Old, Not Old...

Yesterday I heard a snatch of conversation that got me thinking. A couple of young voices were talking about an upcoming birthday. "I'm gonna be 25!" One of them moaned "I feel so I old..." I remember being young and feeling old. I also remember Watergate, the Beatles coming to America, and the signing of the Declaration of Independence. OK, not the last one but I have been around awhile.

I'm still not old, though, but gosh, if you're 25 and don't know if you're old, you've got a long, old life ahead of you! I remember when I was a kid; anytime I asked my mom how old she was she'd just say "I'm old" and the look on her face said she really thought she was! I did some figuring and realized that she was in her 30's when I started wondering about her age. Of course that was in the 60's when the worst thing a woman could do was grow older. The horror!

I think what we need are some benchmarks. That way there will be no question about when you become old, you'll just be there. If people can't do anything about it the debate will end. Problem is, what do you use for a benchmark? What are some commonalities we can use to determine geezerdome? Grey hair? That wouldn't work. We all go grey at different times. Plus, its easy to hide...

Bill Cosby once said your first grey pube makes you feel old but that's a lousy benchmark. Who would want to check? I have a personal set of aging benchmarks that serve me well and I think we should apply them universally. They are universal and unavoidable. Here they are: you are young until you're 30, then you're middle aged til you're 60, then you're old. If you live past 90, you're really old and for every 5 years after that you add another "really". Until you reach 100, and then you add a "freakin'" I think this will simplify our discourse.

You could argue that the weak link of my system is middle age because technically "middle" means that there is the same amount on either side and a 59 year old probably won't live to 118 years old. Possibly not, but who knows, modern science could help us all live to be really, really, freakin' really, really, really, old.

Of course, then I'll have to re-calibrate my benchmarks.