I will be seventy-three in a handful of months. My dad died before he was sixty, so I guess I'm winning although the prizes ranging from a colostomy bag, and a motorized wheelchair to trouser suspenders for easy access aren't especially appealing and make me wish the play-at-home game was being offered as well.
I'm the first to concede there's more in the mirror than there is up ahead (thank you, James) but I've been looking in mirrors for what feels like about seventy percent of a century and it's not until I look at photos of myself from nearly-now to back in the day that I can the erosion and the collapse.
When you're not good-looking to start with, you can't afford the ravages of time but as I've learned there is nothing you can do to stop them, or even slow them down. The other day while wandering the aisles of my local Stop and Shop, almost inaudibly (or perhaps because I didn't have my hearing aids in) I heard Pink Floyd's 'Comfortably Numb' as I was weighing my purchase of seedless grapes.
I love that song and the album on which it first appeared, The Wall, and Holy $hit, it was released in 1979 which was forty-six years ago. Waitaminit, take away the five and carry the one and....yep, that is some old music.
What's that cliche about how 'time flies when you're having fun'. Bad news, sunshine; time starts to accelerate as you age. Don't take my word for it. I've discovered to my horror and chagrin, the wisdom in Joe's glib assertion.
And all I can do is smile, or grimace. Actually, they look about the same especially if you have corrective eyewear.
-bill kenny
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