Old Man's Hands

[Tom Watson]

Tonight was the first time that I noticed it.

I have wrinkles on my hands.

It never occurred to me that the wrinkles on my face , which did not bother me, might have a replication on my hands.

My hands look, somehow, reptilian.

Now, I am a reasonably young man, at 56 - reasonably so, or so I tell myself.

But - can these hands, which seem so unreasonably wrinkled, be capable of what I want them to do?

I thought my hands to be younger than myself. Damn...

Regards,

Tom Watson

tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)

[Patriarch]

Tom Watson wrote in news: [e-mail]:

My 56th was last month, and I've noticed the same thing. More than before, not as smooth or resilient as they once were.

Kind of like the rest of my body.

They still work, but that's not where the money is made. The mind is. And that's a bit more wrinkled than it once was, too.

Patriarch, your age, with grandkids visiting this week...

[Tom Watson]

You know Pat - I don't think that I am as sharp as I once was.

But there is a balancing factor.

We have been around for a long time.

We have seen ideas, trends, given realities of whatever realm we are in, people who started out hot and then were forgotten, several different theories of the origin of man and the universe, etc., etc., etc....

But we have always had one thing to hold onto -

beer

thank gosh for that.

Regards,

Tom Watson

tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)

[Lew Hodgett]

Welcome to the REAL world.

Remember some years ago asking the dermatologist about some spots on the back of my hands.

He looked and said, "Too many candles on the cake."

Lew

[Tom Watson]

Ya know Lew, I sorta like them, now that I've gotten a little used to looking at them.

I never really looked at my hands much but they look like honest working man's hands to me.

I'm going to take some pictures of them this weekend and put them up on abpw - maybe we should all put them up anonymously and try to guess who they belong to.

hah!

Regards,

Tom Watson

tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)

[Lew Hodgett]

When they start reminding you of a lizard, you know you have aged well

Lew

[Toller]

You don't know the half of it... As a 53 year old rock climber I dread the day that my hands won't do what they did last year; but it is inevitable. It will kinda kill the sport. I can't see that a few years makes any difference in woodworking.

[Leon]

Naw, now they are Manly hands.

[sweet sawdust]

[GROVER]

You're still a young sprout even though your hands are aging. Consider the alternatives. I believe it was Shaw (maybe Twain) who when considering his advancing number of years said, " I always hoped in my case He'd make an exception." Joe G

[RonB]

Well thanks TOM!

I knew everything else was going to hell, but I hadn't noticed the hands until I saw your post.

Geesssshhh:^}!

RonB

[Morris Dovey]

| But - can these hands, which seem so unreasonably wrinkled, be | capable of what I want them to do?

Hail, mortal!

Perhaps they're telling you that their days are not without end - and reminding you that the days remaining to do those things most important to you are also not without end.

Perhaps they're encouraging you to consider more carefully what it is that you want them to do.

Perhaps there never were as many tuits (round or otherwise) as we imagined.

-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA

[Kate]

Tom, My husband, now 63, too has what he calls old man hands. They have wrinkles and scars. They hurt when the weather turns cold and his dexterity is not what it once was. He made his living with those hands, welding, repairing big iron and operating heavy equipment. When he was working and would come home with his hands stained with grease and smelling of diesel fuel he would at times feel self concious of them. To me it meant he was working, and it was a good thing. If his nails were clean, times were tough and money was tight. Such is the life of a construction worker.

He looks at them from time to time and says they are ugly and old looking but when I look at them and see part of his life story. To me (his much younger wife) they are beautiful, because they tell something about him.

Kate O|||||||O

I have wrinkles on my hands.

It never occurred to me that the wrinkles on my face , which did not bother me, might have a replication on my hands.

My hands look, somehow, reptilian.

Now, I am a reasonably young man, at 56 - reasonably so, or so I tell myself.

But - can these hands, which seem so unreasonably wrinkled, be capable of what I want them to do?

I thought my hands to be younger than myself. Damn...

Regards,

Tom Watson

tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)

[Kate]

I never really looked at my hands much but they look like honest working man's hands to me.

I'm going to take some pictures of them this weekend and put them up on abpw - maybe we should all put them up anonymously and try to guess who they belong to.

hah!

I think that's kind of a neat idea... but the anonymous part might be a bit hard to pull off.

Kate

[J T]

Fri, Jun 15, 2007, 8:57pm [e-mail] (Tom=A0Watson) doth lament: Tonight was the first time that I noticed it. I have wrinkles on my hands.

Eh, Tom, you're looking at this in the wrong perspective. I've got

10 years on you, and I've got stuff like this all figured out. It's the water. Proven medical fact, if you stay in the tub for too long, your stin will get all wrinkly. You're obviously taking way too many baths, and for way to long. There's several solutions to all this. You could move to Seattle. It rains so much there everyone gets all wrinkly, like a prune. You want to pay a compliment to someone in Seattle, you say, "You look like a prune". So you'd fit right in up there.

Alternately, you could simply stop bathing. After a couple of weeks, people will totally ignore your wrinkles. Give that a try, if you don't care to move to Seattle. Or, you could just not get old. Apparently I've stumbled on doing that. Arout 10-12 or so years back, I went back to the home state for my dad's funeral. While there a group of us went to a local diner for breakfast. Now I graduated in 1958, and haven't been back there in a long, long, lonnnng, time, and never did anything particularly notable in high school. So this was close to 40 years after I gradgeated. I'd barely set down when a stranger my age comes over and calls me by my name. I'd never seen this guy in my life. Turns out he was one of my old school classmates, and he'd immediaely recognized me after all those years. Hell, I could just barely recall him, even after he ld me who he was. He'd just eaten breakfast and was on is way to his job. That guy left, and the waitress came over and damn all if "she" didn't call me by name too. I'd never seen here before eiher. Turns out SHE was a school classmate of mine too. I did vaguely recall her, once she'd told me who she was. I don't know, either I've changed a LOT less than I had thought, or these people have absoluely no life at all, and spend way more of their free time looking thru their high school yearbooks than is healthy.

Don't worry about the small stuff, anything under ten pounds, just haul up by rope.

JOAT If a man does his best, what else is there?

- General George S. Patton

[Doug Miller]

Easy enough to change the settings in your newsreader for one post, then change them back...

The ones posting through Google Groups would probably need to open a new, throwaway account.

[Larry Blanchard]

At 70, my hands, and the rest of me, are probably a wee bit more wrinkled than Tom.

But, Tom, you don't have to feel old till the barber has to trim inside your ears - DAMHIKT :-).

[Robatoy]

What matters about a man's hands is how they shake mine. . . . . . . Period.

[GROVER]

no one doesn't want to get old." Joe G

[mac davis]

used to be a comedian that talked about just that... maybe Bobcat? he said that the hair traveled from your head to your ears and called it "mental floss"..