Old Codger Stories

[Old_Newby]

Tell us something you did in your childhood that you still remember. For me I have plenty but I will share this one.

In 1975 I was 11 years old and after watching Grizzly Adams my friend and I decided to build a log cabin. We found a place in the woods near the river bank. We spent a month during summer chopping down trees, notching them, stacking them, filling in crack with mud from river bank, a slanted roof with smaller notched logs, pine needles and thatch over the top. No door or windows so we had to dig out a crawl hole. It was about 12x10x6 high. Then the land owner caught us and our parents had to pay him for the trees. We kinda got into trouble but my dad wanted to see what he had bought and he liked it. I guess my dad was pleased with how we were building and learning. We were so proud of that cabin and camped out in it many nights.

A couple years later there was a big flood and it washed away.

 

[sablebrush52]

In 1975 I had graduated college after grabbing as much tit as I could, while making the Dean’s Honors List, and was working full time in the jewelry business, and you call YOURSELF a codger??!!

 

[Old_Newby]

In 1975 I had graduated college after grabbing as much tit as I could, while making the Dean’s Honors List, and was working full time in the jewelry business, and you call YOURSELF a codger??!!

Were you a bell bottom jean hippie?

 

[sablebrush52]

Were you a bell bottom jean hippie?

I got into a lot of bell bottom jeans.

 

[warren]

March 27, 1964! 17 years old, Denali Ski Patrol, Mt. Alyeska, 5:37pm. Like it was yesterday!

 

[The Benedictine]

Not a codger but in 2006 I was 16. I went skiing in the French alps with my crush. He was very sweet. While sharing coffee he kissed me. We dated until 2009 when he was taken from this world in a car accident. Haven't really dated since.

 

[Briar Lee]

In August 1977 I was 19 and my mother had realized that she really wasn’t going to go broke or have to sell the farms after my father died in 1971.

Her 73 Chevy was still perfect, but she wanted a new car, so we could go on a two week vacation.

We were over at Bill Robert’s Chevrolet in Bolivar when an ancient old man came in with his wife and he recognized my mother and she said this is Lula Ray’s grandson, Bruce’s boy, and the old couple made over me as old people do in the presence of youth.

And the old man said to me, Big Bob Ray had four daughters and all of them were just beautiful, and he must have spent a fortune buying them pretty dresses, and by far the most gorgeous sister was Jesse.

There was another old man with his wife there, and he chimed in that Jesse Ray had to have been an angel walking the earth, the most beautiful girl that had ever lived.

And the two old women whose husbands were raving about Jesse nodded their heads in agreement.

Mama shopped for cars there, and didn’t buy one, and on the way home said, it didn’t hurt Jesse’s looks any to die at age 21 from typhoid fever.

The rest of us have to keep on trying.

 

[sablebrush52]

he chimed in that Jesse Ray had to have been an angel walking the earth, the most beautiful girl that had ever lived.

Good lord! Her parents gave her two male names? The feminine version of Jesse is spelled Jessie. Ray?

 

[Briar Lee]

Good lord! Her parents gave her two male names? The feminine version of Jesse is spelled Jessie. Ray?

Jessie Ray Akins (1887-1916) - Find a Grave...

www.findagrave.com

Somewhere I have photos and the Ray sisters, Orba, Lula, Jessie, and Ruby are as gorgeous as the Kardashians.


But Jessie, would be Kim. She was only 29 when she died of typhoid.

Lula was my grandmother. Orba committed suicide when my Grandfather’s brother Elmer ditched her for another girl.

Ruby wrecked who knows how many homes and was married to Pendergast era mobsters, one found dead in a barber’s chair and the other found in the Kaw River.

 

[skydog]

Not a codger but in 2006 I was 16. I went skiing in the French alps with my crush. He was very sweet. While sharing coffee he kissed me. We dated until 2009 when he was taken from this world in a car accident. Haven't really dated since.

I'm not much older than you so similarly I don't have much of a codger story to tell. When I was in high school my brother and I decided we should try every form of tobacco to see what we liked. I took up dip but eventually switched to cigarettes primarily like him. I've always enjoyed chew, especially the old timey twists. I didn't really get into pipe tobacco until I discovered there was a whole world of tobacco out there besides Captain Black.

