I never thought much about stairs until I got old. Now I look for the elevator. Better yet, an escalator. Hey, it looks like a stairs. And of course, you should always hold on to the handrail. Some young folks climb stairs for exercise. I’ll pass.

Stairs are made up of steps. There are many types of steps. There are those that I take with caution these days. One misstep and things break easily. Young people keep track of their steps with their phones. I have trouble keeping track of my missed calls with mine.

There are steps to take when you assemble something. You know, step one: A goes in slot B which is not listed in the manual. There are dance steps and baby steps. There was the small step for man, one giant step for mankind, that all of us old folks remember while watching the first moon landing.

There are famous steps such as the Spanish steps in Rome. Don’t ask me how they got from Spain to Rome. There is one famous step locally. That’s the single step down that’s just inside the men’s restroom door at the “Brick.” Everybody warns you on your way back.

There are step ladders, step stools and steps for those real high beds. There are fold down stairs that usually hit me in the head when I need to climb into the attic. There are spiral stairs that go round and round and take up less space. There are stepdad’s and stepmom’s and step kids. There are the steps that you climb in the Statue of Liberty, the Soldiers and Sailors monument in Indy, (there are 330 of them) and the hundreds of lighthouses around the world.

Once when we were in Boston, we were on the 19th floor and the fire alarm went off. Everybody climbed down the stairs, and it was a false alarm. We rode up the elevator and the alarm went off again. This time we just stayed in the room. I figured it would kill me anyway if I went down the steps again.

So, with that in mind, I’ll just step aside, step up to the plate and sit down. This column wore me out.

Don Hill is a resident of Seymour and a longtime volunteer for Southern Indiana Center for the Arts. Send comments to [email protected].