandmother at 49. She is nothing like my grandmothers. Also, that makes me a great uncle. I remember my great uncles as these cigar chomping old men who played horseshoes while complaining about the government. I really hope that's not how I'm remembered.

The old uncles, preparing snuff-tobacco right from these old-times small bags, on the old tables at the living room, my mother said. Or pipe-tobacco, maybe.

 

[LizzieMaine]

My uncle, when I was a little kid, seemed like an impossibly old man -- sitting at the table at Thanksgiving with his balding head and his beer belly, outraging my grandmother by singing dirty songs punctuated by farts. He was only in his early thirties then, and people in their early thirties now could be my children.

 

[Trenchfriend]

This legendary song is from 1962, one year, before my mum was born.

I mean, over HALF of a century! Woohoo!!

And this ROCK from 1965:

Great year, I think.

 

[LizzieMaine]

This legendary song is from 1962, one year, before my mum was born.

Oh my. I'm the same age as your mum.

 

[GHT]

Lucky you, I'm the same age as Cher and another 3376 celebrities born in 1946

 

[sheeplady]

Maybe it's all what your experience as a kid was. My parents were older, my dad was 40 when I was born and his mom had been in her early 30s when he was born (similar on my mom's side with her dad - I only had two living grandparents as a kid), so, growing up, my grandparents were in their seventies and seemed very old - both had pretty major health issues. So, away from the cultural stereotype at the time, my experience was grandparents were old and, unfortunately, not healthy. I'm 51 now and several of my contemporaries are grandparents. A very good friend of mine is in (I'm guessing) her late forties and she just became a grandmother - she is an incredibly energetic, active person - so it is jarring for me to think of her in any context similar to my grandparents growing up.

The average age of first grandparent hood is 48 in the US. Makes sense as average age of women having first children around their mid-twenties.

I had both my children younger than my parents when they had me. And compared to my one set of grandparents- who had their first surviving children at 40 and 48, I was quite young at 31 to have my first child. It's all perspective.

 

[Trenchfriend]

In eastern Germany, still today there are very popular "basic-lunches", like "potato-mash with pork-liver and roasted onions". Are there comparable "old-fashion-basics" in the United States?