OT, being old vrs being cool

DO WE NEED TO WEAR "RED CHUCK TAYLORS" and yes i was yelling cause i can't hear good anymore

 

I'll be 62 in April and the emphysema ( from my "cool" smoking days ) kicks my *** now but I still can't wait to wake up in the morning and live another day. I'm retired but I still work 30 hours a week, I HATE ****in winter and spring and summer can't get here fast enough so I can cruise another day. cool? **** cool. I'll leave that for all the young whipper-snappers. Bring on the rodding season so I can drive it again.

 

W. Somerset Maughm once said: "The trouble with all the new authors these days is that they are all in their '60's." Now if you need an explanation on that...see below...

PS, I was born in 1943...

R-

 

You guy's just don't get it! Cool is not what you wear, not what you drive and not where you live. You CAN'T "try to be cool". White wall tires and a flat black paint job won't make you cool. You CAN'T buy cool. "Cool" is a state of mind, its how you think. You can be young or old, male or female, build your own cars or buy them, it don't matter! Cool is in your head, you are born with it.

 

well I had a 47 dodge coupe in Hi school and It wasnt as cool as some, but had the nicest set of pipes ive ever heard from a 6, [and they could rap too]. Now I see some very nice old Dodges, and now like many old cars that i didnt like before, I think everybody likes to be cool in thier own way, I must be gettin old, and mellowing out, is that uncool?

 

that's heavy man.

 

I agree with 1stGrumpy, you either is or you ain't. Two more months ,I'll 67. My mother never thought i would make it to 21. If you are comfortable with your family, your God, your Hot Rods, your bikes and other toys then you must be having FUN out of life. At that point everything else is just a minor inconvience (sp.) so you must be COOL because what ever anybody else thinks does not make a BIG ****ING RATS *** difference. Long live the Geezers.

 

“Yeah and its over before you know it,
It all goes by so fast
Yeah the bad nights take forever
And the good nights don't ever seem to last.”
Tom Petty


"It's better to burn out than it is to rust."
Neil Young

"Don't blink."
Kenny Chesney

"It ain't where you are, it's where you're at."
Unknown

 

Any day that you can wake up in the morning and not breathe dirt, it is a good day.

 

That's EXACTLY what we're saying! When you get older, all of that **** doesn't mean anything, anymore. And when it doesn't mean anything anymore, that is "cool" !

 

Thank you for starting this thread. This subject has been on my mind for a long time. I think the concept of"cool" is one of the worst things to ever happen in our society. Kids start smoking because it's cool, they drink because it's cool, they drive too fast, do drugs, defy authority, drop out of school, get pregnant, and just generally ruin there lives because it's cool.
Being cool turns young people into slaves and they're too "cool" to see it. They "just want to be different like everyone else." They make all their decisions on how it will fit into their concept of cool.
I know, because I was always one of the cool guys. Now I'm approaching 60 and I realize how stupid I was. My body's been broken more times than I can count, (I'm recovering from surgery right now) and when I look back on the problems I've had from trying to stand out as cool, I realize it got me no where. Today, I'm a recovering "cool dude". I make a conscious effort to try to be myself, but after a life time of "cool" it's hard sometimes to even know who that is. But it's very liberating to say and do things differently without any worry about what "the crowd" will think.
Not to seem racist, but I really think it hits many of the black communities the hardest. They're shooting each other down because being the coolest makes you come off as ****y and easy to hate. When you strut around looking down your nose at everyone else, eventually someones going to get you in their sites.
Besides, what the hell IS cool? It's all up to each persons interpretation. But I can tell you one thing, James Dean is generally regarded as the coolest guy of that generation, and every movie he was ever in all he did was whine and act like a big cry baby. Not cool in my book.
I guess what really turned me around though was seeing what it did to my kids. They think I'm cool, because I raised them with hot rods and motorcycles. I wish I had raised them differently, and spent more time teaching them about the finer things in life. Taken them to more museums, parks etc. and less car shows. I watched my beautiful perfect little girl grow up and tattoo her perfect skin, marring herself for life, just because it happened to be the latest "cool" thing to do, and she's already beginning to regret it.
Life is too short to live it worrying about fitting in, but strangely, "cool" people don't think they're trying to fit in, they think they're standing out.
Freedom is a wonderful thing, just make sure you understand what it is, take full advantage of it, and be a slave to no one.
Sorry for the rant.

