Tell me your age

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How old are you? You might tell me, or you might say, “It’s none of your business.

“Or you might lie to me. It all depends on your age or your disposition at that moment.

If you are very young, like three, you might be three and a half. If you are 20 you might want to pass as 21 for certain reasons. And of course, a teenager just has to become 16. You would want to push it as much as you can.

Well, I am at that other age; you know a senior citizen. Really, a senior of the senior citizens. We are proud of every moment of it. We are just hoping for one more day. So, we go back to our childhood; I’m 89 and a half.

I have a theory about birthdays. For example, if you have your 49th birthday that actually means you have finished 49 years. You are not just now 49, right? You are starting your fifties tomorrow even if you don’t want to admit it.

It seems that ladies are touchier about their age. It’s like asking a fat lady if she is pregnant. Don’t expect a polite reply. Don’t let telltale signs deceive you either. Winston Churchill told the artist who was painting his portrait to leave in every wrinkle; he had earned them.

Age is good for some things such as wine. The older the more expensive. Then there’s my jeans. The older more faded with rips in the knees suddenly become the fashion. Egad, Mary threw mine away.

And of course, we get the senior discount. I love it when an under-aged counter person has to call someone over to check me out with a bottle of wine and asks me to show ID. They could look at my hat, but they may not remember about the Korean War.

The cosmetic companies love aging. They make a fortune making people look younger. The only problem with the TV ads is the models don’t need that stuff to look beautiful. They started out that way.

So now the virus wants everybody to stay at home. Hey, we’ve been doing that all along. New Year’s Eve comes at nine o’clock. Christmas is when our kids bring us groceries. We’ve been dancing in the living room for years.

But we miss seeing our friends. We have always used the measurement of six feet, but it was referring to a different direction; you know, down.

If you observe old tombstones you might find ages listed as 61 years, 3 months, 11 days. They wanted to count every day. But I look at it this way; it’s not the two dates on the tombstone that matter; it’s the dash in between that counts. It’s what you did with the time in between.

Don Hill is a resident of Seymour and has served as a volunteer at the Southern Indiana Center for the Arts for more than a quarter of a century. Send comments to awoods@ aimmediaindiana.com.

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