Retirement--Hot Dang
Not too sure just how many of you good folks are retired but the following caught my fancy. Don't know who thought up all of these but they are just too good to let go by except to say author unknown but welcome to my world!
Subject: RETIREMENT
Why I Like Retirement !!!
Question: How many days in a week?
Answer: 6 Saturdays, 1 Sunday
Question: When is a retiree's bedtime?
Answer: Three hours after he falls asleep in the recliner.
Question: How many retirees to change a light bulb?
Answer: Only one, but it might take all day.
Question: What's the biggest gripe of retirees?
Answer: There is not enough time to get everything done. Very true
Question: Why don't retirees mind being called Seniors?
Answer: The term comes with a 10% discount. Sometime 15%
Question: Among retirees what is considered formal attire?
Answer: Tied shoes.
Question: Why do retirees count pennies?
Answer: They are the only ones who have the time.
Question: What is the common term for someone who enjoys work and refuses to retire?
Answer: NUTS! So true
Question: Why are retirees so slow to clean out the basement, attic or garage?
Answer: They know that as soon as they do, one of their adult kids will want to store stuff there.
Question: What do retirees call a long lunch?
Answer: Normal.
Question: What is the best way to describe retirement?
Answer: The never ending Coffee Break.
Question: What's the biggest advantage of going back to school as a retiree?
Answer: If you cut classes, no one calls your parents.
Question: Why does a retiree often say he doesn't miss work, but misses the people he used to work with?
Answer: He is too polite to tell the whole truth.
And, my very favorite....
QUESTION: What do you do all week?
Answer: Monday through Friday, NOTHING..... Saturday & Sunday, I rest.
Well, maybe not your parents. My mother (born five months after you were) quit school in 1942 to go to work in a war plant (making 1919A4's). In 1978, after my dad retired, she decided that she was going to go back and finish high school. If she missed, they wouldn't call her parents but someone would know about it since I was her American Government teacher. I tried like crazy to keep from giving her an A, since it would seem like favoritism. Couldn't do it. Every test and every paper were perfect, in all of her classes. She wasn't alone. In the 78, 79 and 80 school years, at least half of our students were WWII dropouts who had recently retired. In that group, there weren't over three B's handed out in the entire program (and we were grading at the college level). These were people who didn't need the diploma to get ahead in life, they were already ahead. They didn't care about grades, they just liked learning things, and they did it magnificently. By the way, when my mom graduated in 1980, she was offered a full scholarship to attend a state university. She turned it down. She said that there was probably some kid out there who needed it more. That may have been true, but there were none who would have put it to better use.
Very funny!
That's a real neat story about your Mom TTGA!
TTGA, (making 1919A4's). Good for your Mom. Everybody back then sacrificed something instead of saying let someone else do it. She could very well have had a hand in producing the BAR that I carried. I started out in the Pacific carrying the A2 version and was issued the model A4 just beforewe invaded Bougainville Island. The only squawk I had against the BAR was that the barrels got too hot. I carried a Thompson as a back up for when things got hairy. Tell her thanks for me!! ((((TTGAs Mom)))
TTGA, that's a really cool story about your mom. She had a lot of courage to go back to high school as I have seen some adults going back to high school here and catch some poop from the kids. The instructors put an end to that crap right away.
My mom worked at Pratt and Whitney in Kansas City as a machinist during the war. I think she actually loved it and she would have made a great college student. She didn't want to go to college, though, and became an artist (oil painter) instead and sold real estate. Both served her well and made her happy. And that is why we do the things we do when we get older - to make us and our families happy.
Yeah, really . Your mom get's my respect for sure.
I retired when I was 50. Everyone was shocked that I was able to pull it off. I am really glad I did, too. I didn't realize how much there was to do around the house, how much traveling there was go get done and places to go and see. I was surprised how quickly I adjusted to retirement and people told me I would be bored out of my skull. Not so, at all. I was equally surprised at how much work got in the way of living a life.
