WHEN I AM I find myself, quite often, quite frequently, setting aside certain in things I plan o do when get old.
Just this past week I had a jolt of a sort when someone, half-jokingly, I hope, accused me of having reached that goal some time ago. I waited until they were gone before I thought about it and decided they had been ”absotively correct” - which we don't say. We try to avoid saying that we are getting old and devise all sort of ways and means whereby we hope to fool others. We dye our hair, replace teeth, don glasses to see a bit better, and change clothing according to the time of day or take other steps to maintain our youthfulness.
I have decided old aged starts at the moment you first doubt if are one or the other.
Really, I was shook-up a bit when I had it explained to me at I was to turn ninety this month. I've done a lot of rethinking this week after the news of my intended arrival a time and place I've already been for years without realizing it. I suppose others have had such a feeling of not growing old, and I wonder how it all came about. On sure reason is the presence of children – my brothers and sisters when we were growing up; my first wife Irma and our two boys; my second wife Vivian and our four daughters! Th was beginning and now we have grand children and great-grand a-plenty to kick it all along.
“Never a dull moment!” has been used often to describe it and I think a maxim such as that one holds merit. I have been singularly and plurally blessed in far too many ways.
Many other factors, of course, enter into the making of an old person who remains forever young in attitudes and who has a very live sense of being an active portion of God's total creation.
I will mark my 90th birthday February 25, 2006, and I still look forward 2026 -that one-hundred year mark. I've invited friends and I would not want to disappoint them in any way. Perhaps, then, we can sit on some pillowed chairs and talk about how it might be when I am...old.
A.L.M. February 2, 2006 [c402wds]
