Are there many, some, a few of us over 50??

[hibiscus09]

I'll be 45 in September. I remember loving Bobby Sherman, Donny Osmond and the Jackson 5.

[mimitabby]

Quillfred "I'm 51! I'm older than Trek, ha-ha-ha ha-ha-HAAA "


History: totally unathletic as a child, last one chosen for any team.
.

ME TOO!!!!
I was so clumsy they were talking about putting braces on my legs!!!
(because i toed out)

[dachshund]

Ditto with the SAHM.
I vividly remember when Kennedy was killed, and the funeral. Then his brother sometime later. But I didn't pay attention to politics until the Vietnam war, which was a big part if the late 60's into the 70's.

Yeah, the Monkees. They even had a TV show. Then there was the British Invasion. The 70's were kind of an extension of the "sexual revolution", in my opinion. It was kind of like, now that we've evolved, what do we really want to do? We went from Ed Sullivan to Laugh-In. Feminism was gathering steam when I started college in '74. Remember that tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs?

Honestly, though, the music was the big deal for me. Hearing songs by the Beatles, Stones, etc., on the radio when they first came out. Those are good memories!

[Quillfred]

1-What were the 50's-60's like? Ike, Kennedy, cold war, cuban missile crisis, marilyn monroe,the films..(hitchcock..!!), ritchie valens/the big bopper, nixon, etc...

A:60's: Kennedy - kind of like the Clinton era but we were more naive life was good. Prosperity felt permanent. Still recall that horrible announcement...Cold War/Cuban Missle - getting under my desk in school to practice for a nuclear attack Nixon - blech! I wanted to be a hippie when I grew up. I lived in Marin Contry (north of San Fran) and we would hitch-hike to Sausalito and Mill Valley to buy Fillmore and Avalon music posters and slogan buttons. Got to see Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead and knew that was IT. Peace and Love! Unaware of the drug problems occuring. Pretty sheltered by my conservative parents --a good thing Films: Few and far between. They were an event. Saw them over and over and over.....

2-What did you think of elvis, the beatles, mamas & the papas, the beach boys-Which beatle was your fave? Did you get to watch them on the ed sullivan show???
A: Beatles! I was in 3rd grade when they were first on Ed Sullivan and I wanted to watch another show instead. But my brother won out and I came around quickly. I loved John, then Ringo, then George, now Paul--finally got to see Paul-first time about 4 years ago. Worth every penny. I came to love the Beach Boys over last few years. Got to sit 3rd row to hear Brian Wilson's "Smile". I don't think I've ever heard a better sound quality in a concert.

3-Do i dare ask about the 70's...?
A: You can ask but More like a slow extension of the 60s until late 70s and Disco hit and I moved to Seattle/came out in 1978. Polyester baby with big collars, Yeah!

[DebW]

I just discovered the downside to being 50. I'm at work and I can't find my glasses and I have no idea if I was wearing them when I rode to work this morning. But I do remember getting dust in my eye on my ride. Maybe that's a clue. I wish I could just wear my glasses all the time, but the bottom of the bifocal only works at less than 16 inches and the top at more than 3 feet. Luckily, those (bifocals, memory) are my only complaints about old age so far, unless I'm forgetting a few.

[Lise]

....I could go on but I'm getting all misty eyed....really thought I'd grow old with these wonderful men as my friends.

They're all gone and that's why I'll ride in June.

I know.

Remember the first time you saw the NAMES quilt? Trek, you probably saw it long before we did, out here on the prairie. I went down to Navy Pier, when it was just a bunch of empty warehouses, not the carnival it is now. Standing before the quilt of names and names and names and names...with tears streaming down my face for all the lost friends, and all of us who had lost them, and thinking, "try and tell me we don't love each other now."
.................................
The 70s' happiest memories for me were movies. Jesus Christ Superstar (saw that one 13 times in the theater), STARWARS!, Saturday Night Fever. I went to Peru as an exchange student in 1977, when they were ruled by a military dictatorship. That was interesting!
.................................
I recently got to explain to a friend what that "Fallout Shelter" symbol on a school building meant. "You could go in there and be safe from nuclear fallout.", I told her. "How?" she asked. "By hiding under the desk." We had a good laugh at that one. Oh yes, we would also practice hiding in the bathrooms. I wondered how it was that she didn't know this, as we're about the same age. She reminded me that her dad was in the military, "The entire base was a fallout shelter." Oh, yeah.

[mimitabby]

Hi all. . . I'll be 63 in July. I didn't exercise much at all during my career life. With mostly 10-hour work days and one hour of commuting, I didn't have much time for anything else.

I started biking about ten years ago when I was diagnosed with osteoarthritis (hip), which resulted in having a total hip replacement nearly five years ago. The only comfortable exercise was biking, as my weight was supported. (I'd still rather bike any day than walk.) I've ridden a GT hybrid all those years, and decided to let 'er rip by joining a WomanTours ride around the island of Hawaii last November. The longest I've ridden in one day is 40 miles (in the rain and downhill from Volcanoes National Park in Hawaii to Hilo). . . the best day I've ever experienced on a bike.

After riding 35 miles in the Wine Country Century (northern Cal) in early May on my hybrid, I knew I needed a new bike. I now have a Trek Pilot 2.1 WSD and can carry it up the stairs with one arm. Am riding in the week-long, 400-mile Candisc tour in August. I LOVE biking and plan on biking for many more years to come! And I'm hooked on touring.

