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Aging from a useful man to something considerably less

Posted by twday67 @twday67, 19 hours ago

For the first 70 years of my life, I made my living and earned my place being useful. I have been fixing, building, and designing everything from salvaged homes to consumer electronic products since I was 17. As an electronics engineer, I have been a designer, a manufacturing engineer, a manufacturing and customer service manager, a field clinical engineer (in medical devices), and a reliability assurance engineer. Along the way as my family's single income source, I have bought and upgraded five houses. I did almost all of the repairs to our family vehicles, my own motorcycles, and pretty much any piece of equipment related to work or home.

Since passing 70, my ability to do all or any of those things is rapidly in decline. About the only car repairs I do now is oil changes. Due to myasthenia gravis and vision issues, I sold my last motorcycle 2 years ago and, after 60 years on two wheels, I'm down to an occasional local ride on an e-bike. So far, I have been able to do all the repair work on my e-bikes. 😉 I have had an electronic shop in a garage or room of our homes for more than 50 years, but early this summer I started selling and giving away those tools and parts.

Between my job and chores and hobbies, doing stuff has been core to my self-identity. The stuff that I can do is rapidly shrinking and, with it, goes a good bit of who I have always thought I am. I know there have to be a lot of people in the same situation and I would love to know how you have handled it.m

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twday67 | @twday67 | 8 hours ago
In reply to @mariannewmoon "I would just like to say that I admire all of you men who did so..." + (show)
Profile picture for mariannewmoon @mariannewmoon

I would just like to say that I admire all of you men who did so well at taking the responsibility of supporting yourselves and your families. Neither of my two husbands came even close to what you all have done. They basically expected me to support them. I tried, but I was never very good at it. Even though you are going through the trials of "old age", you should all be proud of what you have done for your families and yourselves. Now is the time to slow down, rest and find other interests like some of you have already. But never stop being proud of what you have accomplished in the past.

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@mariannewmoon your comment has reminded me of what a lucky man I am. My wife has been saying exactly the same thing for this last year.

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mariannewmoon | @mariannewmoon | 8 hours ago

Your wife knows what she is talking about. She is a true blessing. Another thing you can be proud of is that you made the right choice in marrying her.

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gloaming | @gloaming | 2 hours ago
In reply to @twday67 "@gloaming Obviously I am pretty confused and useless when it comes to most of accommodating lost..." + (show)
Profile picture for twday67 @twday67

@gloaming Obviously I am pretty confused and useless when it comes to most of accommodating lost capacity. And I only have about 50' of gutters to deal with, but they are 8-12' above the ground.

Last year I decided climbing up on the roof to scrape the gutters clear or balancing on the top of a ladder and pushing the junk out bare handed wasn't a good way to enter the fall mobile and unbroken. So, I bought about 8 ft of the lightest weight, then it's wall, PVC pipe I could find, added a couple of 90° couplings to make 180° bend to the end of it, attached the pipe to my leaf blower, and blasted all of the leaf and pine litter out of my gutters without having to do anything dangerous. I don't think they have ever been cleaner. And it took me about a half hour to do the whole job. Maybe that will be useful to you?

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@twday67 My neighbour use a shopvac and vacuums all the detritus, but from a ladder. I don't like moving the ladder, so I get up on the roof. I use a scoop to shove into the three inch thick layer of wet needles and empty it into a bucket. Which has to be emptied regularly because there's a lot of water that settled to the bottom.

I like your idea, but the amount of stuff in my gutters blasted about would just spread it to places where it would be unsightly and probably contribute to moss growth on the roof, which I also have to contend with . I treat that with a light sprinkling of powder laundry soap spread across the roof, close to the apex. The next rain dissolves it and the solution runs down into the needy moss that is parched by then and grateful for a drink of soapy water. It turns brown and drops off inside of a few days.

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