At this point in my life, I finally have to face it: I will never be a...

[NNadir]

...Knight of the Golden Spur.

There comes a time in one's life that one has to recognize one's limits.

It's sad, but at this point, it's not even a long shot; it's an impossibility.

Oh, to be young again, and have one's hopes alive...

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Oh, I hear you, my dear NNadir........do I ever.

We can still have hopes, even if we're old.

You just have to stick with what you know. I can only speak for myself, but I know a lot about certain things, and I am making use of my knowledge.

It's a very good feeling.

[NNadir]

11. On the serious side, I feel privileged to have grown old.

It is now readily apparent to me why my father, who was very fond of cliches, used to tell me that "Youth is wasted on the young."

As my life winds down, I am thrilled to have lived it.

When I was young, I worked on largely sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS mostly. Now I am working on three different approaches to Alzheimers disease. My work follows my life, I guess. (I didn't have much AIDS risk, but Alzheimers is the great unknown.)

We have been very fortunate to have lived in times and places of relative wealth and relative peace, the exceptions notwithstanding. Now my chief worry is the world in which our decendents must live.

I was never in line to be a knight, but the last privilege I hope to enjoy is to "go gently," as they say, "into the night."

[Pobeka]

2. If it's helpful.

I knight you. You are now a member of "Pobeka's Knights". A **very** elite group.

Wear it with honor.

[mobeau69]

3. To travel hopefully is better than to arrive.

[LuckyCharms]

15. I've never heard this before, bit it is truly one of the most

beautiful things I've read. It's a succinctly sums up how I view life.

I'm not sure if this is a common saying, or if it is your saying, but in either case, thank you for posting this.

[mobeau69]

16. It's actually "...is a better thing...". Robert Louis Stevenson

[regnaD kciN]

4. Maybe not, but you can always become a member of...

…The Order of the Good Time.

All you have to do is visit Nova Scotia and ask at any tourism office.

[Angleae]

5. If you send enough money to a certain individual, you could be a knight of the bone spur.

[COL Mustard]

6. By teh powers vested in me by the State of Confusion and the General Incompetence,

I hereby award thee the Esteemed Order of the Chewing Gum Wrapper.


Sorry, it's the best I can do. I'm all out of aluminium pop tops.

[blm]

7. Heh

[jmowreader]

8. Before I read the link...

...I was thinking you were talking about an ancient US Army Cavalry tradition. The Cav troopers take a test to prove their worth and all who pass (the test is an ass-kicker) are awarded silver spurs to wear on their boots. If they go to war, they receive gold spurs.

[Bristlecone]

9. A Night at the Golden Corral within reach however

[Solly Mack]

10. I understand. I'll never be an elf.

[Emile]

12. I follow Dick VanDyke advice on aging, keep moving!

Though I will admit, between my sore back and bad knees it's getting harder each year.

[LuckyCharms]

17. Truth!

[hunter]

13. It says Titian was a Knight of the Golden Spur.

Did you want to be a painter?

I think this is a portrait of my first serious girlfriend and her wife. We've managed to avoid each other since I broke up with her by jumping out of her moving car and she invented time travel.



Or so I hope. You never know with time travel. Maybe she amuses herself by repeatedly killing me and resetting the clock.

Thankfully she can't go back too far in time to murder me because without me she doesn't meet her wife and she doesn't invent time travel. At least I have that safe space and I can pretend time travel is impossible for my own peace of mind.

I wouldn't change a thing. My youthful hopes would have killed me. Maybe they have, more times than I know.

[UTUSN]

14. Well, there's always The University of YouTube and Professor Mary BEARD!

[LuckyCharms]

18. I've always fantasized about what it would be like

if you were born, at say age 85, and every day you got younger instead of older.

Then when you reach an age that suits you, you could stop getting younger and stay at that age as long as you wish. Imagine being a young person with all the wisdom you have gained through the mere passage of time, even though that time is going backwards.

And then you just remain at that ideal age for you for as long as you want. When you decide it's time to finally check out, you just push a button, and *poof*, you're gone, but after your gone, you are given the choice to be born again at 85 and do the whole thing all over again.

Who knows? Perhaps 100,000 years from now, assuming the planet is still here, that could be the way it works.