How do we know we have reached senior status?

by Irwin Lengel
(Lakeland, FL)

Well, one way is when we realize that our paycheck was once twenty-five bucks a week and Uncle Sam required that we only pay $.25 in Federal Taxes.

You have a 1990 car with only 25,000 miles on it.

You buy prunes in bulk at Sam’s Club.

On occasion you pull out your driver’s license to remember your name.

You remember that Li’l Abner was the hero of the comic strip by Al Capp that began August 12, 1935 and that his father and mother were Pappy and Mammy Yokum, they lived in Dogpatch, which was somewhere in the Appalachian mountains and that Li'l Abner eventually married Daisy Mae Scraggs.

You remember the 1960 movie entitled “The Magnificent Seven” (based on the 1954 Japanese movie entitled The Seven Samurai directed by Akira Kurosawa and starring Toshiro Mifune), the cast of which was played by Charles Bronson, Yul Brynner, James Coburn, Horst Buchholz, Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn, and Brad Dexter.

You remember the TV series entitled “Mannix” which was a TV series about a private eye, Joe Mannix and that the actor playing the role was Mike Connors.

Here is another little tidbit of information some of you senior citizens might recall. Ever wonder where the phrase “The Lucky Penny” came from. If you will recall, at quite a few convenience stores and now I notice them in some of the Dollar Stores, there’s a little dish besides the cash register, so you can “give a penny, take a penny” as you wish. This dates back to the ancient custom of exchanging “luck money” after a purchase. According to legend, in rural areas of Europe, someone who sold a horse or cow always remembered to return some small part of the purchase price to the buyer – even a penny would do. This “luck money,” it was believed, ensured that the animal would stay healthy and the business deal would not go sour.

Some may look upon this as magic however others might consider it as a bit of wisdom distilled from the centuries of human experience; it has been noted that an act of generosity can bring back far more than you give away.

If these few words of wisdom took you back to a time long ago when things were much simpler, well then I have done my job. I promise though that the next post will be more about today and what we can do about the present moment.

Until then, keep on smiling and laughing. It does keep us in a better mood!

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