Ah yes. To be young again.

[Jeannie]

Hi Ladies

I was thinking tonight about being young and how we oldsters look down on young people. We say they really know nothing about life and are foolish. I beg to differ.

When you're young and don't know any better, your life is not cluttered with all the crap that we old geezers have to deal with. They can do a much better job than any of us can do, no matter what. Marriage,kids and worrying about retirement dulls creativity and you turn into a slug. Think about it ladies.

Almost all of our military are young people. They don't think about death and do a fabulous job. If you're my age you say" No way I'm doing that!" The only older people in the military are Generals and Admirals who sit in an office no where near the front lines and say" You guys have to go in there and kick backside."

It applies to any job,art or career ladies. Take music for example.Eric Clapton back in the day when he was young,doing heroin and just played with a balls to the wall attitude made his best music. Lou Reed with the Velvet Underground live played one of the best all time rockers of Sweet Jane if you can still find it on the internet. Not that milque toast accoustic version crap he plays these days.

When we are young we never play it safe. That is the key to greatness and creativity.Mozart died at age 35 and Lenny Bruce at 41. Being young and naive will make you the best you will ever be. There are no limits. Hugs.

Love

Auntie Jeannie

[Elizabeth]

Hey Jeannie,

Yes, the thing about wisdom is that it comes at the expense of cynicism. When we are young we succeed because we are too stupid to know we should fail. However, when we are old we suceed because the young naive people make it easy. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

Love always,
Elizabeth

[Virginia]

I always told my off-spring that you really became an "adult" when you were willing to accept the responsibility for your actions. Some never reach that point in life as it is always someone else's fault.

Also being older gives us the advantage of life experiences and the ability to weigh our actions with lots of history to fall back on. Several axioms come to mind - the old bull and the young bull standing on the hill as the cows are coming out of the barn and the young bull says, "hey, lets run down there and (nail) one!" The old bull says, "Let's walk and nail them all!"

Remember the movie where the three girls in the little VW convertible cut the lady off at a parking lot at WalMart and they comment to her, laughing. "Hey, we're younger and quicker!" As she slams her big Buick into their little VW and pushes it completely out of the space, she says. Yes, but I am older, wiser and I have more insurance!"

And the sage who wrote, "the only problem with youth is it is wasted on the young!"

Just think, if you knew then what you know now, life experience only, what could you have accomplished? I know three of us (present company only) that would never have gotten married!

In closing, I am proud to have served my country and I am doubly proud of the girls and guys that do it now. Their service allows us to do what we are doing now -living our lives as we see fit!!!

Love you all!!

Virginia

[Stephanie H]

Youth nice,,,,, but they have to wait a longer time to enjoy for their Social Security.
Ready cash on a monthly basis.
Stephanie

[Erin L]

Last Sunday was my mom's 80th birthday, and we all went out to dinner - my mom, my stepfather, my sister and her family, my wife and mine. For me, the highlight was talking (at length) with my two nieces, aged 24 and 19. The older one is also my Goddaughter, and has always been somewhat special to me (my daughter, who has autism, is the same age; when the girls were 9, we had a Halloween party at our house for the kids; my niece tried a few times to engage my daughter in conversation, but, as autistic kids will do, my daughter tuned her out; I felt badly for my niece, and I started to explain, but she just turned to me and said, "Oh, it's okay, I understand, we love her"). But the younger (who looks exactly like Alexis Bledel) all of a sudden opened up, and it was like I was discovering her for the first time. I came away from our conversation feeling completely envigorated.

I disagree with the notion that wisdom must come at the expense of cynicism. I think I'm less cynical now than I was when I was in college. I'm more accepting of the fact that there are things I don't know, answers I'll never have (at least, not in this life) and people I'm not smarter than.

The worst thing about youth is the lack of realization of what you have. When I was a teen (or, for that matter, even a child), I was always dissatisfied. And yet I look back on many of those times (although not all, certainly) and realize just how good they were and how I didn't get the best out of them. My nieces seem to have the gift of laughing with things, and not necessarily at them. Good for them!

[Absaroka]

Youth is wasted on the young........

Absaroka

[CharLee]

The best response I've ever heard about age and wisdom came from Mark Twain.

Twain wrote:
When I was 18 years old I couldn't believe how ignorant my father was, when I was 22 years old, I couldn't believe how much he had learned in only 4 years.