Welcome to Bud’s Blog

Posted March 1, 2009 by oldereyes
Categories: feeling older

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes – Marcel Proust

Sometimes Older Eyes work, too – Bud

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Necessary Definitions

Sage – a wise man; a man of gravity and wisdom; especially, a man venerable for years, and of sound judgment and prudence.

Curmudgeon – an ill-tempered old person full of stubborn ideas or opinions.

Fool – A person with poor judgment or little intelligence; a jester, a person whose role was to entertain a sovereign and the court, often with foolishness.
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I’ve been wondering lately what it would be like to be able to relive my life knowing what I know now. Or if I was able to give my grown children a view of the world through my Older Eyes, would it change their lives? Here’s a provocative proposition: If I could get every twenty-year old to look at the world through sixty-four year old eyes for just a few minutes, it would either change them for the better or kill them. Provocative but probably not true. I doubt there are many young men making bucket lists as a result of watching Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman.

With a do-over unlikely and getting my children to listen to my archaic opinions only slightly less so, I’ll record the view through my Older Eyes here in Bud’s Blog.   As you read each post, you decide … Sage, Curmudgeon, or Fool … we can agree to disagree on which is which. Your comments are welcome, whatever your age.   If what you read changes you for the better, I’d especially like to know.   Hopefully there will be no casualties.   If you are new here and want a taste of my Older Perspective before diving in, The Best of Feeling Older offers a few of my favorite posts on aging.  Finally, if my work inspires you to try blogging … or even if you think, Jeez, I can do this better than Older Eyes – there are a series of posts on doing just that on my page, Starting a WordPress Blog.

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Thanksgivings Past

Posted November 26, 2025 by oldereyes
Categories: feeling older

This is a repost of something I wrote 13 years ago. It still makes me smile.

In my family, Thanksgivings were always celebrated at our house.  My mother would be up late on Erev Thanksgiving baking pies, then up early on Thanksgiving Day to put a twenty-something pound turkey in the oven.  The meal was always the same: turkey stuffed with Pepperidge Farm stuffing mix spiked with sausage, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, rolls and one other vegetable.  I don’t think the green bean casserole craze had arrived yet but I seem to remember string beans or corn.  Of course, there was canned cranberry sauce … the whole berry kind Dad liked and the jellied kind I still prefer.   The pies were always the same:  pumpkin, mince meat and cherry.

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Jasmine

Posted November 15, 2025 by oldereyes
Categories: cats
Tags: , , ,

A friend of ours by the name of Goody is a volunteer at the Humane Society working with cats as I do … but moreso. She often fosters shy cats until they trust enough to be put up for adoption through the Humane society. Freddy was such a cat that she placed in a home with one cat already. The new owner’s other cat was named Jasmine. All was well. Until her husband was from Venezuela was snatched by Trump’s ICE Nazis to be deported. She was an American citizen, so she had time to plan her move to follow her husband but amidst the sudden disruption of her life, she didn’t want to deal with the regulations on bringing felines to Venezuela . The Humane Society, like most shelters, would take back the cat she’s adopted through them, but Jasmine was not spayed and had some urinary issues, so they would not take her. Surrendering a cat to a local animal control facility doesn’t necessarily assure that the cat would not eventually be euthanized.

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Old Guy Music

Posted October 22, 2025 by oldereyes
Categories: nostalgia
Tags: , ,

When you are a music lover and have lived for 7 decades (and navigating your 8th), you have heard a lot of music. And you have so many favorites that you can’t possibly recall them all. But I try because a hate the notion that beautiful music just fades away with time. On my phone, there are 4925 songs, mind-bending mix of genres and generations, from classical pieces and big band music I first heard on my Mom’s record player to new artists I’ve discovered in my senior years. I’d say the library is heavy on 60s and 70s rock, smooth jazz, especially guitar-based jazz. There are playlists drawn from the collection which I guess are my favorites. Sometimes I get in the habit of only listening to the playlists. When I find myself doing that, I purposely choose an album I haven’t listened to in a while which always leads me to a forgotten favorite.

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Proud of You, America

Posted October 18, 2025 by oldereyes
Categories: patriotism

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No Kings

Posted October 18, 2025 by oldereyes
Categories: feeling older, patriotism
Tags: , ,

Here it is, No Kings Day. I have a number of friends who have been attending protests and rallies against the policies of Donald Trump since the day he took office. While I admire their activism, I have not. I am vehemently opposed to the policies of Donald Trump and MAGA but I live in a rural community of a very Red state and I have seen no protests nearby. Now, the second No Kings protest is upon us (Saturday) in Salt Lake City. Part of me wants to go … I think that a massive turnout is important** … but I have decided not to. Let me explain my decision.

