I am turning 50

[Per Swenson]

Hi all.

Labor day weekend has always been this crazy guys birthday weekend.
Why, every 7 years it falls on labor day.
Not to belabor the point, but the odds at one time were not in my favor of making it this far.
Go ahead you older geezers chuckle.
But 50 years old? With a mind like a adolescent?

So here is the question.

Do any of you folks consider your chronological age or are y'all still a bunch of big kids like me?

[Phyllis Meyer]

Have an awesome day! Numbers don't mean anything, it's how you feel inside!

Sincerely,
A kid at heart,
Phyllis:)

[David DeCristoforo]

Funny you should bring this up. I will be 61 on the 25th of Sept. And I don't feel any different that I did when I was 20. Oh, there are more aches and pains and I don't have quite the stamina I did when I was 20. But I can still work circles around guys half my age. And, having stopped smoking a few months ago, I have a lot more energy and feel more positive than I have ever felt. My relationship with my wife of going on 40 years is better than ever. Growing older is a fact of life. But it's how you deal with it that matters. Our society places value on youth and physical appearance when, in fact, those are among the least important things in life. Enjoy what you have, be grateful and give as much as you can to as many as you can. BWT, 50 don't look so old from here....

[Dennis Peacock]

Relax Per.....I turn 50 next year.....but hey....I'm still a big kid having fun and riding motorcycles and such. My body is old, but "I'm" still young. :D

Happy Birthday bud!!!!

[Tom Godley]

I will be 50 next year -- I never really think about it. But I have noticed that more and more people are younger than me :)

I was never a kid -- I was one of those VERY serious children.


I worked way too much in my 30's - when I turned 40 I thankfully recognized how crazy it was and jumped off the "merry go round".

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Per......Happy Birthday!

Life is pretty much what you make of it. I think you have the right attitude.......

[Matt Ocel]

I'm a couple years behind ya, but to answer your question, I still act like a sophomore in high school.I don't know of any other way! (my wife hates it:D)

Have a happy 50 Per.

[glenn bradley]

I'm older than you guys!?! I can't believe it! Seriously, I may act my age when required but I refuse to live my age. Stay healthy whenever possible and enjoy life, that's my recommendation. Live like you feel and not by the calendar and all that stuff. Congrats and welcome to your quinquagenarian decade ;-)

[Bruce Page]

For the most part, I don’t feel much different in my head than I did 20 years ago, I guess I’m a little more conservative.
I’m going to be 58 in a couple of months and I definitely can feel the difference in my strength & stamina. :(

Happy Birthday, 50 ain’t that bad

[Mitchell Andrus]

Do any of you folks consider your chronological age or are y'all still a bunch of big kids like me?


Per, you know the band I play in. You think I'M grown up yet??????

BTW, welcome to the club - and yes, you may still sit at the kid's table if you'd like...

.

[Jesse Cloud]

Dude, it just gets better! I breezed past fifty a long while back and every year I feel better and have more fun. Best wishes for the next 50!

[Judy Kingery]

Hello Per,

Happy 50th! Yep, I'll follow you two weeks after Labor Day for my 5-0. My husband says he married "an older woman." Ha, he'll follow us right into 50 about 6 months behind us! Nah, I think 50's fine, long as one has the fortunate experience to feel fairly well and enjoy your marriage, family and friends (including those members of the family called pups), your activities, occupation - then yes, life is indeed blessed and 50's fine. We've always cut up and had a great deal of fun through the years, so nope, regardless of chronology, that hasn't changed at all!!! Have a good one! Jude

[David DeCristoforo]

1) Stop worrying about being "old".
2) Never wear bermuda shorts.
3) Do NOT take up golf.
4) Take nothing for granted.
5) Keep working. DO NOT "retire"!!!
6) Make love as often as possible.
7) Do not believe anything you see on TV
8) Laugh as often as possible (especially at yourself).
9) Keep challenging your mind.
10) Learn to ignore pain.
11) Accept the inevitable. But fight it anyway.
12) etc......

[Steve Clardy]

Hmmm. I remember my 50th very well.

It was the following day before I realized I had turned 50.:eek: :o:D:D:D

[Bob Swenson]

Per was 50 when he was 5, he just didn't have a beard then.
Suck it up guys, I went to work for a German mason when I was 65, added years to my life. Never give up. :)
Bob :cool:

[Per Swenson]

I thank you all, but in the same vein I think you should thank your selves's for being the fine people you are. Each and every one of you.
Though I some times fancy myself as a rag pedlar's bag 'o words,
nothing I write can compare to your heartfelt response.

For that I thank you and am in your debt.