When we got home we, all of my classmates, who quit to go into the services, had to find jobs as well as go back to school and Grump is right we didn't fit in too well with the kids that were there. They resented us. I finally said to hell with it and went for a GED which allowed me to enroll part time in a university. Under those conditions, working full time, getting married, going to school, it takes quite a bit of time to come up with your degree. Anybody that does all of that sure does have my admiration.
ambi, I thought you were already retired. I know hubby isn't retired yet. You will really enjoy having him home so you guys can go places and do things together around the area.
I live this everyday...LOL..it's great.
The regards might be a little hard to pass along guy. She died in 2005. If there's anything to what the religious folks say, though, I'll bet that she saw it and is smiling.
The Browning A4's got hot too, even with the barrel shield. Better than the A1's with the water jacket, though. Those things were heavy. Recently I saw a TV show that compared the BAR to the BREN. The tester remarked that the BREN had two big advantages. They were easier to load since the magazine fitted in from the top and the piece didn't have to be turned over; and that they had a quick detachable barrel with a handle. I've never handled a BREN, but they also had to be a lot easier to field strip. I hated all those little tiny springs and pins on the BAR. They were a pain, even in an armory. I don't even like to think what field stripping them in a muddy hole, in the dark, was like.
TTGA , My sincere apologies to you concerning your Mom. The way I read itand I guess hoped was that she did her thing and was still with you/us. As you also can see the old man still suffers from hoof and mouth desease!
The barrel on my A2 was terrible in combat stiutations and it was because of that that I picked up a Thompson as a backup weapon. They were both heavy but the A4 was better all around. Trust me here there is no field stripping a BAR under combat conditions and as good as the A4 was when it got hot it was all over. Those of us who carried the BAR were the favorite targets for the Japanese snipers.
No apologies needed guy. She enjoyed herself throughout her life and all of us, including her, were well aware that, in the end, people die.
The A1's and A4's I was talking about were the Browning light machine guns. I only dealt with the A1 and the BAR in training at the Gunnery School. I never used them in combat. We had the A4 post mounted rather than on a tripod, since we were on an LST, along with several M2 .50 caliber MG's. About 80% of the time, what I used in combat was an M1 Garand. Remember that when a Naval vessel like an LST is in combat with small arms, it's along a beach. The ranges are somewhat longer than you'll find in the jungle. They would average 200-250 yards and the targets were individual soldiers with AK47's or light machine guns. With the Garand I had them outranged by a lot. Back then (when my eyes were younger) I could shoot one of those accurately out to 600 yards, and shoot a Springfield out to 1,000 yards. Can't do that without a scope now.
Here's an amusing one that you all might enjoy. It's not so much about retirement as about getting older. The following picture is one I've carried around in my wallet for a long time (which explains the poor quality). It's now posted on the bulletin board above my desk.
About 15 years ago (when I was 49), one of my students saw it and asked me if it was my wife and I with our son. Obviously the kid recognized me. My answer (given while laughing) was that it was taken by me in 1964, when my dad was approximately my age, and I was 16. The youngster was right, I looked almost exactly like what my dad looked like in this picture. It is of he and my mom holding my youngest cousin at her baptism. The cousin, by the way, is now the grandmother of two children.
Thanks, and talk about age screwed up. You would think that after all the time I carried that sucker I would remember exactly what I was lugging all over the place but I forgot. I called my nephew whom I sent it to and he told me that it was the BAR M1918A2. I didn't mean to lead you astray here. Your numbers looked right so I just went with them. I was combat infantry so we needed the mobility and that baby could really lay down fire.My complaint about the hot barrel is still true though! When I looked at a picture of the A4 I said thats not my weapon and really felt foolish, Cant you just see me splashing ashore carrying that goomer? Really doesn't pay to get old, either.
You only missed one number, the M1918 was the BAR, the M1919 was the Browning light machine gun (the A4 was the air cooled model). Both were replaced by the M60 machine gun, a derivative of the German MG 42. Worst mistake the military ever made was when they tried to replace the BAR with a full automatic version of the M-14 rifle. It only weighs about eight pounds and is almost impossible to control in full auto mode. What they wanted to do was fix it so that every rifleman was also a machine gunner with the flip of a switch. What they actually did was take one of the best military rifles ever made and turn it into a totally inadequate light machine gun.