Charlie

Interestingly, the majority of the members who posted in this thread in 2010 have long since disappeared. But Axiom2001 is STILL HERE!! (And has over 10K posts now.)

I have never understood the psychology of people who run up huge credit card debts. I have never used a credit card for anything that I can't fully cover with cash by the time the bill arrives. The only long term financing I have ever done is for a home or a big ticket item like a new car, and even with a car I only do it if I have access to enough cash to pay it off if I have to. Too many consumers don't understand the principle of living within their means, and most businesses know that and depend on it for their success. (I know, I'm an old grouch.)

I started investing in a TIAA traditional annuity when I was 23, because it was a requirement of my academic contract (we did not have a pension plan). I contributed 5% of my salary, and my employer matched that with another 10%. When I retired at 60, I still had other income sources, so I took only the monthly interest on the plan. In 2008, just before the economy started to collapse, I converted to the annuity at its then face value. I have been able to live comfortably on my annuity payments, plus Social Security, ever since, while friends who depended entirely on stocks and bonds went through a nerve-wracking collapse of their income for some time. (I also have stock investments, but since I have never depended on them, I don't get upset about the roller coaster ride in the markets.) Although one of the drawbacks to annuities is supposed to be that they are permanently fixed, in fact, TIAA has raised my monthly annuity payment almost every year. We almost got long term care insurance, but when I priced things out, I realized that if I put the same amount as the premium into some other safe investment, I would still have that money if I never needed to use the insurance. I had one friend who bought an expensive policy, but only used 3 months of long term care. I also knew a couple of people who bought policies, only to discover that the policy didn't pay enough in benefits to be worthwhile by the time they needed it, because the premiums they would have had to pay to get what they actually needed would have been exorbitant.

Who would like to bet that all four ads were written by the same person? He uses four different sets of fairly similar poses, and all have identical to near-identical stats (26 years old, 6 ft, 190-210 lbs, similar muscular physique, and all but one have upper body tats--he can claim he photo-shopped the photo to hide the identifying marks). No matter which one you call, the same guy will show up, looking sort of like the ones in the ads, but not quite as good, unless it is a total scam.

Never mind--I found what I was looking for.

Back in the 1980s, I hired a guy who was a coverboy on a gay mag. He was gorgeous, but the sex was unsettling and something told me he was seriously disturbed, so I didn't give him any contact info for further business. A year later I hired an escort who looked so much like him that it could have been his brother--and it turned out that it was his younger brother! A few years later, I learned from another escort that the older brother was in jail for killing a client. If I had received a letter from him, I would have freaked out.

Although I haven't read it in years, I am sorry to see this. It used to be an excellent source for finding rental apartments in the Village when I was a young man.

Unfortunately, I'm in the same boat with Epigonos, figuratively speaking. I am near enough to Loma Linda and would love to have an avocado per day, but my waist is much too trim to qualify.

In a tour group a few years ago, in which all of the men were seniors, one of the women remarked to me, "I'll bet you're a tennis player." Surprised, I asked her how she knew that. She said, "My husband was a tennis player, and like him, you're the only man in the group who walks upright with your shoulders back." Regular exercise that involves balanced movement will help keep you from becoming round-shouldered.

The first Thanksgiving that I lived in London, an American friend who was visiting me wanted to take me out for dinner. We ended up at Simpsons-in-the-Strand, where we asked the puzzled waiter for a traditional dinner, expecting turkey. We got roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.

He doesn't say if he is married to a woman or a man, but he does seem to indicate that he is gay and out. At 40, he seems a little old to be using an "otter" hashtag.

Never.

I have just returned from a difficult visit to an old friend whom I travel 1200 miles to see every year. We were very close for many years, worked together for two decades, traveled around the world together, even lived together for several months during a European sabbatical. He and my spouse have also been good friends for nearly a half century. He moved far away from us a quarter century ago, but almost every year we go to visit him. We used to stay with him for at least a couple of weeks at a time. The visits have been getting shorter, and the last couple of years we have stayed at a nearby inn instead of his home. This time we were there only three nights. The problem is that we really have little to talk about anymore except the past, and that gets very tired when one no longer has anything else in common.

I have lived in and visited London many times over the last half century, and every time I go, the things I used to think I know about have changed, especially about using the transport system. One thing that has become clear is that the buses and underground are overloaded and central London is often gridlocked. The Angel is probably a good choice for being close to the center, but not too close. I used to live in Islington, and generally found the number of bus lines that go through the Angel and Kings Cross areas very useful. If this is your first trip to England, there are plenty of places to access easily by train, including Cambridge, Oxford, Bath and Brighton, that can provide as much change of pace as Paris.

Birds of a feather......

I am only paying for the escort's time;)

If you feel up to it, rent a bike and ride all around the island. My spouse and I did it years ago and loved it.

#381 looks like a fairly poor little western town, yet I see a clean new Buick and Chrysler in the photo.

Good friends of ours became a couple in the 1970s, but each had his own home. They didn't decide to live together until they retired and moved to Florida 20 years later. Even though they bought a house with two master suites and were together mostly in the kitchen-dining area, they ended up bickering constantly. Visiting them could be pretty uncomfortable. Another couple met in the early 1960s when each was married with children. They divorced their wives, but had partial custody of the children, so they got two apartments in the same building (they would have certainly lost custody if they tried to live together). When the kids were grown and they both retired, they finally moved in together, but found it hard to adjust after so many years of each being a head of household.

Both of us have written memoirs. His has been shared with a number of friends and family, but mine is a little too candid to be shared until after I am long gone. (An institution has agreed to archive it with my journals.)

No. To our close gay friends, of course, our relationship was known, but to most other people we were simply roommates....who happened to share a bed in a one bedroom apartment. When we bought our first house together in 1971, it had to be in his name, because only one of us could get a mortgage, as a "single man." Our first cars were all owned by me. By the time we bought the second house in 1983, there was no problem purchasing and getting a mortgage in both names. However, we didn't purchase and register a car together until 2004. By the mid-1970s, our relationship was open knowledge to all our friends and neighbors, as well as to our work colleagues and our employers. (At his retirement reception twenty years ago, I was formally included as his partner.) His siblings--one of them also gay--recognized the relationship early on; other family members undoubtedly understood, but didn't openly acknowledge it. All our parents were deceased before we could legally marry, which probably saved them and us from a lot of angst, because they were fairly conservative. My father had a favorite cousin who had a male "friend" for many years, but in the 1930s and 40s, living together as a couple would have been unthinkable.

We tend to like the same styles of clothes, but we never dress as Tweedledum and Tweedledee. We are also very different physically (e.g., I am five inches taller than he, but usually weigh less), so what looks good on one of us doesn't necessarily suit the other.

I have never had haggis or laverbread; otherwise, I have had everything on the list at least once, and a few are staples of my diet. Unfortunately, much as I love a scotch egg, it is almost impossible to find in this country.

My spouse and I decided to move in together the day we met--which just happened to be 50 years ago from the date of your posted question. (I didn't see the post because we were celebrating.)