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 Thoughts on being 84

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Carol Troestler
alice
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Dick Stodghill
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Dick Stodghill
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Dick Stodghill


Number of posts : 3795
Registration date : 2008-05-04
Age : 98
Location : Akron, Ohio

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PostSubject: Thoughts on being 84   Thoughts on being 84 EmptySat Aug 15, 2009 8:41 am

A Stodghill Says So blog:

Thoughts on being 84 BabyDick
On his eighty-fourth birthday a man should have profound comments to make, wise words of information and inspiration to pass along. I don't.
I did not make it this far through any effort on my part. I have never done any of the things that supposedly insure longevity. Just the opposite, actually. I have always had a pipe or cigarette in my mouth throughout the day. I have heard "last call" in bars from New York to Los Angeles and in more than a few across the sea. I have taken chances when there was no need to do so. Unless it has led me to somewhere I wanted to go, exercise has been conscientiously avoided. Doctors orders have been used as a guide to doing the opposite. I often wrote of having no fear of dying too soon but a real fear of living too long. Yet here I am.
Were someone to ask me for advice - no one has - I would say do the things you enjoy, avoid those that you don't, never work at a job you don't love, pursue any goal with no holds barred, and never take life or yourself too seriously.
I'm one of the few who remember the Wall Street Crash of 1929. When people were talking about it I thought they meant an automobile accident. That may be as good a description of it as any given by economists and other wise men. I had the real advantage of growing up and maturing during the Great Depression. Believe me, it was an advantage. I have taken part in some of history's great battles, experienced the fun and excitement of being a private eye and a cab driver, worked as a newspaper reporter during the prime years of the business when it was very much like you'll read in The Front Page and other stories of the old days.
I haven't done it all but I've come close. The world being what it is today, I wouldn't want to be a day younger than I am. It has been a great ride, an exciting, adventurous journey and that is good enough for me.
Thank you for your kind attention and don't do anything I wouldn't do. That leaves you with a wide-open field ahead.


Last edited by Dick Stodghill on Sat Aug 15, 2009 9:56 am; edited 1 time in total
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Malcolm
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Number of posts : 1504
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Location : Georgia

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PostSubject: Re: Thoughts on being 84   Thoughts on being 84 EmptySat Aug 15, 2009 8:43 am

You're right as rain, Dick, and I salute you.

Malcolm
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Shelagh
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Shelagh


Number of posts : 12662
Registration date : 2008-01-11
Location : UK

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PostSubject: Re: Thoughts on being 84   Thoughts on being 84 EmptySat Aug 15, 2009 8:46 am

You chose your ancestors well, Dick, and your genetic inheritance allowed you to live a long and eventful life. Long may it continue.
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alice
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alice


Number of posts : 15672
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Age : 76
Location : Redmond, WA

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PostSubject: Re: Thoughts on being 84   Thoughts on being 84 EmptySat Aug 15, 2009 8:50 am

Great advice, Dick!
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Carol Troestler
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Carol Troestler


Number of posts : 3827
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Age : 86
Location : Wisconsin

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PostSubject: Re: Thoughts on being 84   Thoughts on being 84 EmptySat Aug 15, 2009 10:05 am

I love the advice Dick.

Carol heart
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alice
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alice


Number of posts : 15672
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Age : 76
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PostSubject: Re: Thoughts on being 84   Thoughts on being 84 EmptySat Aug 15, 2009 10:08 am

What an alert, wise, all-knowing baby.
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Abe F. March
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Abe F. March


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PostSubject: Re: Thoughts on being 84   Thoughts on being 84 EmptySat Aug 15, 2009 11:45 am

Dick,
If I reach 84 and can be as lucid as you are, I will consider myself lucky.
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Betty Fasig
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Betty Fasig


Number of posts : 4334
Registration date : 2008-06-12
Age : 81
Location : Duette, Florida

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PostSubject: Re: Thoughts on being 84   Thoughts on being 84 EmptySat Aug 15, 2009 5:08 pm

Dear Dick,
Perhaps I should have written the Ode to Eighty Four.


My old and evil mom is 94. She is as hateful now as she was when she was 24. Perhaps a little more so. Our Carol has researched and found some of my family. I have talked to my sister Nettie through email. What hurt and harm my old mother has done in her life and with 13 children that she hated each and every one. I do not mention my father because he was worse.

I look at your life, your gentle heart, your gentle heart, and I wish you could have been my father. All the trouble you have seen, the wars, the evil and terrible things your eyes have seen, your heart has remained pure.