 

Neighbor said he thought that I was having a MID-LIFE-CRISIS !! So I told him as soon as I grew up I'd start working on it !! And by the way cool comes natural !! You don't have to wear it or buy it >>>>.

 

I turned 68 the other day. I find that things that used to piss me off now just make me smile. Things that were so important in my 20's have very little meaning today. I still enjoy the race car and hot rod stuff but in a whole different way. After 40+ years of racing I now enjoy hearing the younger folks' slant on things that go fast. A lot of what some of them say amuses me.

Still in love with the same girl....51 years later.

<--- Four cylinder hot rod. Maybe it's time to slow down. Is that "uncool" ??

 

My great grandma (who lived to be 108!!!) once said, "you don't stop having fun because you grow old. You grow old because you stop having fun." Pretty sage advice, if you ask me. Coolness, to me, is still having fun with people young enough (mentally or chronologically) to still enjoy life. If I ever get to be one of those old guys that pulls his belt up to his ******s and yells at those damned kids to get off his lawn, please shoot me. If you ever see me feeding pigeons in the park and grumbling about my sciatica, please shoot me. I know guys that are in their 70s and are still 'cool' and guys in their late 30s who act like a grumpy old man who's given up on youth. Sad.

I'm 45 now and I hope to still be flirted with when I'm 75. I'll always have my toys and my good friends. That's cool enough for me.

 

thats a bad thing? did you teach them to work with their hands? and how to figure things out and think outside of the box? most kids today can't even change their own oil,let alone build a hot rod. you may have set them on a good path, it's just hard to see into the future is all. i grew up around junk cars and i'm building stuff now that a lot of kids think is "cool" at least thats what they tell me, i do it because i can,and it's so out of the box different, that I hope it will inspire someone else. I could care less about being cool. really has no meaning for me personally.

 

Well stated zzford. Hee,hee,hee.
Cool for me is being me, in spite of all of the distraction and impulse to the contrary.

 

"I wish I had raised them differently, and spent more time teaching them about the finer things in life. Taken them to more museums, parks etc. and less car shows."
Don't beat up on your self. More important than taking them to museums and so forth is to give them a character of worth. That's why we are parents, that is our job. The mistakes that we make with our kids are for us and them to learn from. The time you and your family spent at car shows was a time that you were with your kids. You look at it as just a car show, but it was in fact, a time that you were bonding and teaching your kids your values. Your daughters tatoos are a sign of the foolishness that comes with youth. It has nothing to do with their upbringing. Forgive yourself.

 

Yeah, I probably shouldn't have posted anything at all. I'm sitting around recovering from surgery, so I'm bored (and sore) and probably just thinkin' too much ya know?

 

Old?...hell no!... I'll soon be 60 and my definition of old is someone who is 15 years older than me...I'll never be old!

Cool...hell yes!...crew cut, a long awaited tattoo, still drivin' with my arm out the window, and runnin' 120 on the scotter!

Gray hair?...hell no!...it's not gray, it's chrome plated !

 

hell i'll be 34 on monday and i was happy to wake up today

 

i know how you feel, been through a lot of serious life changing **** in my life,so i always feel older then i am.

 

Yeah, being "cool" is alot of work that I'm too lazy and cheap to adhere to..In High School (63-67) there were Hoodlums, Surfers,Jocks and nerds..I moved in all circles but didn't belong to any of them, Hippies had yet to come along, my friends were older Beatniks?..I raced with the Hoodlums, went on Surf trips to the coast, played football, got high with the Beatniks and if you could get the nerdy girls to take their gl***es off and let their hair down they were pretty fine!..I'm 59 and have lots of grey hair and don't need ******, yet...

 

Oh, and Ramblers are cool, old Mopar Business coupes are way cool and old,slammed International Pickups are the nuts!...

 

na,i would say a slammed travel all would be cooler,but you would need a big block just to move it at a decent speed. I spent a lot of time in one as a kid. dam tank, but great in Ohio winters.

 

Cool is just a phrase that means " accepted by the ignorant m***es". I'll p***.
Ed