My advice would be to get out there and date, you never know what you'll find unless you try. After going through a divorce with my first wife a dozen years ago, I wasn't really feeling up to braving the dating world again but I knew to have the life I wanted I needed to grin and bear it. Ended up meeting my second wife which made all the stupidity of modern dating worth it. Wishing you the best!

 

[Lees65GTO]

June 1961, a 17 year old arriving at Parris Island on a bus and having the MP at the gate jumping on the bus yelling and screaming at us, using every derogatory and cuss word I had every heard, plus many I had not, telling us to pickup the cigarette butts we had put out on the floor and me thinking "WHAT HAVE I DONE". I guess I may be an old codger.

 

[irishearl]

June 1961, a 17 year old arriving at Parris Island on a bus and having the MP at the gate jumping on the bus yelling and screaming at us, using every derogatory and cuss word I had every heard, plus many I had not, telling us to pickup the cigarette butts we had put out on the floor and me thinking "WHAT HAVE I DONE". I guess I may be an old codger.

OK, you're a codger being about 10 years older than me Increasingly lately, though, have been thinking of something my mother, who has been dead nearly 30 years, said to me late in her life. She had said she would look in the mirror and could not reconcile the look of the outer person in the mirror with how she felt on the inside. When our bodies aren't failing us too badly, don't we all feel about 30 inside? As an aside, have you ever thought of how old you appear in your dreams? Am guessing it's around 30.

 

[Old_Newby]

Ok you folks are depressing me. I was thinking I would hear more about the youth of the 50-70’s before computers and gaming.

Here is a more cheerful story.

I grew up in North Georgia (Deliverance I know Haha), near the Appalachians. There was a local hillside of hardwoods about a 50 degree slope, about 100 yards top to bottom, and a 6 foot bank at bottom dropping in a creek about 3 foot deep.

We would stop by a nearby industrial park and grab thick cardboard shipping boxes from dumpsters and you know the rest. A dry land leaf sled is created. Find a path down through the trees and bail out and try to stop before you fall into the creek.

Of course someone would always hit the freezing cold water.

Those memories of laughter and fun and friendship are a pleasure to look back on.. may sound corny but most kids today grow up in a room in front of a electronic device.

 

[The Benedictine]

My advice would be to get out there and date, you never know what you'll find unless you try. After going through a divorce with my first wife a dozen years ago, I wasn't really feeling up to braving the dating world again but I knew to have the life I wanted I needed to grin and bear it. Ended up meeting my second wife which made all the stupidity of modern dating worth it. Wishing you the best!

Thank you for the words. I've been in relationships since then but they've been few and far between.

 

[sablebrush52]

We didn’t have no crick down the hill where I grew up in Woodland Hills in Californie‘cause it’s flat and they ain’t no cricks neither.
But daddy built a cement pond in the backyard and we used to climb up on the roof and jump into it.

Course if you missed and hit the concrete, you was probly daid or some thin’.

‘Course with 4 boys in the pool, natcherly we’d just beat the shit outta each other. I got me a separated shoulder to prove it.

Good times!

 

[DeaconPiper]

Early 80's, Upstate New York.

My father, a carpenter, took me to chop down a Christmas tree, in the snow. I remember hiking downhill through the snow, and it came up to my waist. I was all bundled up in blue and white and red. Pa let me pick the tree. The sky was cloudy and dark, like the memory of it now.

 

[Sig]

When I was a kid we used to sled down a big hill in winter. The bottom of the BIGGEST hill had a barn at the bottom.
No big deal, we just opened the doors and slid right into the barn.
In 1979 I was 8 years old. We were sledding that hill one day.
I came down the hill like a flash, whoosh, right in the barn.
I woke up 3 hours later in the hospital. Apparently when I did my whoosh into the barn, Clyde took offense and kicked me in the head. You could probably guess Clyde was a horse, a 1/2 Clydesdale mongrel.
I went home the next day. But from the time of the kick and for the whole next day, I didn't say a word. My parents were worried so they took me to our family doctor.
He told them to be ready for me to be of "simple" mind from that day on.
Luckily the next day I started to talk. A week later, back to the same hill, into the same barn.....minus the 2000 pound anvil hooved trail nag!

