What one learned 30 years ago in wood carving, painting (or plumbing) is probably still widely applicable. The intricacies of a particular programming language or environment you learned 30 years ago is likely meaningless. I remember being an expert an version 1.0 of a graphics program. That expertise is now useless: the program evolved, met its end of life and the company that distributed disappeared in an acquisition. Telling people today that I was an expert in 'FabulousDraw' gets me blank stares, the same as mention of the company that distributed it.

Activity in the physical realms is not unchanging of course. But it is more durable than software products. Installing the plumbing in a large building might not leave much of a mark on history, but it will leave more of a mark than doing the "plumbing" work on a corporate web site.

At least if you're a plumber or (was a) typewriter repair person, you can physically show ordinary people an example of what you do and they are likely to at least grasp the general concept.