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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elmer who wrote (77718)	10/29/1999 10:15:00 AM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 1574097

Hi Elmer; (Off Topic) I love talking to old people. You get the most fascinating stories from them. I used to have this pinball business, and every week I'd go around and fix machines, split the take, and BS with the owners of the various establishments where I kept machines. Some of them were retired, and they all had great stories to tell. So I ended up talking for 10 to 15 minutes per week to each of them, going on several years. By the time you've talked with someone for 100 * 10 minutes = 16 hours, you know an incredible amount about them. A lot of people know very little about their grand parents, for instance... I've never understood this, I thought everybody likes to tell their stories. One of the things I've noticed as I've aged, (now in early forties), is that a lot of the stories that I would not have believed when younger, seem much more likely to me now. The reason is that I have experienced things that would have seemed quite unbelievable to me as a youth. I'm hoping to grow old spending time influencing people to be better. I love it when I can talk someone into doing the right thing. I also like to talk to panhandlers. Most middle class people are a little afraid of them, but all the time I've spent with, what can only be described as, lowlifes in bars has left me unafraid. When I see a beggarly looking type late at night in Seattle (which probably has the safest downtown streets of any major city out there), I always give them fifty cents. My friends hate this side of me, and give me all kinds of grief for doing it, particularly when I then proceed to carry on a conversation with the beggar. Life in the streets isn't easy, nor is growing old. Once, a guy came up to me as if to ask for money at close to midnight, but couldn't seem to make himself ask. I'm sure it was because he knew that reasonably prosperous looking people are afraid of bums late at night. I had to ask him if he needed some spare change. Nah, old folks and bums are cool. But you can't BS them, by for instance, pretending things are other than the way they are. If you just speak the truth, they will respect you for it. -- Carl