Hobbies to keep for all life

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Hello everyone,

This is a bit of a weird topic but I am curious as I was thinking about it a lot lately and in general is something I am very interested about.

Is anyone here older than 70 that has any hobbies?
Is yoyo still doable? There are other things safe to do for the age? How is life at that age? How do you feel mentally?

While I am still far from that age and not even sure if I will reach it, I am obsessed with time passing and also how you can evolve yourself during the years.
I was wondering what people around 60/70/80 and more like to do as a hobby if yoyoing is still ok and if there are other stuff to do as well.

Thought classical music was a good thing to do as there are soooo many players in that age range but as explained in some topics I cannot play anymore, so I was wondering if skill toys are still ok, pretty sure videogames are (never been really super interested in them but I would like to start in the future), probably walks during retirement will be a must every morning (I can see that be active kept my grand father very healthy and I can see it’s good for my dad as well).

If there is someone in that age range I would like to know what hobbies they have and what they like to do, just eyeballing my future possibilities and try to take out from my mind a doubt that I have from quite a while, the topic is valid also if you have experience with people you know or family or similar!

Thanks a lot!

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For my family and friends nothing really changes. My Dad was born in 1920 and he still played with yo-yo’s, video games cars/motorcycles and sports well into his 80’s before he passed on. My brothers the same. I have a ways to go before my 70’s and I’m the same. As you know I love cycling and still do around 400 miles a week just slightly slower. All other activities nothing has changed. I will say I can’t eat certain foods anymore. :hugs:

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Well, I’m 72 and I have a whole bunch of hobbies.

I keep my core strength fit, by using a heavy steam iron to press the wrinkles out of $100 bills.

I like to stack sponges 6 feet high. I soak them in water to make them heavier.

Every morning I walk 3 miles away from my house. At the 3 mile mark, I open some guys gate and let out his pit bull. The pit bull chases me all the way back to my house, making sure I blaze all the way back.

I’ve been into Archery for over 60 years. I’m still at it. I can’t really pull back the bow string anymore, so I just throw the arrows at the target like little spears.

One thing I do every day to keep my heart rate rockin is a daily shave with a straight razor while blindfolded and walking backwards on a treadmill.

I keep my mind sharp by dumping a loaf of sliced bread on the dining room table and then trying to reassemble the loaf by figuring which slices go where. It’s very challenging.

One of my most exciting hobbies is going to Krispy Kreme Donuts I watch the donuts as they move along their path. As soon as a few go past a certain point without flipping over to cook the second half, I ring a heavy brass school bell to make sure the staff catches the duds.Failure is not an option.

One of my favorite timeless hobbies is jumping rope. I started decades ago. Fast jumping… heels high off the deck. But now that I am almost at my expiration date, I’ve noticed I’ve become afraid of heights. So now I just lay the rope on the ground and walk back and forth over it a few thousand times.

I played drums for many many years. But now that it’s too strenuous, I just play the radio.

I stay very busy every day sharpening knives. I can get them sharp enough to slice whip cream a 16th of an inch thick.

Bicycling is a great hobby. I have a Titanium bike with some pretty nice components. I don’t bother riding it. I just get periodic exercise pumping the tires back up to 120 using a tire pump 3 inches tall.

Oh… and I mess with yo-yos. And probably will until I become totally ‘unresponsive’.

:wink:

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I’m in my 40s so I’m quite far from the 70 target, but I believe it’s very much up to the individual.

Genetics play a role, but after that it’s also about keeping as fit and healthy as you can.

Between my hobbies I have kitesurfing and unicycling, and in both scenes I know some seniors. At the beach sometimes you can meet ‘Silverback Steve’, he’s 72 and still riding. Of course he won’t jump or try to pull risky moves, but he still harnesses the power of the wind :call_me_hand:
And online I met Unigeezer, he’s 60something and he rides for miles off-road.

So yes, I think age is not the real limitation, but it might force one to reconsider the intensity.

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72 and I still throw, still have one on order and plan to purchase the next Motion when it becomes available.

Gotta have goals…

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400 a week! :clap::clap::clap::clap:

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I watch this video for inspiration when I worry about being too old to do stuff one day. He passed away not long after this. He was struck by a car while riding his motorcycle. He was 70 years old. R.I.P Victor.

I imagine myself yo-yoing as long as I can. Even if it’s just stalls and shoot the moon. I could be happy with that. Maybe yo-yo like a form of tai chi with simple stalls, regens, etc.

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I don’t see myself not yo-yoing at any point or fidgeting or using some sort of skill toy.

