Pictures....

 Couple of days ago.  was going thru the picture albums..  to get some pictures of a family that we had reconnected with..  haven't see them for about 30 years or so..   the teens are grown adults with kids of their own. and etc..   

But as I was going thru to get them..  I saw several other families that I have not seen for almost as long.  And thought I should copy them for myself and send the originals to the family .. if I can find them.  It did take me about 5 years and with my daughters help..  to track down a dear friend who moved away.. and then passed away..  50 years ago we were friends..   and luckily my daughter found one to connect with and we sent the pictures.. they were SOOOOOOOOOOOOO THRILLED   as they did not have hardly any pictures of their parents.. and of themselves at that age.. 

So maybe that is something we should think about.. that is if you can find them...  we all move on and lose connection...  but even if you know where they are..  and if the parents have passed..    maybe you could make a book with copies of the pictures to your friends kids..    

Not all that looks like is the same..

 

10% against 80%

 

Everyone is so amazed at the reaction of the sports people and fans around the nation. And their reaction to our country..  lots of pictures and stories…  Like Boston running out of beer due to the Scot’s team and fans drinking all they had.     Parading thru towns celebrating all to gether.   No arrest , just happy…  Even my own daughter is amazed.

Which that amazes me.,  See I believe in AMERICA..  I know that AMERICA is a great country. What I have trouble with is our government.  And the hate they seem to promote.

See in the media..   tv, radio, computer news or just the internet itself.. has so many stories.. about the horrors of America..    Immigrants? All of them are rapist and murders and etc.. well, at least if you watch anything on the media and our government telling us so.

But that is what is shown. So that is what is believed, and promoted… even worse. 

I think of it as the 10% of America..   As I remember  the 80%.... that we have so many doctors, nurses, and nurses aides from all kinds of countries..   especially India… Philippines, and etc.  There are researchers of medical as well as other things that we worry  about … for the health of our citizens,,   We got a lot of them from Germany after WWII..   they said we stole their doctors and especially their researchers in the medical field…  The inventors as well.  There are workers all thru America..  they build your cars… especially in Michigan   FOR YEARS..   they build your homes,  they work the farms…  there is so much that immigrants have covered over the years.  Yet this administration has us thinking horrible things about them.   ICE seems to think any one with a foreign name is a suspect.  I don’t care if it is India, Mexico, Salvadore, Japan, Germany, England (although they seem to get a pass)..   but all of these are good people.. be they are laborers or office workers, business owners or what ever.. They just want to have a home for their families.. be able to put food on the table.. and pay their bills, like the rest of us..

Now I get there are a lot who have snuck into our country.. and yes, they have had criminals come in as well.. and they should be dealt with..  but in a humane way..  Transporting them back to their country is one way..   do promotions in other countries, that America is not open borders..   Eisenhower was able to tighten up the borders with out walls..  how did he do it.. there has to be answers..  but we don’t throw them all in a big barrel..  those who came over with visa’s..  and etc.. should have been checked up on.. when it was getting closer to expiration..   mandatory change of addresses.. or you lose your visa…  I don’t know all the answers but we don’t lump them all together.  

 

When I was kid, I was raised around a lot of Portuguese people who came to our country.. the rule was..  1. You had to have a sponsor,  2. You had to have a job lined up. 3. And a home to be living in..

But anyway..  AMERICA  is a good country..  because 80% of the country people care about others..  that is why there are fund raisers at restaurants and  fairgrounds.    Go fund programs.. or even just the person who pays for groceries at the cashier counter for those we see struggling..   The farmers who get together to plow the fields of a farmer who has cancer or been in a accident..  there is so much good out there, that the media rarely reports, on.. and it is daily.. not just in a while.. 

Try to keep that in mind next time the media tries to run a hateful story..    Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water.

are we are the last living witnesses of a world that no longer exists?

I saw this... looked at the long story.. and then the picture.. what made me stop at the picture was it was WOODSTOCK.. You probably have to be our age to understand what an amazing event it was ... yes there were drugs, yes there were drinking and sex... but also .. NO FIGHTING.. NO ONE DIED.. NO ONE STABBED... AND ETC.. in this day and age that is AMAZING.. SO then I decided to read the long story.. and it says how I have felt for about a year.. and especially the pass couple of months.. the 3 ring circus on the lawn of the White House... the destroying of the Rose Garden and tearing down the building to build a gawdy building.. to me.. and my generation.. we have a loyalty to our buildings across the land.. especially the White House and the Capital.. and it seems every where.. there is a rare person who has the same feelings about these buildings and what was proper and not proper for our government... we have been almost 250 years with great men who wrote the Constitution ... the flag.. all the things our guys went over seas and fought WITH our allies , to listen to the guy stand up there in France over the weekend and his speech.. instead of honor for all those men of all countries who died there.. or came back in pieces.. We feel so dishonored.. the younger generation.. younger than us, anyway.. who say that is the old ways.. we need to change.. well this kind of says how we . of the 1940's and 1950 and even the 1960 to consider: we are the last living witnesses of a world that no longer exists.

Any way you can check it out.... or not.. to see if you agree: are we are the last living witnesses of a world that no longer exists?

Like I said it is long... and yes I got it from Facebook... for those over 60.

If you look closely, you might notice gray hair, slower steps, or the quiet patience that time alone can teach. But if you truly listen to our stories, you will discover something far more extraordinary. We are not simply older people moving through the final chapters of life.

We are the survivors of one of the most breathtaking transformations in human history — a generation that walked from the slow, deliberate rhythm of an analog world into the dazzling speed of a digital one without ever losing our sense of humanity along the way.

