So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[tonyb]

Alas, over here if you coincide with a teenage crowd (and even some actual adults), it's rampant. People taking calls is rare, but you get an awful lot of twits using them to text or go on the interent, oblivious to the fact that the little blue light around them is annoying for other people. It's almost as hateful as those ninnies who take out their mobile phone during their own wedding in order to immediately change their marital status - and film themselvesdonig it so they can seek attention on youtube.

Middle age is making a Sartrist of me...

Again, it’s only my very limited exposure talkin’ here, but I’ve found people closer to my age to be more ill-mannered than the run of 20-somethings.

Which is not to say, alas, that the youngsters are notably well-mannered themselves. It’s just that my contemporaries can be a surly, short-tempered bunch.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Yep. In fifteen years of this, I've never had to throw a millennial out of a show, but I've had an awful lot of sixty-pluses get drunk, mean, and aggressive.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
But then, few characters are more insufferable than a youngster who has yet to learn how little s/he knows.

But one character who might be is an old person who has never learned how little s/he knows.

 

[Edward]

The rudest people round my way are the oldies who shove their way onto buses and into queues!

 

[tonyb]

It’s natural (arguably, anyway) to defer to elders. It’s certainly been a common habit across time and cultures, at any rate.

Some oldsters overplay it, of course, just as cute kids and pretty young women and men with fat wallets sometimes overplay the advantages that come with those statuses.

 

[Harp]

Several months ago construction began three blocks down the street from my crash pad,
and, assuming a burger joint was rising in the hood, I inwardly smiled, believing that either a burger joint
or a 24-7 ham-and-egger where a 2am cup of joe could be found was upon the horizon of my bachelor fast food lifestyle.
The other day I discovered a Chicago Police Department Patrol Officers Credit Union had appeared instead.

 

[GHT]

The rudest people round my way are the oldies who shove their way onto buses and into queues!

It's my right, I tell you, I'm old, get out of my way! There's a reminisce in the back of my memory bank that refuses to go away. The year was 1964, my friend and I had, by good fortune, met two young ladies uninhibited by a relationship. We were all in a bar that was in the vanguard of permitting unaccompanied ladies to enter. You think that I'm joking? Even back in 1960's Britain, a woman without a male escort, must have been of easy virtue, but some establishments were different, and that's how we came by these two lovelies.

After early introductions and an easy agreement to whom will pair up with whom, the ladies were happy for us to take them onto a new nightclub that had opened. Out in the street, my friend was lucky enough to see a taxi with his "For Hire" light shining. "Taxi!" he hollered, the cab pulled over. We all dashed from the bar to the waiting cab. Unfortunately, a dear little old lady got in our way, she didn't know whether to freeze or move. "Doddering old fogey," I shamelessly said, under my breath. Old or not, she heard me. "You'll be old," she screeched, "Not as old as you," I thought, not daring to say it in case I poured oil on the fire.

To my eternal shame I have never forgotten that incident, and here I am, 65 years later, with those words, "You'll be old," still ringing in my ears. Get out of my way, I'm old and entitled I tell you.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"These kids today! There's never been such a spoiled, entitled, self-absorbed generation! Now where's my senior discount so I can see another documentary about how my generation's music is the only music that matters!"

 

[Trenchfriend]

A good thing:

How I love good old department store-warranty stamp! Always a touch of the past.

Germany without stamps is not Germany!

 

[Hercule]

Germany without stamps is not Germany!

Yes indeed. About three weeks back my wife's father was struck by a car and killed, and as we were gathering up information for some of the paperwork and we came across his twin brother's 1941 certified German copy of his Austrian birth certificate. That was a complicated time and place for bureaucratic paperwork for sure. It was quite something seeing those German Reich stamps staring back at you in the flesh.

 

[Fading Fast]

Yes indeed. About three weeks back my wife's father was struck by a car and killed, and as we were gathering up information for some of the paperwork and we came across his twin brother's 1941 certified German copy of his Austrian birth certificate. That was a complicated time and place for bureaucratic paperwork for sure. It was quite something seeing those German Reich stamps staring back at you in the flesh.

I am sorry for your and your family's loss.

The stamps had to be emotion stirring - what a touch to a defining time in history.

 

[ChiTownScion]

"These kids today! There's never been such a spoiled, entitled, self-absorbed generation! Now where's my senior discount so I can see another documentary about how my generation's music is the only music that matters!"

I turn 65 in a fortnight and a day, and I am a big fan of the Millennials. With what they have to face in order to simply survive, I think that they give the Depression/ World War II folks a run for their money for the title of, "Greatest Generation."

Baby Boomers? So many of us had opportunities handed on a silver platter, were too lazy to take them, and are now whining because of the reality of lowered expectations. Me, personally? I regard myself as one of the most fortunate SOB's on the planet.