These topics are always interesting to me. First off actual age and physical age are very different. Stress, environmental factors and genetics affect how old you feel vs how old you are. The number of years you’ve lived becomes less and less important the older you get.

We can see this in the young men who went to war and came back looking and feeling years beyond there age.

With all that said I’m the keeper of my family tree my grandfather in my mothers side passed his research to me and I’ve continued it. I can go back one branch to about the mid 1700s but our genetic tree is shorter due to some discrepancy in records in the 1930s a world war and economic collapse would do that apparently.

Either way when I average the life expectancy of my family is be catalogued it’s about 85. Not bad but then I decided to look at just the genetic tree removing all those not connected to me by blood. It drops a tad to 80. Then I thought we’ll statistically women live longer and filtered out women… Jesus. Average age dropped to mid 50’s. So I went back and removed those that died young as infantry men in there 20s and the average final age of men in my family is 66… cool

My dad passed at 67 beating the family average. The oldest surviving men genetically related to me are my dads half brother Ed who is in his 60s and his health is not great and my uncle on my moms side who is about 15 years older than me… then there’s me… if my family average age is any indication I’m well past middle aged.

If we go back to the actual vs physical topic I had a back surgery a few years ago. My surgeon told me my back is now 10-20 years older than me and I should treat it as such. Arthritis expected and felt. It’s all good in the end I’ve come to terms with this revelation and assume modern medicine will shift the numbers hopefully to the right but regardless how many years I get on this earth I’m going to enjoy them and do things I like until I can’t. Age be damned.

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HAHA…sorry, gotta take a minute…gotta reread this post…
Man, I’m cracking up over here… :joy:

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My grandfathers hobby was woodworking. He was in his 90’s and was still taking on carpentry jobs! He never slowed down a second in his life. (He also never drank or smoked)

A lot of it is your mindset, genetics and more importantly, an insane amount of luck…

As far as longterm hobbies, yo-yoing seems perfect. It’s low impact (easy on the joints), maintains hand eye coordination and most important, keeps you young at heart!

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Thanks so much for the answers comic or serious i appreciate them a lot, give me hope for the future knowing that I will keep having fun and all those hobbies also keep the mind sharp and the young mind going.
Also very interested to hear from the people already at that age, is so nice that in all those hobbies there is no limit make me feel I choose the right path to follow as I never want to stop having fun

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I might not be 70 but I’m feeling it.

I know my grandfather loved gardening. Probably 50 years went into that garden and he worked that right up until he almost cracked 90. I helped him on the farm when he started losing his eyesight. We weren’t very close before then but, once we started yard work and gardening, I think we grew pretty close. Gosh I wish I could go back and tell myself to enjoy those days, soak them in. Youth really is wasted on the young. At least mine was, sometimes.

I really hope I can get there, tending to my farm, growing food, maybe some animals. Throw a yo-yo under the cottonwood tree on a calm day. Take a nap on the back porch with NPR playing on my old radio (by then a podcast on my iPhone I haven’t upgraded in years).

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Sitting under the trees on a nice day with acreage all around sounds nice :hugs:

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24 yr old. Outside of yoyoing I read books, work out pretty extensively, game on my PC and also play AD&D 2nd edition (which is where my love for Roguelike rpg’s comes from).

I’m also a pretty accomplished geologist and have a good collection of minerals and fossils, both those that I have bought and found. Even have a rock tumbler and professional-grade field-testing kit for hardness, streak and fracture tests. I like collecting rocks because you never know what might be lurking under your feet if you have the patience to dig up what you know might be there once you have the knowledge of what you’re looking for.

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Nice post!

I am a retired science teacher. Though I never taught geology specifically, Geology is one of favorite areas of study.

When gift time ever rolls around, I always suggest to family and friends that a rock will do, any rock right off the ground is great!

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It’s always kind of a shame to me how underplayed geology seems to be in the science world because it literally helps tell the story of how the Earth works. I don’t get why many people don’t seem to get that. Besides, you get to work with shiny objects in the field!

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Pictured: What is probably a piece of aventurine that I just found in the drain rock pile of my work. Will have to test it when I get home

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I’m not 70, but hope to still be fishing when I am. :fishing_pole_and_fish:

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Most interesting! What is the source for that piece?

When you determine a positive ID, please share.

Thanks, Jeff

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Source was from a quarry called Iron Mountain, more likely than not. Either that or Green Crow. Both are from roughly the same area of Snohomish County, Washington

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I think as long as you can still raise a fork to your face and stand up, yo-yoing is a great option for a hobby. Like golf, it’s often about experience more than gifted coordination.

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