DAILY DIRT: ‘I’m ‘wax Coke bottles and candy cigarettes’ years old’

The most gratifying, at least for me, of the following items is the first one … Welcome to today’s three thoughts that make up Vol. 1,025 of The Daily Dirt.

1. I’m sure most of my fellow boomers can relate to the following much more easily than some of our younger friends.

When you get to be our age, there are certain things that can make you stop and smile. Others can make you stop and wince in pain. Yet others can make you just kind of shake your head. The following are a few items that can probably make you do a combination of all three. A few of the following I already had and a few others were sent to me. There’s a lot of truth in each:

• “That amazing moment when you hear a song you have not heard in years … and you know every word.”
• “When you’re my age, you can only rock and roll about every third day and party every fourth or fifth night.”
• “How to spot a baby boomer on Facebook: They use proper grammar.”
• “I hate it when people ask me if I did anything exciting over the weekend … like I’m over here skydiving or something. I’m old. I went to Walmart, did some laundry, ate too much food and took a nap.”
• “I’m ‘wax Coke bottles and candy cigarettes’ years old.”
• “I don’t want to party like it’s 1999. I want to go grocery shopping like it’s 1999.”

2. Did you know (Part 86)

• That the first testicular guard, the “cup,” was used in hockey in 1874, and the first helmet was used in 1974. That means it only took 100 years for men to realize their brain is also important.
• That Iceland has no army. Nada. Nyet. Zilch.
• That Americans throw out an average of 4.4 pounds of trash daily.
• That the NCAA required football players to study at halftime of games in 1925. 
• That punters have the longest NFL careers, an average of 4.87 years.

3. I always admired Andre Dawson as a ball player, and after hearing this story I admire him even more:

In 1991, Dawson was called out on a questionable third strike by legendary ump Country Joe West (who never met a TV camera he didn’t like), and was subsequently ejected for arguing the call. Dawson was fined $500 by the National League and paid the fine via check with “donation to the blind” written on the memo line of his check.

Steve Thought O’ The Day — Saw this the other day, and it’s oh so true: “If stores can pay a person to watch me a self checkout, then they can pay them to open a register a provide REAL customer service.” (I have used self-checkout ONCE, and I made that person come over and ring my item up for me. And the only reason I even used self-checkout was because NONE of the “normal” lanes were even open.)”

Steve Eighinger writes daily for Muddy River News. He is the original “Get off my lawn” guy.