 

[OzPiper]

Luckily the next day I started to talk. A week later, back to the same hill, into the same barn.....minus the 2000 pound anvil hooved trail nag!

Sounds like a case of amnesia, as well as aphasia

 

[Briar Lee]

We didn’t have no crick down the hill where I grew up in Woodland Hills in Californie‘cause it’s flat and they ain’t no cricks neither.
But daddy built a cement pond in the backyard and we used to climb up on the roof and jump into it.

Course if you missed and hit the concrete, you was probly daid or some thin’.

‘Course with 4 boys in the pool, natcherly we’d just beat the shit outta each other. I got me a separated shoulder to prove it.

Good times!

True Missouri hillbillies cannot swim. We dog paddle.

There are really no swimming holes. What few that exist are actually wading holes in creeks that also host water moccasins and snapping turtles. Proper swimming is for city people.

In 1994 success found me owning a 4,500 square foot McMansion on top of an 11 acre hill with a forty acre lake at the bottom.

In 1965 the city fathers of Osceola Missouri had closed the Whites Only swimming pool rather than integrate.

I’m kind of proud of my parents and neighbors because there was outrageous outrage against the city fathers and the next election the racist old geezers were swept out of office and young people elected.

After that my mother took me to the Osceola swimming pool.

On a fine summer’s day in 1994 I had a brand new 10 horsepower boat motor and only a five horsepower rated boat.

I clamped the motor on my little boat and left my son and his friend on the shore, and tried it out.

There is a reason for horsepower ratings on little boats. I found this out when I fell off when the boat hydroplaned about forty miles an hour and left me over a hundred yards from shore. I had on no life vest. My boat was circling over in the middle of the lake and I didn’t want to try and remount it.

I could hear my son screaming on the shore.

I remembered my mother at Osceola, flipping over on her back and floating and paddling, and not wanting to die that day, I tried it, after I grew tired of dog paddling.

My first born son, his mother, and the man who came to my rescue after I’d already made the shore, are all dead now.

And the lady across the lake who was watching me and got there first ready to jump in to save me, left her husband and four kids and ran away with a honky tonk singer to Branson, and maybe she still likes to sing duets, I do not know. She could sing harmony like Dolly or Emmylou, though, she surely could.

Sing one Charlie Walker

Who Will Buy the Wine

 

[sablebrush52]

True Missouri hillbillies cannot swim. We dog paddle.

There are really no swimming holes. What few that exist are actually wading holes in creeks that also host water moccasins and snapping turtles. Proper swimming is for city people.

In 1994 success found me owning a 4,500 square foot McMansion on top of an 11 acre hill with a forty acre lake at the bottom.

In 1965 the city fathers of Osceola Missouri had closed the Whites Only swimming pool rather than integrate.

I’m kind of proud of my parents and neighbors because there was outrageous outrage against the city fathers and the next election the racist old geezers were swept out of office and young people elected.

After that my mother took me to the Osceola swimming pool.

On a fine summer’s day in 1994 I had a brand new 10 horsepower boat motor and only a five horsepower rated boat.

I clamped the motor on my little boat and left my son and his friend on the shore, and tried it out.

There is a reason for horsepower ratings on little boats. I found this out when I fell off when the boat hydroplaned about forty miles an hour and left me over a hundred yards from shore. I had on no life vest. My boat was circling over in the middle of the lake and I didn’t want to try and remount it.

I could hear my son screaming on the shore.

I remembered my mother at Osceola, flipping over on her back and floating and paddling, and not wanting to die that day, I tried it, after I grew tired of dog paddling.

My first born son, his mother, and the man who came to my rescue after I’d already made the shore, are all dead now.

And the lady across the lake who was watching me and got there first ready to jump in to save me, left her husband and four kids and ran away with a honky tonk singer to Branson, and maybe she still likes to sing duets, I do not know. She could sing harmony like Dolly or Emmylou, though, she surely could.

Sing one Charlie Walker

Who Will Buy the Wine

I don’t know how it is today, but growing up in SoCal in the 50’s and 60’s, you learned to swim early. Either you went to a swim school, learned at camp, or your parents taught you. If you didn’t have a backyard pool there were public pools at the parks, high school pools and the beach. I even had a Red Cross life saving certificate. Fortunately I never had to use it.