Wow, you're amazing!
Thanks for sharing.

[Crankin]

Re: questions about the 50's, 60's, 70's....

I remember the 50's being idyllic. My mom walked me to preschool. We had one car until I was 5. Drove dad to the trolley station on Wed. so mom could have the car for grocery shopping. Nothing was open on Sunday or at night (except Thursdays). I watched Ed Sullivan every week! I spent loads of time playing in the woods, skating, sledding, and being on the beach all summer. The beginning of the sixties were pretty much the same. I was in fifth grade when Kennedy was shot. i still remember how white the face of my principal was, when she came in to tell the teacher. That was the year the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan. Every Saturday afternoon, I would open the windows and blast the album Meet the Beatles with a friend! The neighbors did not like that. When i was about 12, I started hanging out in Boston and Cambridge with friends. We had a lot of freedom. Things were still pretty preppy until I was about 14. I was one of the first to wear bell bottoms. I remember going to the Army Navy store and buying them for $5.00. Those pants, plus a black turtleneck and long silver earrings were my uniform for a few years... I hung out on the Boston Common during the summer of 68 when all of the hippies came here. Did lots of things that i won't discuss here, but I wouldn't change a thing. I discovered politics. This all ended when I moved to Miami in 1969. Let's just say that the "revolution" had not arrived. But I managed to hang in there and graduate high school, with a lot of trips to Boston in between. The early seventies were more of the same. Music was really important and really good foreign films. I moved to AZ pemantly in 1975 and finished college. Again, I felt like a fish out of water. Then the disco revolution started. Boy, were those clothes ugly. Everyone just seemed a lot more open then. No fundamentalists telling us what we should think or do. I met my husband at the end of this era. He came to the door for our first date in an all white 3 piece "John Travolta" suit a la Saturday Night fever. It seems like things started changing in the early 80's, with the Reagen era. Of course, by then I had changed from a hippie to a yuppie, but I have discovered that those old values never went away, at least for me. I raised my kids the same way i was raised, with a lot of freedom and they are fine grown ups.

[Granny M]

Almost 48!

[MomOnBike]

I'll be 51 in less than a month.

Hated the Beatles - because they were so stupidly popular.

I remember going to Sunday school with my cousin the Sunday after JFK was killed. Someone asked "Why?" I still haven't gotten that answer.

Saw Hair on stage. We had front-row balcony seats.

Several of my friends came back Not The Same from Vietnam. The one I've kept track of has never recovered.

We watched Ed Sullivan, and Sing Along With Mitch, and Friday Night Boxing. There were 3 possible TV channels at the ranch, one that came in reliably.

[Fredwina]

I remeber having 3 channels too. Also, having to state your phone number as
CI(circle)3-xxxx

[emily_in_nc]

I'll be 45 in September. I remember loving Bobby Sherman, Donny Osmond and the Jackson 5.

I turned 45 in April. Ditto all of the above music loves!

My first bike was a upright-handlebar blue Schwinn. I'll never forget finding it under the Christmas tree and being soooooo happieeeeeee as a kid! Second bike was much cooler - pink sparkly frame, banana seat, high-rise handlebars and streamers! Oh, and a white basket with flowers!

It's been all downhill since then....

Emily

[PAP103]

51 yesterday. I loved (and still love) the Beatles, the Who, Rolling Stones, etc. I spent the 60s going to school, the beach and family camping. I remember Kennedy being shot but was mostly oblivious to the world outside my own. I was in high school in the 70s and don't remember much. The drinking age was 18 and so was I!

[Denise223]

I'm 45 & 1/2..... !!

pink sparkly frame, banana seat, high-rise handlebars and streamers! Oh, and a white basket with flowers! emily_in_nc

I had one of those, too!! I don't remember having flowers on my basket, though... The worst memory I have on my banana seat bike was riding over a curb, (in most cases, usually not a problem)....but, my front tire was loose.......... I & my "girlie bits" landed on the bar -- I can't even explain in words the PAIN!!! OMG!!!!
This happened when I was 8 or 9, and I can still remember seeing STARS!!!!

Music memories --- Bobby Sherman, The Carpenters, David Cassidy, Donny Osmond.... Posters all over my room!!

President John F. Kennedy was assassinated 4 days before my 3rd birthday, and I still remember that day today. My mother, brother (he was 5) & I were strolling (I was in a carriage), down Moody Street & that's where we heard the news. I still remember the silence, the tears...even at that age. It was a very, very sad day!!

Denise

[Trek420]

Lise, I think it would have been about '83-4 when I saw the quilt filling the Moscone Center.

I don't think I can talk about it.

I've read with interest that the quilt concept's been adopted in Africa as "Memory Books". These are books. scrapbooks of written and oral histories, memories for HIV+ parents to pass down to their kids should they predecease them.

Oh and the memory thing at 50? I hear that (at least I think I do, loosing my hearing too), I just cut my noon workout short because I remembered that I did not know where my keys are.

Drove to BART, locked my car with the remote they have to be somewhere right?

They are on my desk in my pack, usual spot of course.

I was in 1st grade when JFK was shot. Our teacher Mrs. Delasantina I think, took us out for a walk on the playground untill someone noticed the flag at half staff and asked why. That brought up a discussion of what had happened and we went back inside.

She really was a good teacher.