Those nearing lovable or IRAscible senility like to talk among themselves as they toddle around and drool on their trousers. This is the place for it.
Because we started talking about our first computers. And worse. Why when I was young, Niagra Falls was brand new. My parents were immigrants. They came over on the land bridge. My grandparents came from Gondwanaland.
Hi @pennstac, I’m only 52 can be in your gang? Pleassee…
68 here, I do remember my 8 track, Kennedy getting shot, John Glenn, and I still have my first Beatles LP, Please Please Please . Loving retirement and my pension since 2010 and digging the Soc Security, and the wife’s Fed Insurance coverage., .
I woke up this morning realizing that the topic name might be confusing to those outside the US. It refers to rules for retirement money in the US, I believe you might say pensioners. Here, if you are able to access funds that have been saved for retirement (in an account with special tax treatment), you are generally subject to a 10% penalty by our Internal Revenue Service (the Taxman, as I believe John Lennon calls such).
You want to be an honorary geezer? s’OK by me. Especially if you have high taxes - a favorite subject for fossils to gripe about.
@cpp Barbara still has her Meet the Beatles, but it sounds bad because of the fold-down turntable from the portable music center.
Why don’t you just call the thread “Get off my lawn!”?
Or, ‘Only the Old Need to Apply’. 59 1/2 and up. 
I’ve got about 20 years to qualify for this exclusive club, and I still already have “Get off my lawn” mentality. I’m one of the rare folks my age who have an actual pension incoming too.
Not sure if this is the right place for this but it has to do with Cold War spying so it might fit?
https://www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/worlds-best-headphones-the-cold-war-story-behind-these-high-end-products/
At that time, Soviet leaders wanted to have better audio equipment and reportedly sent spies to Japan to see what companies such as Sony, Yamaha and Panasonic had developed.
Some of these spies smuggled out premium products, which were later reverse-engineered by meticulous Ukrainian technicians, Pavlo Shymanovych, founder and CEO at Rinaro, says.
USSR leaders established several audio-equipment factories across the territory of today’s Ukraine, where engineers started to build products on top of the technology acquired from Japan.
One of those engineers was Konstantin Baklayev, who now serves as Rinaro’s R&D lead.
I think I was in 2nd grade when JFK was shot. The immediate knowledge was somewhat limited, and the uproar was so great that I recall the theories among us 2nd graders was that it might have happened near the school. We were in Missouri at the time.
Now the whippersnappers have told me that they recalled Kennedy being shot, and then start talking about Sirhan Sirhan.
Yes John Glenn. Watching Mercury and Gemini launches on TV. And the food. Fizzies. But I recall decent firecrackers. Not as big as the ones my Dad tells me about, but they did used to put some powder in a 1.5 inch salute.
Just turned 73 in January, Retired early at 64. From a physical standpoint, its really nice not have to
get up and go to work. Although I’m an immigrant (arrived in 1951) lived all my life in Missouri.
Was in 2nd year of high school (Helias in Jefferson City) when Kennedy was shot.
Fun to tell the youngsters that the pocket calculator had not even been invented when I was in high school,
And the telephone was attached to a wall in the kitchen. Not only could your parents listen in, but it might be a party line, so at least one nosy neighbor could too.
Party lines, rotary dial and pay phones… And the old cord boards for operator positions. . Those were the days. 
That Monty Python sketch is hilarious. Yet all true.
Then the days of Capt’n Crunch and the whistle to cheat pay phones. or take you AIWA tape player with you into the phone booth to record and/or play back the sounds of dropping coins. Remember the smell of Gestetner duplicators? The light purple ink of school. And then I had a FLAME PAPER copier.
I went to an engineering college. The administration seriously underestimated what a group of young, rebellious smart people with a lot of free time could do.
The washers and driers in the laundry were a favorite target. They tried a variety of coin and token mechanisms - all hacked or counterfeited.
As I remember it they finally got a system where you paid with a plastic card that had etches like a circuit board. After the card was accepted the machine melted the card before dumping it in a bin. We moved on to lower hanging fruit.
My personal best was ‘studying’ the payphone on the dorm floor. The installer thought it would be a good idea to leave the small patch panel for the cabling exposed.
Turns out one of those wires provides power to the motor that routes coins to the outside return or inside lockbox.
Hypothetically, if you disconnected that wire all the deposited coins would stack up in the tube. Reconnecting the wire, depositing a coin and then hanging up would return your coin plus all the others stacked in the tube.
Not sayin anyone would do such a thing, but you really shouldn’t leave wires exposed.
I am a very proud Yorkshire man. Funny thing is I actually know people that are like this. Lol.
And that is the totalizer circuit ( retired phone guy) . . Its like a slot machine at times. LOL
I am currently fifty-fourteen, and will turn the big 50-15 this year!
All of the above, plus levers on the ice-cube trays. Penny candy stores, depoists for returning glass bottles - a way to scavenge funds for above-mentioned cady store…
First two LPs: Jimi Hendrix Smash Hits, Beatles 65. played and a grey/white rca turntable, with the hinged, fold-out speakers…
Cool! It’s good to have a name for it after all this time 