Our journey began in a very different place.

Many of us were born in the 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s, when the scars of World War II were still fresh across Europe and Asia and the world was slowly learning how to hope again. Cities rose from rubble. Families rebuilt lives after years of uncertainty. Childhood unfolded in ways that would feel almost unrecognizable to younger generations today.

Our toys were simple: marbles played in dusty yards, hopscotch drawn on cracked sidewalks, checkers and cards gathered around kitchen tables while the smell of dinner filled the house. When the streetlights flickered on in the evening, it was the universal signal that childhood adventures were over for the day and it was time to go home.

There were no smartphones, no streaming videos, no endless scroll of digital distractions. Instead, we built our memories in the real world — with scraped knees, laughter echoing down neighborhood streets, and friendships that formed face to face, without the mediation of screens.

Music became one of the defining soundtracks of our youth. The 1960s and 1970s arrived like a wave of color and rebellion. We watched culture shift around us, carried by electric guitars and voices that dared to question the world.

For many of us, gatherings like the legendary Woodstock Festival of 1969 symbolized something powerful: the belief that peace, music, and community could reshape the future. Hundreds of thousands of young people stood together in muddy fields, listening to artists who poured raw emotion into towering speakers known as the Wall of Sound. Those concerts were not merely entertainment; they were moments when strangers felt like a single generation singing the same hope under an open sky.

Education looked different then, too. Our notebooks were filled with handwritten notes carefully copied from chalkboards. Research required patience, long hours in libraries, and stacks of heavy books rather than a quick internet search. We learned to slow down and think through ideas because information did not arrive instantly. Mistakes were corrected with erasers and ink, not with the click of a delete button.

Love carried a different rhythm as well. We fell in love while vinyl records spun on turntables and cassette tapes clicked softly inside plastic players. Music became the background to first dances, long conversations, and dreams about the future. Those relationships grew into marriages, families, and lives built step by step through the 1980s and 1990s — decades that saw technology begin to reshape the world around us.

Yet nothing compares to the bridge our generation has crossed. We are the only generation to have experienced an entirely analog childhood and a fully digital adulthood.

We remember waiting days — or sometimes weeks — for handwritten letters to arrive in the mail. We remember rotary telephones and party lines where neighbors could accidentally overhear conversations. Communication required patience and anticipation. Today, we can see the face of a loved one across the ocean instantly on a screen small enough to fit in a pocket.

The world changed in ways few could have imagined. We watched humanity land on the Moon in 1969, a moment when millions of people sat in living rooms staring at black-and-white televisions as Neil Armstrong took humanity’s first steps on another world.

We saw the rise of personal computers, the birth of the internet, and eventually the arrival of smartphones that placed entire libraries of knowledge in our hands. Machines that once filled entire rooms now exist on devices lighter than a paperback book. We moved from punch cards and mechanical tools to artificial intelligence and global networks connecting billions of people instantly. And through every shift, we adapted.

Our bodies carry the marks of the times we lived through as well. We grew up during fears of polio and tuberculosis, illnesses that once terrified entire communities before vaccines helped bring them under control. We witnessed the global challenges of pandemics and health crises across decades, including the recent silence and uncertainty of COVID-19, which reminded the world that resilience is still required in every generation.

Science itself transformed before our eyes. We saw the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953, the decoding of the human genome at the turn of the century, and the early steps into gene therapy and advanced medicine. Transportation evolved from simple bicycles and steam engines to hybrid vehicles and electric cars gliding almost silently through city streets.

Few generations have witnessed such sweeping change. And yet, despite everything that evolved around us, certain things remain unchanged. We still understand the joy of a cold glass bottle of lemonade on a hot afternoon. We still remember the taste of vegetables picked straight from a garden. We still know the value of a long conversation that unfolds slowly without a keyboard or screen interrupting it.

Our memories stretch across decades. We have celebrated births, mourned losses, watched friends depart, and carried their stories forward. Those of us who remain share something rare: the experience of standing at the crossroads of history, holding memories from a world that younger generations know only through photographs and stories.

But we are not relics. We are living bridges. Our perspective reminds the modern world that progress does not have to erase wisdom. The speed of technology does not have to replace patience, kindness, or reflection. We remember what life felt like before everything moved so fast — and that memory carries quiet lessons worth sharing.

So when someone calls us “elderly,” we can smile. Because behind that word lies something extraordinary. We are the generation that crossed two centuries, witnessed eight decades of transformation, and walked from the age of handwritten letters to the era of artificial intelligence.

What a life we have lived. What a remarkable story we continue to carry. And if you belong to this generation, take a moment today to look in the mirror and recognize something powerful.

You are not simply growing older. You are living history. You are part of a generation that will always remain one of a kind. And perhaps, in the quietest and most meaningful way, you are becoming legendary."

Life has its ups and downs… don’t take it for granted..

Life has its ups and downs…     don’t take it for granted..   

We have a family who this am.. lost their sweet  20 something disable daughter.. And to show how some not only talk the talk.. but walk the walk…     the parents have donated organs ….   In the mist of grief. They thought of others,,

We take so much of life for granted..   Even if we know that there will be a time to go, we still get up every morning and think of what to do today..   what is on the list of what to do .. where are you going..  and etc..    Never thinking of the possibility you may not be here tomorrow ..     and when in grief of losing a love one.  Still able to try to help others..  THAT IS WALKING THE WALK,   NOT JUST TALKING THE TALK,,  

RIP Sweet Natalie…