I am needing information from a person 65 yrs old or older!?

Okay, I am 69. I usually live at home. Currently I am babysitting a couple of grandchildren while their parents are away on business. I also travel a little.

I recently retired from a job as a teacher. I had my first paid teaching job at age 22 so I will compare the technology of my first year teaching and my last year teaching.

My first classroom was outfitted with desks and new style chalkboards. This new school had green boards rather than old fashioned slate boards and our chalk was state of the art: low dust!

In math class the kids were learning to use slide rules. No one dreamed of calculators in the classroom. The second year I taught the school got an Eisenhower grant to update technology. Every science classroom in the junior high got an overhead projector. (A word about Eisenhower grants... these were a result of sputnik. ... the USA was behind in the race to the moon so for a while schools got some extra funding.) My last year of teaching I used a computer and smart board to present my lessons. Frankly everything except basic textbooks seemed to have changed.

My favorite holiday was/is Christmas. The foods we eat are the same and it is still a family get together. As a child the only time we got a new toy was at Christmas. Usually just one toy. Now my grand kids have enough toys to open a toy store.

I did not have TV in the small town where I grew up until I was in college. I enjoyed Jack Benny and Judy Canova on the radio.

I was ironing one afternoon listening to the radio. I had just heard a new comer sing on a station out of Clint, Texas. My best friend called on the phone... we actually had operators that ask number please.

She said I just got a new Pat Boone 45; you want to come over and listen to records... I said ... who is she.

I told her I had to finish my ironing for the week and that she needed to turn on Clint Texas radio station and listen to this new kid: Elvis Presley.

Favorite things to play as a child were hide and seek for out of doors; and paper dolls or with baby dolls inside. I really enjoyed softball and jump rope, too.

(Now, I swim about 60 laps a week. My other exercise is shopping. I make a point of spending about an hour going up and down the aisles at the grocery store. I pick up my produce and cold/frozen stuff last)

I love my computer but am not able to program a tv.

The main thing I remember about dating was going to church and to weekly sock hops (dances) We also dragged main in our old jalopies. ( Don't tell anyone but we did our share of necking in those old jalopies, too.)

One last thing, I am a retired teacher, but I did not proof read this note. And I am not going to either ..... As I said ... I am retired.

I was raised on a 40,000 acre Hereford cattle ranch in southern NM. In this part of the country you don't raise as many head as you do in a lot of the country do to the range feed.

They sold the ranch in 1968 I'm retired now and live in town'

The things I see different now days is the ranches are being bought up by rich people that don't no a dam thing about ranching, the own bragging rights. Most horses are smarter than those city folks,

My favorite holiday was and still is christmas, That's when all the family came to gather

My best memories are doing round up an branding, working with all those old timers that are gone but not forgotten by me. I worked with guys like Walt Nickels, Jim Brister,Harry Day ranch bordered our place known as The lazyB, home of Sanda Day O'Connor, Jim and May Brister gave me my first horse

We enjoyed a good hay ride and dance in someone barn.

EDIT I still have my k bar pocket knife my dad gave me to cut bull calves when I turned nine years old

I am 68 years old. Born and raised in Southwest Texas on a farm/ranch where my family raised milo as a row crop in the spring and harvested in the late summer. We raised oats and wheat that was used for grazing during the winter. We ran 75 or so cows, two to three hundred sheep, 75 or so angora goats. At one time we had over 200 hogs, we also raised 3,000 baby chicks up to 16 weeks and then sold them when they first began to lay eggs into the cage egg industry. We only had 460 acres so we did not have all of the animals all at one time. The market determined what we had at any particular time When I was twenty I was off in college and in the summer I was back on the farm working with the family and especially during harvest. The work was hard and the days were long. We always had a milk cow and at least a few chickens to supply the house with eggs, We had hogs and calves butchered in town at the slaughter house where they cut up the meat, wrapped it for the freezer and quick froze it so we could bring it home and put it in our freezer for use at home. Eating out in a restaurant was a real treat and we might do that once or twice a month. Our life was simple and very family oriented. Saturday nights I went to the dance in town or might drive thirty or forty miles to attend a dance in a public dance hall. Girls in the town where i went to go to school were more like sisters because we were together in almost every class for a number of years. People were very settled and few people moved into our school and out through the years. Dating a local girl was almost an obligation when we had a school prom or a special occasion. There were only a few marriages of local kids. As I said, we were all like brothers and sister and we knew each other like a book. The only place to take a date was into the county seat to go to a picture show. We had one indoor picture show and one drive in.

Television was a new thing and most homes got a television eventually. It did take many years before most homes had one. We were 75 miles from the television broadcast tower so we had outdoor antennas up 40 or 50 feet in the air. Reception was not good so only when the weather was good did you get what was at the time called a good picture. Usually television reception was so bad it was frustrating to watch it. I spent a lot of time walking with a flash light up and down fence rows on the farm at night shooting rabbits instead of watching a snowy and barrel-rolling television.

Many of the kids were looking forward to growing up and living in town somewhere and finding a job that paid well. Almost any job would pay more than what you made on a farm. I doubt there are many kids that I was raised with that didn't long for the simple life on the farm after they spent some years in town.

Now I am retired. The city girl that I met and fell in love with and married 46 years ago is still my wife and we live on a ranch within a hundred miles of where I was raised. I am now what is referred to as a Gentleman Rancher. I do not depend on the income from the ranch as my sole income and although we do milk a cow twice a day and gather eggs every evening we have a lively social life and have at least one vaquero that takes care of things if we choose to spend a day or so in town from time to time. Life is good and we are indeed blessed.

age 68+

Live at home with husband and dog.

So much less crime when I was 20, more patriotism, less government intrusion into our lives, if people got sick they paid cash for treatment or doctors.

Christmas, favorite holiday celebrated with family then and now. Tree, gifts, food, family.

Went to movies, roller skating, and dances on dates.

Played with dolls as a child, spent hours playing in a park, and canasta

TV- Uncle Miltie, I love Lucy, Red Rider and little Beaver, Hop-a-long Cassidy, Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers. Music-- Elvis, Teresa Brewer ( not sure of the spelling). Favorite movie stars- Margret O'Brian,Van

Johnson,

Where you reside: Why do you wish to return over? -What variations do you spot in these days than from while u have been 20? The women nowadays get dressed like hookers and I adore it. And I did not poop myself close as so much while I used to be 20 -What's your favourite vacation and the way did you have a good time it as a youngster? July 4th we might all hop within the ancient truck and move to look at the fireworks over at Boo Radleys How do you have a good time it now? Loud noises make me lose controll of my Bowels -Memories of courting and what you probably did to revel in dates One time again in forty four Agnes shubout allow me consider her boobies in the back of the corn crib -What recreation did you revel in playin as a youngster? I used to like to move all the way down to the quarry and shoot stray cats -What tv indicates or tune did you revel in?! I like Rock of affection Bus and Americas excellent dance workforce Anything else that you just would deliver will aid! I might very so much recognize this expertise!!! And your first title might even be first-class. Richard seventy one years younger