Houellie,

You know something?...I get tired of me banging on about institutions too (even though I'm right :)

Dear Hasbeen,

Many go through life not having a clue
where their light switch is.

Dear Poirot,

Bang away. Take no notice of what someone's
posted. If you called them a wit, you'd
be half right.

My last effort here may have offended some.
So be it, I am only human.
I admire those who refuse to age by retreating, but stay active.
But, surely we all know some one like this,aged dolls, both male and female 70 trying to look 30 are just ugly.
Some show their age verbally, or in printed words.
We are told some as they age become a bit fixed and the fun side of life is replaced, hence grumpy old men.
And very few of us would not in their teens thought they knew far more than they did.
Even that 20 to 30 time in our life saw some silly thoughts we no longer hold.
Interesting that we live longer age slower than our grand parents.
But I have not yet found the need to hide my age.

Dear Belly,

I'm glad that you don't feel the need to hide your age.
Ageist bias is revealed in people's attitudes toward
their own age.
Middle-aged people, often understate
their ages, for they know that the years devalue people
the older they get. This is especially true for women,
who, because they are socialised to place so much
importance on their youthful looks, are more devalued
by advancing age than men are. In "lying about their
age," people demonstrate their own ageism.

Generalisations about the abilities of older people
are very risky. For example, an older novelist may
produce a masterpiece despite failing eyesight; an
older athlete may remain physically strong yet
suffer lapses of confidence and concentration; an
airline pilot may be expected to give up flying at
sixty, yet go on to become a politician whose skills
are admired at seventy-five, and so on.

The experience and the meaning of aging differs not
only from individual to individual, but also from
one social and historical context to another.

Being an adolescent today is very different from
being an adolescent fifty or a hundred years ago.

For example, Glen Elder in a study of how people
reacted later in life to their experience of hardship
during the Great Depression found that those who were very
young during the depression had no memory of earlier
prosperity, so they regarded the economic improvements of
later years as a steady progress from adversity to
affluence. But their elders, who had known better times
before the depression; to them, it was a sign of a
possible cycle in which good and bad times might follow
one another. So, decades after the depression, the younger
ones assumed that the badtimes were gone forever, but
the older ones were still wary of the economic future and
were incline to "save for a rainy day."

Therefore, I guess the meaning of any stage in our life
course is a fliud one, in which people's expectations
for themselves at a particular age depend on social
assumptions unique to that time and place.

Lexi yes every word.
I found in the first few posts I had over generalized.
And it is true most of us do on this subject.
The Gold coast QLD got me started, I can not get the idea it is an old lady/man trying to look young.
A quick look will see every one wants to be something else younger older richer and an old lady trying to hide it is a bit off.
In fact any sea side town with night life will look like that some nights.
And yes some extremes exist any place.
One thing helping me, I could not in truth find any age that saw me more or even less happy than I am now.

Dear Belly,

I can't complain about life either.

I've been given the gift of a second grandchild.
My two mums (my own, and my mother-in-law) haven't
fallen off their perch's recently -(so far so good).
Christmas is just around the corner (I do both Christmas
Eve dinner, and Christmas Lunch, at our place for the entire
family - which we all enjoy). And next year - I'm planning
an overseas trip. As long as I stay healthy and keep fit, I'll be
happy.