I must be going through hormone changes or something! My lifestyle has always been active from racing road bikes in the 70's and 80's to racing mountain bikes in the 90's. Just bugs the heck out of me that my body is unable to ride like it once did.

That's why there are stories about bicycle racers (perhaps apocryphal) leaving bicycling when they age and slow down. Too sad.

Damn ... that's just plain Twilight Zonish. Congrats for putting 53 in your rear view mirror!

When I turned 50, I realized that I was on a count down, never to see 100.

Biker395, I can appreciate your “Twilight Zonish” analogy of that scenario and your sentiment in my having put my 53[SUP]rd[/SUP] year tribulation “in my rear view mirror”.

Coincidentally, your post commenting about my post was the 53[SUP]rd[/SUP] (eerie Twilight Zone music playing in the background).

This is just getting to freakish.

One more time.

I don't remember hating being 50. I was too focused on making the most of my midlife crises (the 2nd one) at 50. that's when i took off from riding my bike for a decade.....Probably so as not to remind myself how old I was getting. Now that that's over with I'm OK with grey.

You are not riding enough. I am 60 I ride my bicycle 6 times a week all year long. You need to ride a cruiser, like a Schwinn Spitfire 5 or something like it. Not only is it good excercise, but riding those type of bicycles make you feel like a kid. They also seem safer, you are upright easier to see your surroundings, safe and fun.

Count me as one who sort of hates it... coming up on 57.

Does the Coast Guard really do this? For veterans?

my father in law had something to say about getting old: "it's better than the alternative"

We had a Surf&Turf burial for my FIL. Split his ashes into 2 bio-degradable containers. I placed one container in the pedestal base of this ornament, https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=...ed=0CD0Q9QEwBg, along with the flag he flew everyday in front of his house and we had a ceremonial burial at sea with his grandson's lowering it down to the bottom of the Gulf to start a reef. Have the numbers for future visits. The other half I placed in the grave with my MIL back north. Now when he gets tired of her nagging he can leave and go fishing.

Guess I am one of the few without issues regarding one's death. I'll continue to continue as I am able to and have no issues with the inevitable. Matter of fact, will make sure I don't wind up like so many elderly individuals. No burden on my family and they are aware of my feelings.

From what I found on the Coast Guard's site, yes. They require a DD214 denoting service of an honorable nature and that is all. Transfer of cremains from place of death to appropriate CG station is up to the survivors. In my case, it is my desire that another Sergeant First Class, my son, act as escort to New Orleans. I had a choice of Jacksonville, FL or New Orleans, LA. The Gulf used to be my playground, so that is where I want to be.

This reminds me of one of my young soldiers many years ago. He picked up his wife's "Nair" instead of the shampoo and washed, not only the gray, but also all the hair right off of his head!! Funniest thing I believe I have ever seen. His wife was still ragging him about it almost three years later.

Man, I'd love to be 50 again!

Yo, maybe if you looked at women the way N0S88 does, you'd have a better success rate. It is a lot easier to realize that someone you like is still attractive, then to convince yourself that someone who is beautiful is likeable.

Regarding those younger women. It's not necessarily that young women think themselves so gold-plated, it is that they may understand that there are risks and tradeoffs, and they have decided your age difference is a risk they don't want to take on. That's fair, my friend, your vindictive remarks notwithstanding, for they have a say in the matter just as you do. I married a man ten years my senior, and I thought long and hard about even that much of a gap, let me tell you. Even then I knew that actuarial statistics predict that the odds are that I'll end up spending the last ten years of my life a widow, maybe more. It sucks to get older, but it sucks just as bad when the one you love stops getting older, if you get my drift.

Of course, back then I had this naive idea that marriage was for keeps, I didn't realize how lucky I was to have found not only someone I wanted to keep, but someone who wanted to keep me, long after the face in the mirror stopped matching in age the person I felt inside.

We all get our turn in this life, I don't feel bitter because I'm not going to get more than my share, although compared to most folks in the third world, I probably have already gotten more than my fair share of longevity. I don't like the physical deterioration though. I don't like that I have cervical disk damage that is revealing its ugly head. I don't like that 15 pounds went on and taking them off with a slowed metabolism means not just discipline, but real denial. (I took those pounds off once, so I know what it will take to get them off again. I've decided instead to concentrate on trying to be healthy as opposed to being slender. I will accept the weight I am, which has stabilized under a careful but not rigid dietary regimen, one that allows me scheduled treats. Fortunately my mate accepts this. Acceptance is key.

Meanwhile my mate and I went cycling yesterday. He enjoys it, but he isn't quite as enthused as I am. So we compromise. He goes as far as he enjoys and then I leave him sitting in the sun somewhere with his iPod and spin on for a few more miles. On my return we ride back to the cafe together where despite our slowing metabolisms we will end up by eating a piece of carrot cake together because we enjoy it so much. And I look across at him, how nicely shiny gray he is now, like a well kept set of silverware, and think, these are the good old days.

The teen-aged daughter of a friend just died suddenly. Makes me appreciate the 61 years of aging I have been allowed to do. I am going to go ride my bike now.