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Physical Therapy Redux

Posted October 16, 2025 by oldereyes
Categories: feeling older, health
Tags: , ,

Over the life of Oldereyes – Bud’s blog, I’ve dealt with a number of old guy injuries, from leg pain from walking too much to back pain eventually requiring surgery. When I’ve gone to see my doctor, he always told me that my insurance would require Physical Therapy before it would approve the kind of diagnostic tests that would pinpoint what the problem was. Translation: Physical Therapy is what you do until your insurance lets you fix the problem. Or … it’s a place you go when you have pain somewhere and they give you exercises that make you hurt in other places so that the pain you already had won’t feel so bad. You get the point … I’m wasn’t a fan of PT. Then, as turned 80, I took my first (hopefully last) serious senior fall, a face down flop on our concrete patio, landing on my knees, hands and elbows. The worst of the damage was to my shoulders: X-rays showed I had no significant injuries but I had severely limited range of motion, loss of strength in my arms and hands and pain that made it difficult for me to find a position in which I could sleep. My Doc recommended – yep – Physical Therapy.

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Talking to Cats

Posted October 14, 2025 by oldereyes
Categories: cats
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I talk to my cat, Tyson. A lot. And on Thursdays, when I go to Best Friends Animal Society as a volunteer, I work with homeless cats waiting to be adopted to adopted, gradually acclimating them to human interaction and new environments, a process known as socialization. An important part of socialization is simply talking to the cats. So, it is possible that on some Thursdays, I talk more to cats that I do to people. To the cats in the rescue, my words don’t matter … but I usually tell them how beautiful they are and that they are in a safe place. Tyson knows he’s in a safe place but he never tires of hearing how beautiful he is or that I love him. According to Do Cats Understand Words? Here’s What We Know from Cats.com, cats can distinguish up to around 20-40 human words, and some might recognize up to 50. They don’t understand the words in the way humans do but the can associate the sound to specific actions. The word treat always gets Tyson’s attention and brings him running. Tests also show that cats know their name, although they may not respond to it. They are cats, you know.

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Reality. Fantasy.

Posted October 1, 2025 by oldereyes
Categories: perspectives
Tags: ,

<—– Picture this. The Secretary of Defense of the of the United States calls the top brass of its military from all over the world to Quantico, Va for a meeting, topic unstated. That is approximately 800 officers serving in the most critical areas of the world. You’d think it would be something extremely important to spend all that money and decapitate our deployments while placing the heart of our military leadership in one place … where an attack could decimate our forces. Then, the President got wind of Defense Secretary Hegseth’s plan and decided he should be there, too. What was the urgent meeting about? As the New York Times put it, it was Two Long Hours of Political Theater. I urge you to read the entire Times piece if you want to understand how insulting this was to our leaders … a narcissistic, overweight draft dodger and an alcoholic Fox News podcaster telling real soldiers how to look, how to act, how to fight. Commenting on the silent response of the officers to the presentations, Trump said I never walked into a room so silent before, he said. Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh. You’re not allowed to do that. Just have a good time. And if you want to applaud, you applaud. And if you want to do anything you want, you can do anything that you want. And if you don’t like what I’m saying, you can leave the room. Of course, there goes your rank. There goes your future. That was the Reality. Absolutely disgraceful.

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Charlie Who?

Posted September 14, 2025 by oldereyes
Categories: perspectives
Tags: , , ,

I don’t recall exactly where I was … or what time it was … when I first heard the news that Charlie Kirk had been assassinated on the campus of Utah Valley University. I do remember my first reaction was to think, Charlie Who? A quick trip to Wikipedia told me he was an American conservative political activist, author, and media personality. Kirk has been credited with expanding youth involvement in voting and expanding conservatism from a set of beliefs to a mainstream movement. In his later years, he was one of the most prominent voices of the populist MAGA movement in the Republican Party. One quote on guns I found stood out: Speaking of gun deaths in 2023, he said, I think it’s worth it. I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. Ironic.

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Best Friends

Posted September 1, 2025 by oldereyes
Categories: friends
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If I reach back into the into the dimly lit corridors of my memory, the first friend I find is Roy Winchester. Roy lived nearby in the apartment complex we lived in after my Dad returned from service in the Army Air Corps during World War 2. Oh, there were other friends back there, too, but Roy was my very first best friend for several years until he moved to Germany with his family (you can read more about my friendship with Roy here. The photo is from the New Haven Register newspaper, when we raised money selling lemonade to benefit the Fresh Air Fund which paid for kids to go to summer camp). Over the years, hundreds of people have wandered through my life. Some became acquaintances, some friends. A treasured few became best friends. Even best friends come and go … some move away, some move on, and at my age, some pass away. The thing about best fiends is that even if you haven’t seen each other for a long time, when you touch base, it’s as if you were never apart. If you reach my age and have a handful of best friends, you are indeed fortunate.

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