semi-OT - Reflection / Cogitation / Age / Adventure / Woodworking

OT - Reflection / Cogitation / Age / Adventure / Woodworking

(this WILL get on topic - honest)

When I was in my early twenties I asked my friends who were in their fifties, sixties and seventies when they started thinking of themselves as ?adults?. To a person, the response was ?I haven?t - yet.? Then each added his or her own qualifications to the response. The consensus came down to ?I can be an adult when I HAVE to be an adult.? Adultness is contextual.

Now, approaching the middle of that age range, and having escaped ?gainful employment?, been outgrown of parenthood, and long since despoused, I understand what my elder friends meant. This is a nuanced thing. Not being an adult is not the same as being childish, but rather, ?child like? - the ability to see things as new and fascinating and interesting, with an attitude of ?I want to learn to do that!?. Like Adultness, Child Likeness also seems contextual.

So I began thinking about this Child Likeness thing. What distinguishes it from childishness? The word ?reflection? came to mind, followed by ?cogitation?. With more experience there?s awareness of more options and that leads to cogitation. Of the various ways to do something, which of the ones I know would work best here or should I look for another way? Think I?ll cogitate on that some.

Perhaps woodworking is so appealing because it is often a context which triggers Child Likeness.

Oh, look at the way this piece of wood plays with the light! It?d be PERFECT for a (insert - drawer front, box lid, cabinet door panel, magic wand handle ...). If I put this wood around it? That?d look NICE. I can just (rip, miter, dado, rabbet, plane, chisel, bead, chamfer, mortise / tenon, spline, peg, dovetail, carve, oil, shellac, stain, varnish) ...

The shop becomes Never Never Land, where time has no importance. Sawdust and curlies become Pixie Dust. Snipe, Tear Out and Blotchie are just some of the evil pirates lurking about, commanded by - dare I say his name? - Captain Kickback! (You thought I was going to say ?Bay Area Dave? didn?t you?) Can OOPS be laying in wait behind this ON switch?

With a #7 and marking gauge in hand, chisel, with plastic end cap in place, stuck in my belt the adventure begins!

But first, I think I?ll do some cogitating.

Ring any bells or are you all ?Dults?

charlie b fun stuff this woodworking thing

Reply to
charlie b
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My only comment to your cogitating is that as I'm starting to realize I turned 50 a few months back, and wondering how I got to be this age, I still know I'm 18 inside and trying to figure out why the outside of me feels considerably older.

Reply to
Upscale

All my friends who are in their fifties say they're "still 17" inside their skulls. They've been saying it for at least 20 years...

Reply to
Adam Weber

On Sat, 20 Nov 2004 20:25:24 +0900, "Adam Weber" calmly ranted:

I'm an 18 y/o kid in a 51 y/o body with a 90 y/o back.

-- Friends Don't Let Friends Eat Turkey and Drive --

Reply to
Larry Jaques

charlie b wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@accesscom.com:

There's a whole bell choir playing right now...

The design, craft and showing off of the output is better than therapy for the middle-aged 'dorker.

Of course, it often pays to have a good chiropractor near by.

Patriarch, set to approach some tan oak with a freshly honed, well-used #8 this morning.

Reply to
patriarch

Works with model RR'ing too :-).

Reply to
Larry Blanchard

Fri, Nov 19, 2004, 11:10pm (EST-3) snipped-for-privacy@accesscom.com (charlie=A0b) still isn't old enough: I asked my friends who were in their fifties, sixties and seventies when they started thinking of themselves as "adults".

Growing old is mandatory. Growing up is optional.

JOAT Measure twice, cut once, swear repeatedly.

Reply to
J T

If you can reach 50 without growing up you don't have to!

--RC (who did it a decade ago)

Sleep? Isn't that a totally inadequate substitute for caffine?

Reply to
rcook5

Seems all of my life, Mom was 40 and Dad was 42. A few years later, Dad is gone and Mom is 77 years old. Just does'nt seem possible. I am close to 50. How can this be? I still think I am 12, and my wife will testify to that. I lost a brother when I was 12 and he was 18. I now have lived almost three times his age, but I am still his little brother and he will be my older brother no matter how long I shall live. But time stands still for no man they say.

I am not the person I was at 18 or nor the person at 40. I hope I am getting better, maybe just different! Life is an adventure and everyday seems to present more challenges and of cource more rewards. No one get's out alive. Just Ramblings of an old man that could not sleep and it is 6:00 am in the morning. take care Mike from American Sycamore

Reply to
Mike at American Sycamore

I relate to that Mike. When I was 50 I felt the same, but now at 59, I am beginning to notice that I am no longer as young as I was. Seems that the older you get, the more you feel it. CC

Reply to
C C

At 67, I look in the mirror and think that can't possibly be me :-).