Per Swenson..the half century geeze.

P.

[Jim O'Dell]

Growing up, we all heard you were over the hill when you turned 30. I hit 30 and laughed at it. The afternoon I hit 40, I think my body fell apart!! All of a sudden, I had these aches and pains. My knees started giving me fits, and my memory started to play games with me, it's most favorite is Keep Away. :eek:
50 didn't do anything else to me. Hopefully 60 won't either. I still try new things, heck I had just turned 50 when I started my shop rehab! Just keep laughing and having fun. Life will laugh along with you. Jim.

[David DeCristoforo]

"All of a sudden, I had these aches and pains."

Not to worry Jim. That's just God's way of letting you know you ain't dead yet.

[Joe Pelonio]

For me 40 was hard, 50 was easier and 55 was easier yet. Recently I turned 56 and don't even think about getting old any more. Well, except when I get those aches and pains after a hard day of work, and I do have to put on my glasses a lot more often. And, my oldest daughter's wedding is in just 20 days, I wonder if that will make me feel old?

[Mark Hix]

Happy Birthday!

I'm on my 36th anniversary of my 12th birthday (just ask my true love!). Mostly the number does not matter to me.

[Richard M. Wolfe]

Happy Birthday, Per.

You don't want to be fifty? If you fret and dwell on it and figure you're about done for....then you will be and the age hasn't changed. If you just 'carry on' then you'll be fifty and the age hasn't changed. I turned 61 a couple weeks ago and given my family history I am a little surprised I haven't had more 'crop up'. The best summation I can give is what I told a friend not too long ago. Yeah, there are a few things I can't do as easily or well as when I was twenty.....but then with most of them I don't want to anyway. :)

[Jim Becker]

Been there, done that...two years ago, although in March. Yesterday, I climbed one of those rock climbing things at Copper Mountain all the way to the top. ('Had to do that since both my girls made it up...)

My Dad's birthday is on Labor Day this year. But he's way ahead of you in the count! LOL

Happy Happy!

[David DeCristoforo]

My father in law turns 90 this year. He still cuts his own firewood, plants and tends a huge garden every year as well as cares for a half acre of landscaping around his house including a small fruit orchard. He worries about his "little brother" who is only 85 but in much worse condition so "Great Grandpa" has to drive him to the doctors all the time for one thing or another. GGP's wife passed away from Parkensons about eight years ago but before she died, GGP cared for her at home for almost another eight years. We figure one day we'll get a call saying that he died when he fell off the roof installing a new satellite dish. He'll probably outlive most of his kids! He "only" has seven but what with "kits, cats, sacks and wives", a family reunion requires the booking of an entire Marriott.

Then there's our old friend Mr Martini, a wizened old Italian who died of pneumonia two days before he hit a hundred. The stories I could tell you about Martini! Grew all his own food. Had a garden, pigs, chickens. Laid up everything himself for winter. We visited him once with a friend named Bill who was a photographer, studied with Ansel Adams and wanted to make portraits of the "old timers" who were left. Bill also fancied himself as being a guy who could hold his liquor but the old man drank him under the table and we had to drag his butt home and he had to go back another time to get the photos. Once when Martini and my wife were talking about staying healthy, he said with a shrug, "Oh I hada heart trouble once. Backa whena I was abouta fifty..." Talked about it like it was a cold or something. His secret to long and healthy life? "100 year old brandy and 80 proof whiskey...no junk".

[David G Baker]

Per,
I am 64 going on 21. My second wife asked me if I was ever going to grow up, my answer "I sure hope not"! I didn't do a lot of the life risking behaviors that a lot of my generation did but I still had fun. I am able to maintain a good sense of humor, try to stay healthy, stay busy and have a good time. The LOML and I still act like a couple of teenagers. I retired when I was 55 because too many folks around me were dying and I did not want to die on the job. The average person in my profession lived 19 months after retiring, I am coming up on 10 years.
The only draw back that I have found with aging is the memory starts to slip a little and it won't be too long (if I live long enough) that I won't have any friends left because they will all have passed away, (my step father's major complaint).

[John Keeton]

Happy Birthday Per!! You know, growing old ain't half bad - and a lot better than the only alternative!

I will be 60 this year, and my wife is a tad bit older at 61+. My comment to her is "I will never be as old as you are." She reminds me that wisdom comes with age, and that it is obvious that I have yet to learn when to remain silent.

I have enjoyed the "spring" of life, tolerated the "summer", heading into the "autumn" (my favorite time of year) and looking forward to the "winter" of life. Always been an "all seasons" type of person!

