It is now possible to easily share that special picture, or “those” special pictures, by putting them on custom photo checks. There is an online source for uploading your picture(s) to an established and trusted service (a bank check printer/manufacturer) and have those pictures appear on every check you write.

It is inexpensive, safe and easy to get started. To see what it’s all about just click the link (custom photo checks) in the above paragraph or in the list of links in the column on the right. Have fun – it costs you nothing to give it a look-see.

A Police STOP at 1AM

An elderly man is stopped by the police around 1 am and is asked where he is going at this time of night.

The man replies, “I am going to a lecture about alcohol abuse and the effects it has on the human body.”

The officer then asks, “Really? Who is giving that lecture at this time of night?”

The man replies, “That would be my wife.”

We grow old because we stop playing.

I was sitting in the waiting room for my first appointment with a new dentist and I noticed his Dental School Diploma, which showed his full name. I then remembered a tall, handsome, dark-haired boy in my high school class nearly 40 years ago. He had the same name and I had a secret crush on him for two years – way back then.

Meeting him, however,  I  discarded  these  thoughts of old. This balding, gray man with the deeply lined face was way too old to have been my secret heartthrob.

Following my dental exam I asked him if he had attended Quakertown High School. He replied in the affirmative…

“Yes, I did. I am a Panther.” he proudly stated.

I asked him his year of graduation.

He  responded, “I graduated in 1960. Why do you ask?”

I exclaimed, “You were in my class!”

He looked at me very closely, as though examining me again.

Then that old, ugly, decrepit, fat, bald, rude jerk asked, “What class did you teach?”

I said to him, “Come on, man, how about giving a retired person a break?” He ignored me and continued writing the ticket. I called him a “Nazi.” He glared at me and wrote another ticket for
having worn tires. So I called him a “doughnut eating Gestapo.” He finished the second ticket and put it on the windshield with the first. Then he wrote a third ticket. This went on for about 20 minutes. The
more I abused him the more tickets he wrote.

Personally, I didn’t care. I came downtown on the bus, and the car that he was putting the tickets on had a bumper sticker that said something insulting to Senior Citizens.

I try to have a little fun each day now that I’m retired. It’s important to my health.

Old Age, I decided, is a gift.

I a m now, probably for the first time in my life, the person I have always wanted to be. Oh, not my body! I sometime despair over my body, the wrinkles, the baggy eyes, and the sagging butt. And often I am taken aback by that old person that lives in my mirror (who looks like my mother!), but I don’t agonize over those things for long.

I would never trade my amazing friends, my wonderful life, my loving family for less gray hair or a flatter belly. As I’ve aged, I’ve become more kind to myself, and less critical of myself. I’ve become my own friend.

I don’t chide myself for eating that extra cookie, or for not making my bed, or for buying that silly cement gecko that I didn’t need, but looks so avante garde on my patio. I am entitled to a treat, to be messy, to be extravagant. I have seen too many dear friends leave this world too soon; before they understood the great freedom that comes with aging.

Whose business is it if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4 AM and sleep until noon?

I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of the 60 & 70′s, and if I, at the same time, wish to weep over a lost love … I will.

I will walk the beach in a swim suit that is stretched over a bulging body, and will dive into the waves with abandon if I choose to, despite the pitying glances from the jet set.

They, too, will get old!

I know I am sometimes forgetful. But there again, some of life is just as well forgotten. And I eventually remember the important things.

Sure, over the years my heart has been broken. How can your heart not break when you lose a loved one, or when a child suffers, or even when somebody’s beloved pet gets hit by a car? But broken hearts are what give us strength and understanding and compassion. A heart never broken is pristine and sterile and will never know the joy of being imperfect.

I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turning gray, and to have my youthful laughs be forever etched into deep grooves on my face. So many have never laughed, and so many have died before their hair could turn silver.

As yo u get older, i t is easier to be positive. You care less about what other people think. I don’t question myself anymore. I’ve even earned the right to be wrong.