Reply to
Larry Blanchard

What really burns my toast is going to the mall and having some perky young thing smile and hold the door for me. )-:

Reply to
Morris Dovey

Or the supermarket, after the checker has bagged your groceries: "You need some help out with that?"

Reply to
Swingman

I appreciate the hell out of it as I smile and say "no thanks". Just made a quick airplane round trip to help my dad get home after a three week visit. He's 91. See myself. Just say "no thanks" and be glad it's there if you ever need it. It's closer than you think.

bob g.

Reply to
Robert Galloway

I think as we get older (59 for me) we feel the same way you mention. I have relatives that seem to have not changed at all since I was a kid; they were always old! You look at things differently as you get older, you appreciate life more than "things" you appreciate people more, and you learn the difference between being smart and having widsom.

A side benefit is the women. When you were 18, a woman of 25 was old and you did not appreciate them. When you were 30, women of 40 were too old to appreciate. When you are 50+, they all look good from 18 right up to our present age. Just so many more to look at and ah, appreciate. Ed

Reply to
Edwin Pawlowski

Then there's the providential presbyopia.

Just about the time women your age begin to develop wrinkles, you can't see 'em. Neat how that works.

Reply to
George

Ed Pawloski comments:

I'd like to be 59 again, but, on balance, 32 is preferable.

As we age, we start to lose those we know. Pat Spielman died October 27; I just heard that Danny Proulx died of an apparent heart attack at the Ottawa woodworking show. A good friend of mine has cancer of the kidney, though he has a fighting chance.

We need to appreciate people more, because as time passes, there are fewer to appreciate, at least within our own age ranges.

Charlie Self "Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good." H. L. Mencken

Reply to
Charlie Self

Seems like the older we get, it becomes apparent how long it took to accomplish whatever it was we did, and how short a time we are here to accomplish anything. The end of the road comes into view, which somehow makes time speed up. As a teenager, I still remember thinking what a fossil I'd be when the year 2000 rolled around, and I can't figure out how it came and went in the blink of an eye.

-Doug

Reply to
Doug Winterburn

I remember, as a younger person, actually thinking that the following was about bells.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE BELLS by Edgar Allan Poe

1849

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I Hear the sledges with the bells- Silver bells! What a world of merriment their melody foretells! How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, In the icy air of night! While the stars that oversprinkle All the heavens, seem to twinkle With a crystalline delight; Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells From the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells- From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

II Hear the mellow wedding bells, Golden bells! What a world of happiness their harmony foretells! Through the balmy air of night How they ring out their delight! From the molten-golden notes, And an in tune, What a liquid ditty floats To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats On the moon! Oh, from out the sounding cells, What a gush of euphony voluminously wells! How it swells! How it dwells On the Future! how it tells Of the rapture that impels To the swinging and the ringing Of the bells, bells, bells, Of the bells, bells, bells,bells, Bells, bells, bells- To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

III Hear the loud alarum bells- Brazen bells! What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells! In the startled ear of night How they scream out their affright! Too much horrified to speak, They can only shriek, shriek, Out of tune, In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire, In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire, Leaping higher, higher, higher, With a desperate desire, And a resolute endeavor, Now?now to sit or never, By the side of the pale-faced moon. Oh, the bells, bells, bells! What a tale their terror tells Of Despair! How they clang, and clash, and roar! What a horror they outpour On the bosom of the palpitating air! Yet the ear it fully knows, By the twanging, And the clanging, How the danger ebbs and flows: Yet the ear distinctly tells, In the jangling, And the wrangling, How the danger sinks and swells, By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells- Of the bells- Of the bells, bells, bells,bells, Bells, bells, bells- In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!

IV Hear the tolling of the bells- Iron Bells! What a world of solemn thought their monody compels! In the silence of the night, How we shiver with affright At the melancholy menace of their tone! For every sound that floats From the rust within their throats Is a groan. And the people?ah, the people- They that dwell up in the steeple, All Alone And who, tolling, tolling, tolling, In that muffled monotone, Feel a glory in so rolling On the human heart a stone- They are neither man nor woman- They are neither brute nor human- They are Ghouls: And their king it is who tolls; And he rolls, rolls, rolls, Rolls A paean from the bells! And his merry bosom swells With the paean of the bells! And he dances, and he yells; Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the paean of the bells- Of the bells: Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the throbbing of the bells- Of the bells, bells, bells- To the sobbing of the bells; Keeping time, time, time, As he knells, knells, knells, In a happy Runic rhyme, To the rolling of the bells- Of the bells, bells, bells: To the tolling of the bells, Of the bells, bells, bells, bells- Bells, bells, bells- To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

THE END

"listen, time passes..."

Regards, Tom.

"People funny. Life a funny thing." Sonny Liston

Thomas J.Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.) tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)

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Reply to
Tom Watson

Very sorry to hear that. I corresponded with him some time ago; he seemed very friendly and willing to help

Reply to
Mark & Juanita

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