Respect your elders

Doooh’s Picture Of The Day
I came across this old guys YouTube videos on Friday and started watching some of them. geriatric1927 – on YouTube He’s a 78 year old from England who has, not only adopted the use of computers and the internet, etc, which is fairly rare for people of his age, but he is using this “new technology” to recount his life so far for the whole world to hear. Its one part of our culture which I think is severely lacking compared to Asian cultures and the respect that older people have in general. People in Asian cultures (as far as I know, anyways) demonstrate and show their appreciation of their elders by taking care of them and listening to them and perhaps even learning from them. Here in our “American” culture we shuttle them off to homes and communities away from the rest of us, to die alone and unappreciated. I’d like to think that I don’t feel that way. Maybe its because I’m at that point in my life where I’m reaching the summit and am about to embark on the journey down the other side, and I see how poorly we treat our elders, or maybe I’m just more respectful of them in general. The amount of knowledge you can learn from such elders is incredible.

Back when I was young, before my wife and I were married. My Great Grandmother, who at the time was living with my Grandparents got placed into one of these “retirement homes”. My poor Grandparents couldn’t take care of her anymore, I mean, they themselves were in their late 70’s and she was in her late 90’s. We used to go and pick her up every week and bring her to our apartment for dinner then we would take her out to get a Dairy Queen ice cream cone. She just loved the plain vanilla soft-serve. One evening after dinner she was talking about the town where she grew up and expressed how nice it would be for her to go and visit it one more time before she died. At the time, like I said she was in her late 90’s, but considering, she was in pretty good health. Her eyes were failing her, but she could still see well enough to get around. My wife and I discussed it, and we offered to take her “home” one final time. We told her we would have to make sure it was ok with my parents, and my grand parents, which she became totally pissed of about, because, as she said, “What am I, a child that you have to ask for their permission to take me somewhere?”. She was right of course, so we made plans to take her for the weekend. We booked a Motel and we had a big huge, very comfortable old Chrysler Newport automobile to travel in, so we knew she would be more than comfortable in that.

We had an incredible weekend. We had no plans of any kind. We told her that we would go anywhere she wanted, and do anything that she wanted to do. We visited her husbands grave site. We visited friends that hadn’t seen her in years. We took her out for dinner, and took her to every relative that still knew who she was. We walked through the old town just as she had done for well over 70 years, greeting everyone and stopping to talk to just about all of them. We went by the house that she lived in for those 70 years and marvelled at how well it was looking for such an old house. I recalled all of the summers that I spent in that house as a kid. The old water pump out front, getting my hair washed with the water from the rain barrels. The old bath tub with the “feet” and how we used to have to boil water for baths. The old wood cooking stove, the dreaded cellar that we were never allowed to go down into. The train tracks out back, and all of the trains that ever went by. The memories I have of that place are good, but I can’t imagine how they might compare to her memories of that house.

We returned home after a very fulfilling and tiring weekend. We felt very good about doing what we did. She was so thankful that we took the time to take her that one last time. It was but a few short years later that we moved out west (from Toronto). During that time, both of my Grand parents passed away, but my Great Grandmother was still alive. We returned to Toronto shortly after my son was born, I believe to goto my Grand Mothers funeral. We took my son to the retirement home to visit my Great Grandmother. She held him. We took pictures. She couldn’t see him as her eyesight had all but failed her at that point. I believe she was 100 at the time. I remember seeing a certificate she had gotten from the then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney wishing her a happy 100th birthday. It was the last time we were to ever see her alive again, and at that time she still talked about our little trip that we took. Even though the crap that we had to endure from the entire family for doing it, it was more than worth it to see how happy it made her. I miss her and I miss my other Grand parents. I wish I had had more time to spend with them all. Respect your elders!

Picture of the day explanation: This is another picture from the car show we went to in Ontario. I think this is one of the best pictures of my brother in law that I have seen in a long time. It almost looks like he owns that nice old Caddie.

JOKE OF THE DAY:

One day at a busy airport, the passengers on a commercial airliner are seated waiting for the pilot to show up so they can get under way.

The pilot and copilot finally appear in the rear of the plane and begin walking up to the cockpit through the center aisle. Both appear to be blind; the pilot is using a white cane, bumping into passengers right and left as he stumbles down the aisle. The copilot is using a guide dog. Both have their eyes covered with sunglasses.

At first, the passengers do not react thinking that it must be some sort of practical joke. After a few minutes though, the engines start revving, and the airplane begins moving down the runway.

The passengers look at each other with some uneasiness. They start whispering among themselves and look desperately to the stewardesses for reassurance.

Yet, the plane starts accelerating rapidly, and people begin panicking. Some passengers are praying, and as the plane gets closer and closer to the end of the runway, the voices are becoming more and more hysterical.

When the plane has less than twenty feet of runway left, there is a sudden change in the pitch of the shouts as everyone screams at once. At the very last moment, the plane lifts off and is airborne.

Up in the cockpit, the copilot breathes a sigh of relief and tells the pilot: “You know, one of these days the passengers aren’t going to scream, and we aren’t going to know when to take off!”