Love,
Betty
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Dick Stodghill
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Dick Stodghill


Number of posts : 3795
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Age : 98
Location : Akron, Ohio

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PostSubject: Re: Thoughts on being 84   Thoughts on being 84 EmptySun Aug 16, 2009 5:27 am

Thank you, but I'm not so sure about my heart remaining pure. I know darn well some of my thoughts don't qualify.
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alice
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alice


Number of posts : 15672
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Age : 76
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PostSubject: Re: Thoughts on being 84   Thoughts on being 84 EmptySun Aug 16, 2009 3:42 pm

Betty Fasig wrote:
Dear Dick,
Perhaps I should have written the Ode to Eighty Four.


My old and evil mom is 94. She is as hateful now as she was when she was 24. Perhaps a little more so. Our Carol has researched and found some of my family. I have talked to my sister Nettie through email. What hurt and harm my old mother has done in her life and with 13 children that she hated each and every one. I do not mention my father because he was worse.

I look at your life, your gentle heart, your gentle heart, and I wish you could have been my father. All the trouble you have seen, the wars, the evil and terrible things your eyes have seen, your heart has remained pure.

Love,
Betty

Excuse me for laughing--there is nothng funny here, but you are sitting on top of an explosive NYT bestselling book.

You are too close to see it, but a memoir of your dysfunctional family would be in high demand.

Go for it. You deserve it. lol!
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Betty Fasig
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Betty Fasig


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PostSubject: Re: Thoughts on being 84   Thoughts on being 84 EmptySun Aug 16, 2009 4:06 pm

Oh, Alice.

It would take stepping back a good bit to get the perspective needed to write that story. A numbness that put humor into it and humor it would need. A stepping outside of my self with my outside self telling the story. A ghost of my old child self. My old child self is no more. I could not tell it like it happened to my old child self. I have learned too much, believed to much and given up all the hurt it would take to make it real. I do not want to live it again to write it. There are better stories to tell. Wooffer is my song. He sings it well.

Love,
Betty
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alice
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alice


Number of posts : 15672
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PostSubject: Re: Thoughts on being 84   Thoughts on being 84 EmptySun Aug 16, 2009 4:39 pm

Betty

I am so sorry.

The odd thing is we are all in the same boat .

Lane tried to get me to expand on my childhood--I declined--didn't wish to exploit them.

When I read his childhood I said, "Publish it"--he declined.
_________________
Author of Peas,"Pill's" and Parkinson's
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Last edited by Alice on Sun Aug 16, 2009 6:48 pm; edited 2 times in total
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alj
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Number of posts : 9633
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Age : 80
Location : San Antonio

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PostSubject: Re: Thoughts on being 84   Thoughts on being 84 EmptySun Aug 16, 2009 5:06 pm

We grow through the adversities of our lives. Sometimes, looking back, I would rather not have grown.

Ann
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Betty Fasig
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Betty Fasig


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PostSubject: Re: Thoughts on being 84   Thoughts on being 84 EmptySun Aug 16, 2009 6:01 pm

We all understand each other. Those old times were not really us. They were old times. We had no control, other people had control. the whole thing about living in families is that no one really has control. Time passes, we work, we do the best we can, we love, we love, we love, and often the love does not matter much.

When it comes right down to it, it does not really matter if people love you back. I do not say that lightly. It really is all up to your heart. Give all you can without expecting.

If you want to write about your childhood, I say do it with the salt you were given. No blames. I have thought about this a lot. If I were to write my childhood, it would not be to blame anyone. I would write it like The Grapes of Wrath. Steinbeck understood dignity. I would try to give my disfunctional parents some dignity. I think about
it once in a while. I would write the truth, but I would leave out a lot. I would write about riding in the back of old Chevy pickup trucks, the wind and the cold and the highway. The hunger. The begging for food. I could write about that. I felt no dishonor.

I could not write about the mirad of abuse. It was of another day, some 58 years ago. It is not my life now
it was my life then.
To write that stuff down now would make it part of this life I live. I refuse, and even though it crosses my mind in dreams and once in a while a certain motion will remind me of some far hurt, I put it all aside. I need it no more. It is not me. It is an old self that hurt, not this one that is writing these words.

Love,
Betty
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dkchristi
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dkchristi


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PostSubject: Re: Thoughts on being 84   Thoughts on being 84 EmptySun Aug 16, 2009 6:05 pm

I used to say if it were true that God gives us no more than we can bear, He must have had me confused with someone else.
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Betty Fasig
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PostSubject: Re: Thoughts on being 84   Thoughts on being 84 EmptySun Aug 16, 2009 6:40 pm

Dear Diane,
What I have learned from the animals is that brains are good, but they are not all that matter.