Like many have posted, attitude is everything. I have more patience about many things, and NONE about others. I have concluded that it is simply a shift in priorities. In many ways, I feel better now than at 40, and I really do think that a positive attitude is the most important contributing factor.

The one "mental" change that I have noticed is that I am very selfish with my time. Time has become very important to me. At one point, I would have agreed to do work that was not quite acceptable to me, but I took it because of the money. Now, if it isn't at least enjoyable and tolerable, I simply am not interested. I can replace the money (or not if I chose), but I can't replace the lost time. I figure life has enough troubles that I won't bargain for - why add to the stack voluntarily! As the Good Book says, "So don't worry about tomorrow. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Tomorrow will have its own worries."

Live full, live long! And congratulations to the other creekers who have see many more moons than have I!!

[Fred Voorhees]

Hey Per, first of all, Happy Birthday and all of that! 50 really is just a number and although I have a ton more aches and pains than I did as a kid, I am also 50 (well, about 50 and 5/8ths now) I can still find a bit of "little kid" in me. For instance, I have been a huge fan of the dirt track modified stock car racing here in the Northeast since the early sixties when my grandfather began taking me. Darned if I still don't get that same excited feeling inside of me and my heart beats wildly in my chest when I see a great feature event on any of the many Saturday nights I'm at the track! That shows me that I still have a bit of youth inside of me. I hang onto that!

Yup, 50 is another milestone and you can look at it as a major turning point in your life, or just as another corner that has been turned with many more in front of it.

[Per Swenson]

Fred,

I am the walking and talking embodiment of what is known as the Peter Pan principle. In shorter words, I'm OK.

By the way, thank you.

P,

[Mark Singer]

So what? Just keep doing things you enjoy. Oh ....at my age I almost forgot
Happy Birthday!

[Larry Browning]

Well turning 50 is better than the alternative!

[David G Baker]

Per,
At my age I did forget, Happy Birthday!

[Belinda Barfield]

Happy Birthday+1 Per! I'm not that far behind you. The only time I really feel my age is when I first hit the floor in the morning and pay for all those insane high impact aerobics classes I did in my early 20s!

No one else mentioned this but, is your "mental image" of yourself a 50 year old? In my mind I still see myself at about 18 to 20. I was looking at some photos that a friend sent to me and while looking at one of them I thought, "who is that woman with the graying hair", and then I realized it was me! :eek:

[David DeCristoforo]

"...I was looking at some photos..."

12) Never look at photos of yourself.
13) Break all of your mirrors. (If you are superstitious, just give them away.)

[Don Bergren]

Happy Birthday! I turned the corner on 50 back on the 8th of August. Nothing to it; it's just a number.

I'm forever a kid and just can't conform to the grown up world. Oh, I manage among the adults for a short time, but the inner wild child rears his head way too often.

I don't act my chronological age, and don't think my chronological age, but I do see an older looking guy staring back at me in the mirror these days (an alien I guess). I'm not sure what happened to the 32 inch waist either. But other than that I'm still ready for spring break. I've never been old enough to have a mid life crisis either.

You know, more than once in the past I may have had the twin to Belinda's guardian angel. I don't need it now though. If you're already astray, you don't need any help to get you there.

[Don Orr]

Happy Birthday Per !! Glad to hear you made it this far:eek:. I'm there in a few months my self and looking forward to it. I'll be thrilled to have lived that long. I've always been older than my chronological age and I think I'm finally catching up to myself:D. I'm doing better mentally, but maybe not so much physically. I keep seeing my father in the mirror and hearing him when I speak. I am becoming him. He was a good guy so I'll take it;).

I work in health care and my patients keep telling me to not get old but I don't like the alternative.:)

Have a great birthday and enjoy Labor Day !!

[Ted Shrader]

Happy Birthday, Per !!!

Be there, done that -- 2 years ago. But, I still feel like I am 21!

Ted

[jeremy levine]

It seems strange that Per would ask advice on growing "old" when he seems to have the ultimate answer much closer to home :D


Per was 50 when he was 5, he just didn't have a beard then.
Suck it up guys, I went to work for a German mason when I was 65, added years to my life. Never give up. :)
Bob :cool:

[Al Willits]

61 this month, and mentally I'm still young, physically with the arthritis it seems some mornings I feel like I'm 90.
But ya gotta just keep going, its a mental thing I think, and your only as old as you can convince your self you are.

Happy birthday Per, and as long as you keep in the right frame of mind, you'll keep going strong.

Al

[Per Swenson]

You guys are great.

Here is my secret,I just do it one day at a time.

So,that makes me....18250.

Pretty cool hunh? Depends on your perspective.

Per