So, to answer your question, I like being old. It has set me free. I like the person I have become. I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here, I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be. And I shall eat dessert every single day. (If I feel like it)

MAY OUR FRIENDSHIP NEVER COME APART ESPECIALLY WHEN IT’S STRAIGHT FROM THE HEART! MAY YOU ALWAYS HAVE A RAINBOW OF SMILES ON YOUR FACE AND IN YOUR HEART FOREVER AND EVER!

We received this via an email forward. If you find it thought-provoking or humorous or even true, go ahead and copy it into an email for your friends…

In Western societies, adults are assumed to be “old” when they reach the ages of 65-75, and secure their pension entitlement. Some governments offer Old Age pensions, and redeemable Retirement Savings Plans.

Think About This One!

• A car company can move its factories to Mexico and claim it’s a free market.
• A toy company can out source to a Chinese subcontractor and claim it’s a free market .
• A shoe company can produce its shoes in south east Asia and claim it’s a free market.
• A major bank can incorporate in Bermuda to avoid taxes and claim it’s a free market.
• We can buy HP Printers made in Mexico.
• We can buy shirts made in Bangladesh.
• We can purchase almost anything we want from many, many different countries.

BUT, heaven help the Old Agers/Senior Citizens who dare to buy their prescription drugs from a Canadian or Mexican pharmacy. That’s called un-American! And you think the pharmaceutical companies don’t have a powerful lobby? Think again!

Copy and send this to every person you know over age 50. It is an interesting thought. Maybe this is an issue that should come up in the next election! On second thought, forget the age 50 group – send it to everyone! We ‘re all in this boat together! Even if you aren’t in the boat now, you’re standing on the pier.

You could hardly see for all the snow, spread those rabbit ears as far as they go. Pull a chair up to the TV set, “Good Night, David. Good Night, Chet.”

My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn’t seem to get food poisoning.

My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to eat it raw sometimes, too. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag, not in icepack coolers, b ut I c an’t remember getting e.coli.

Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.

The term cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a pager was the school PA system.

We all took gym, not PE.. and risked permanent injury with a pair of high top Ked’s (only worn in gym) instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built in light reflectors. I can’t recall any injuries but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now.

Flunking gym was not an option…even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be much harder than gym.

Speaking of school, we all said prayers and sang the national anthem, and staying in detention after school caught all sorts of negative attention.

We must have had horribly damaged psyches. What an archaic health system we had then. Remember school nurses? Ours wore a hat and everything.

I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed to be proud of myself.

I just can’t recall how bored we were without computers, Play Station, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.

Oh yeah… and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when I got that bee sting? I could have been killed!

We played ‘king of the hill’ on piles of gravel left on vacant construction sites, and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48-cent bottle of Mercurochrome (kids liked it better because it didn’t sting like iodine did) and then we got our butt spanked. Now it’s a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of a $49 bottle of antibiotics, and then Mom calls the attorney to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.

We didn’t act up at the neighbor’s house either because if we did, we got our butt spanked there and then we got butt spanked again when we got home.

I recall Danny from next door coming over and doing his tricks on the front stoop, just before he fell off. Little did his Mom know that she could have owned our house. Instead, she picked him up and swatted him for being such a goof. It was a neighborhood run amok, I tell ya.

To top it off, not a single person I knew had ever been told that they were from a dysfunctional family. How could we possibly have known that? We needed to get into group therapy and anger management classes? We were obviously so duped by so many societal ills, that we didn’t even notice that the entire country wasn’t taking Prozac! How did we ever survive?

LOVE TO ALL OF US WHO SHARED THIS ERA GONE BY. TO ALL WHO DIDN’T – SORRY FOR WHAT YOU MISSED. I WOULDN’T TRADE IT FOR ANYTHING. Feel free to copy and email this to someone (that’s how we got it) and remember that life’s most simple pleasures are very often the best.