No, no, no!

For every animal, each day is a new day. I think it is a good way to look at life. August 15th is over. Oh, but look at the possibilties of August 16th. Every day is a new chance.

The trouble is that we expect so many more days that we do not consider the day we are given.

I do not care if the job one has makes the head hurt just laying there at 4:30 in the morning awaiting the alarm to resound, itwould be a better day for that person if they gave it the all that they would give if they knew that the day was their last and in some way they left a proud mark.

The thing is that people do not think in that way. They get up, go to the job, do what they have to do to get their pay, go home and consider that if they do that same stuff for 5 or 6 days they get a day that they can sleep in, not give a hoot, mow their grass, have a couple of drinks, ......

It really is a matter of attitude.

Go to work.

You are going to be there for at least 40 hours of the week. give up the self pity, just do the best you can, do not care about who cares if you are doing the best you can, just do it, work as hard as you can, do as much as you can the best way you know how.

On payday, get your check, go love your family every night. do not make them think you have sacrificed your life for them because they have done the same. Have some love and honor.

I wish I could change the world.

Love,
Betty
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alice
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PostSubject: Re: Thoughts on being 84   Thoughts on being 84 EmptySun Aug 16, 2009 6:55 pm

Ah ha, You, Ann can write about your childhood.
It would be great-- how you rose above it.

You could tell about your monster mother breaking your bedroom door down how you had to hide your peas.

It would be riveting --do it. I will peddle it for you.
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alice
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alice


Number of posts : 15672
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PostSubject: Re: Thoughts on being 84   Thoughts on being 84 EmptySun Aug 16, 2009 7:01 pm

Great advice, Betty
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alj
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PostSubject: Re: Thoughts on being 84   Thoughts on being 84 EmptySun Aug 16, 2009 7:36 pm

My mom's oldest brother stayed single until his late thirties. Until then he lived in a garage apartment behind our house, painted, and wrote. and listened to music. His record player played 33rpm records. the one my brother and I used played 78's. One day my brother played Tom's 33 record of "Third Man Theme" on our little player. It came out very fast and high-pitched. My mom loved it. It put her in such a good mood she spent the afternoon teaching us to dance the Charleston to that speeded up version of a simple musical theme. It was a very good day.


Ann
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Dick Stodghill
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Dick Stodghill


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PostSubject: Re: Thoughts on being 84   Thoughts on being 84 EmptyMon Aug 17, 2009 5:22 am

Betty Fasig confuses me. I spend a little time on a board where everyone is better educated than me. I have always spent time (often unwillingly) among academics with a string of letters after their names. I know and at times associate with some of the leading and most successful writers in the country.
So I'd like to know why it is that Betty is smarter than any of them and has a way with words that only a few writers have or ever have had?
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alice
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PostSubject: Re: Thoughts on being 84   Thoughts on being 84 EmptyMon Aug 17, 2009 5:32 am

She, like you, has a gift.
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Carol Troestler
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PostSubject: Re: Thoughts on being 84   Thoughts on being 84 EmptyMon Aug 17, 2009 5:34 am

For one thing, she doesn't worry about it. She just writes. We see her glow. Others hesitate to put their glow out into the world, or even let themselves see it.

I have copied many of Betty's words and put them in a file on my computer.

She is wise.

Carol
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alice
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alice


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PostSubject: Re: Thoughts on being 84   Thoughts on being 84 EmptyMon Aug 17, 2009 10:54 am

Dick,

Thank you--you got me thinking--as usual.

Betty graduated with a PhD from the School of Hard Knocks.
She was at the top of her class.
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Abe F. March
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PostSubject: Re: Thoughts on being 84   Thoughts on being 84 EmptyMon Aug 17, 2009 11:09 am

Good post Betty. It shows lots of wisdom.
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Betty Fasig
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PostSubject: Re: Thoughts on being 84   Thoughts on being 84 EmptySat Sep 11, 2010 6:17 pm

I read these post that Dick left floating on the internet waves and am so glad that Shelagh has put them in one spot on this forum. A posterity offering to our Dick, who was one lovely person during his time upon this earth and still, after his passing, his mind rolls through his woes and words. What he has posted on this board and the kindness that is instilled in each word touches the heart's here who loved him.

I would say that he wanted us to write what we wanted to say, in the manner we could, (ficton, fantacy, documentary, history, ....) and to do it as frugally as possible.

I have read lovely words of poetry where the use of a few words conjure in the mind the perfect replica of the author's mind's vision.

Love,
Betty


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