 

[Hercule]

I am sorry for your and your family's loss.

Thank you so much, it is appreciated. He had pretty severe Alzheimer's and had stormed out of the house. My mother-in-law was following him and trying to get him in the car when it happened. She saw the whole thing! (They're in rural Pennsylvania so it wasn't a busy road) He had become abusive so was due to go into the county home within the week, which would have been a very difficult move all the way around. So as tragic as it was, a bit of blessing could be found in it. He probably wasn't aware at the time it happened and he never regained consciousness before dying in the Hospital several hours later.

The stamps had to be emotion stirring - what a touch to a defining time in history.

Yes they were. Somehow they caught me off guard me when I saw them, which is odd as I know the history. I just wasn't expecting that, then they popped up in front of me. Other family history stuff popped up in the pile of papers as well, including a genealogy prepared by family still back in Germany, which showed images of a couple of Wehr-passes (military IDs). It was all in German so I was able to translate it all for them. The wife has spoken of her grandfather being in the Wehrmacht (drafted along with his horse) several times. He ended the war as POW in France. According to the history we found, his brother served in Normandy at the time of the D-day invasion. The German element of my own family came over before WWI so it was really fascinating to see it all, though sadly under those circumstances.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^

Alzheimer’s. Damn, damn, damn.

Wife’s dad is on the train as well, gradually fading into the distance. At present he still knows who he is, what he used to do for a living, who his offspring are. But there are moments he seems unsure of that. He complains of being of no use to anyone. It’s heartbreaking.

As to your father-in-law’s death ...

We can only hope it was quick. It’s hard to imagine that it wasn’t traumatizing to all involved.

 

[tonyb]

Several months ago construction began three blocks down the street from my crash pad,
and, assuming a burger joint was rising in the hood, I inwardly smiled, believing that either a burger joint
or a 24-7 ham-and-egger where a 2am cup of joe could be found was upon the horizon of my bachelor fast food lifestyle.
The other day I discovered a Chicago Police Department Patrol Officers Credit Union had appeared instead.

A mixed-use complex half a mile from here is nearing completion. I’m hoping for a grocery and a late-night eatery in a couple of the retail spaces, but I suspect what we’ll get is a Starbucks and a Panera. The place is immediately adjacent to a light-rail station, so businesses catering to the weekday commuter crowd would seem the most natural fit. Alas.

 

[Trenchfriend]

A mixed-use complex half a mile from here is nearing completion. I’m hoping for a grocery and a late-night eatery in a couple of the retail spaces, but I suspect what we’ll get is a Starbucks and a Panera. The place is immediately adjacent to a light-rail station, so businesses catering to the weekday commuter crowd would seem the most natural fit. Alas.

Move to Germany. Food-porn everwhere (villages exluded)!!

We got so much food here, that it would last for probably 200 million citizens, but we are just 83 million.

Example:
-a ridiculous daily overproduction of baked goods
-probably ten times more bananas imported than we need
-a huge overproduction of all kinds of cornflakes and muesli

and so on...

 

[Harp]

Move to Germany. Food-porn everwhere (villages exluded)!! and so on...

The best breakfast I ever had was at the Munich train station. And we were asked to pay in Marks,
then received our change in dollars, a valuable economic currency lesson I recalled later when working the overnight
desk for a Chicago commodity brokerage. Traded long the Mark and shorted the Pound.

 

[LizzieMaine]

One of the kids toured Germany a few years ago and I begged her to bring me some sausage. Apparently this was impossible for customs reasons, but she did get me some exceptional chocolate.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Three trips to Germany (planning our fourth) and there's one thing which we've never experienced: a bad meal.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

Move to Germany. Food-porn everwhere (villages exluded)!!

We got so much food here, that it would last for probably 200 million citizens, but we are just 83 million.

Example:
-a ridiculous daily overproduction of baked goods
-probably ten times more bananas imported than we need
-a huge overproduction of all kinds of cornflakes and muesli

If you think that's a lot, America has at any one time, enough food to feed the entire world population 5x over.
Along with discussions about climate change ( & not actually doing anything about it) food wastage is also on the talking classes agenda. The amount of food wasted by the distributers is staggering but it's nothing compared to the quantity of edibles thrown away by individual consumers. Easy come, easy go I guess, unfortunately I'm not rich enough to buy more food than I need......there aren't even scraps left over for the dog after meals. Well, he doesn't leave any scraps for me !!!
In a world where there are I billion people who don't get enough to eat & 3 billion obese & overweight people, it's clear to see that food is magnetically attracted to the $ & so, good for business. It would be foolhardy for anyone to pay anything more than lip service to rationality in this debate. Over consumption & wastage is of course, the basis of our old-world economic system.