For me it’s people I knew back in my home community. Most I haven’t seen since I graduated. They are frozen in time. My images of them are what they looked like back then. All I have. Then I see an obituary photo or someone posts a photo and I am shocked every time. Weird.
my wife and I were discussing a neighbor who is 86, and whether he had seen military service. I commented "He could have been in Vietnam" and she was more than a little shocked, but he was too young for Korea, and he was in his late 20s when that war started getting hot for the US
I turned 51 couple of weeks ago so I literally just had that moment. My issue is trying to square my own age with how I feel since I'm in good shape and 51 is supposed to be "old" or something. I keep seeing a shirt that that says, "I don't know how to act my age since I have never been this old before." Or thinking someone in their early 60s is old when suddenly remember that my wife is 61 and not old.
Just had the exact same experience when I watched “The World’s Greatest Beer Run” with Zach Ephron playing “Chickie” Donahue, a merchant marine sailor who jumped ship in Viet Nam and hitched and bluffed his way around the country to visit friends from his neighbourhood serving there. There was an interview with him and Zach in the extras, and he talks about being 83. That was a shock, in my mind Second World War vets like my grandfather are always in their 60’s or 70’s, and I remember Canadian Vietnam Veterans campaigning to take up the torch from them as they were younger, in their 40’s or 50’s.
Another jarring experience was attending the Kemptville Remembrance Day parade with The Royal Canadian Regiment’s “Charles” Company. We were there to honour Pte Blake Williamson who was killed in 2006. We had one member of Charles left from that time, Warrant Officer Lebel. They were privates together, and the contrast was jarring. Blake has always stood out in photos as especially youthful. Seeing WO Lebel, face lined, hair long gone, laying a wreath alongside his mother really made the phrase “they shall not grow old” echo in my head. They were young together. One of them will be forever.
I remember learning that Barbara Walters, Martin Luther King Jr., and Anne Frank were all born in the same year. That messed with my head for sure.
For me it’s people I knew back in my home community. Most I haven’t seen since I graduated. They are frozen in time. My images of them are what they looked like back then. All I have. Then I see an obituary photo or someone posts a photo and I am shocked every time. Weird.
my wife and I were discussing a neighbor who is 86, and whether he had seen military service. I commented "He could have been in Vietnam" and she was more than a little shocked, but he was too young for Korea, and he was in his late 20s when that war started getting hot for the US
I turned 51 couple of weeks ago so I literally just had that moment. My issue is trying to square my own age with how I feel since I'm in good shape and 51 is supposed to be "old" or something. I keep seeing a shirt that that says, "I don't know how to act my age since I have never been this old before." Or thinking someone in their early 60s is old when suddenly remember that my wife is 61 and not old.
Just had the exact same experience when I watched “The World’s Greatest Beer Run” with Zach Ephron playing “Chickie” Donahue, a merchant marine sailor who jumped ship in Viet Nam and hitched and bluffed his way around the country to visit friends from his neighbourhood serving there. There was an interview with him and Zach in the extras, and he talks about being 83. That was a shock, in my mind Second World War vets like my grandfather are always in their 60’s or 70’s, and I remember Canadian Vietnam Veterans campaigning to take up the torch from them as they were younger, in their 40’s or 50’s.
Another jarring experience was attending the Kemptville Remembrance Day parade with The Royal Canadian Regiment’s “Charles” Company. We were there to honour Pte Blake Williamson who was killed in 2006. We had one member of Charles left from that time, Warrant Officer Lebel. They were privates together, and the contrast was jarring. Blake has always stood out in photos as especially youthful. Seeing WO Lebel, face lined, hair long gone, laying a wreath alongside his mother really made the phrase “they shall not grow old” echo in my head. They were young together. One of them will be forever.