65 is the new 45! - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

65 is the New 45!

During the pandemic, my four siblings and I have been texting regularly about our daily activities Three of us are already retired and the two youngest will retire at the end of the month, with a family party planned including the appropriate masks and social distancing no doubt! Each were working from home during the pandemic, so had much more time to spend with their grandkids, taking them on all kinds of adventures.

For example, my youngest sibling road his motorcycle to Nashville to visit his daughter and her children, while also doing handyman work around her house, with the grandkids pitching in to “help”. All were duly recorded via text photos, like this photo showing the nicely redone patio. Good work, bro!

After Nashville, my brother and his wife rode to their cottage in northern Michigan to enjoy the 4th of July holiday weekend. He’s really getting an early start on retirement!

During the same time period, my sister took her grandchildren to the Splash Pad in New Bremen and the Cascades in West Milton.

From all the photos texted and the commentary, my two younger siblings were having the times of their lives with their grandkids while getting a nice taste of retirement. It’s great they are retiring at an age young enough to enjoy such activities. I posed the rhetorical question wondering if we could have imagined doing the same as young kids with our grandparents? My middle sister got into the conversation by asking how old our grandparents were at her age 4 when she first started to remember them.

Checking out the very informative Thieman Family Genealogy, I found our grandparents were all born around 1889, and since my middle sister was born in 1950, at her age of 4, our grandparents would have all been around 65 years old, which is the same age as my youngest sister who was having all the fun frolicking with her grandkids in the splash pad and cascade. None of us would have ever imagined doing such activities with our grandparents. So we naively concluded today’s age 65 is the new 45! Wishful thinking on our part; or not?

 Dad’s Family of 14 circa 1929

Mom’s Family of 11 circa 1938

Suddenly the texts got more thought provoking, such as posing the hypothetical question if my sister had given birth and cared/cooked for 11-14 kids (like our grandmothers), she would likely not have the energy to scamper in the water with her 50+ grandkids either! Then comments followed about the labor intensive housework without modern day appliances and the planting, growing, harvesting, canning and preparing the food for such a brood, all in old, uncomfortable grandma shoes, stockings, girdle and long dress, the common garb back then. Notice how nobody smiled in those old photos. Now you know why. Thankfully, those days are long gone.

My maternal great grandparents and their children circa 1936

Happy retirement, sister and brother! The last couple months have given you a taste of what you’ve been missing.

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