I was younger then than now

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It has been brought to my attention that I have one foot in the grave. While I can assure you that my other foot is having fun, this alarming news is something to consider.The calendar has remorselessly informed me of my situation. My birthday falls soon after New Year's Day, so my age and the calendar year roughly correspond.It is now 2008. I was born a few days into 1948, which makes me about to turn 60, or the Big Six Oh, as they say in irritatingly jolly birthday circles. Or ruin and decay, as they say in more realistic circles.Surely there must be some mistake. What happened to all the years? I was asleep a good deal of the time, but not that long. Besides, mentally, I am about 20. Even my critics concede that my thoughts, as they are set out in this column, show signs of juvenile acne.I would argue that growing old is not fair in my case. I am a frisky fellow. I have not lost my youthful good looks, because I took the precaution of not having many to begin with. Because the nights were not quite dark enough to allow me to get a date, I made a point of developing a nice personality. That is still a work in progress, of course, and it would be a pity if this were to be curtailed by creeping decrepitude.Moreover, I refuse to be a senior citizen. The very idea is repugnant, implying as it does that junior citizens also exist as a class. The truth is that all citizens hold the same rank, the only difference being that we older ones are wiser and know more stuff.Whatever schools we went to, we gray foxes all attended the University of Hard Knocks and many of us graduated with a Degree of Concussion. This is why I and other oldies-but-goodies are so darn smart and can readily identify nonsense when we see it.Here is some: Lately, well-meaning folks have taken to saying: "70 is the new 60," or "60 is the new 50," or "50 is the new 40," etc. and etc. right down to the teen-age years when they say, accurately but not approvingly, "17 is the new 27." But as far as I can tell, 60 is the same old 60 with the new self-delusion.The thing about stately ruins -- be they bodies or buildings -- is that maintenance becomes more vital as time marches on. The foundations shift, the plumbing becomes problematic, the hinges creak. You can chirp merrily on about "you are as young as you feel," but your basic infrastructure cares not. In my case, I am grateful that nothing has fallen off my imposing structure lately, at least not since my hair fell off the roof of my head.What have I learned from my life? We are who we are largely because of our family histories. I am a journalist because of my father, who was the manager of the Reuters news agency in Singapore when I was born. Impressed by his stories as a war correspondent during World War II, I decided on a career in journalism and the life of adventure.Actually, it turned out to be more a life of meetings. I am sure it would have been the same had I gone into accountancy. In this modern life, someone somewhere is surely making something. The rest of us go to meetings, mind-numbing, hysteria-inducing meetings. I estimate 30 out of my 60 years have been spent in meetings. Gosh, I wonder what they were about? For good reason, the old mind grows dim.It requires iron discipline to look interested at a meeting when the brain is off on its own adventure. That is why I recommend military service to everyone. It did wonders for me. I did not know it at the time, but when the drill sergeants were calling me a useless, worthless prawn, a piece of mud on the eternal wheel, they were preparing me for when I would need the discipline to be unflinching at meetings or in being married.This also I know in my venerable experience -- and it's something I always tell young people: "Watch who you kiss in this life." Not thinking ahead, I kissed the lovely Priscilla, an American student living in England, and next thing I knew I was with strange new relatives celebrating an unfamiliar holiday that featured a turkey.I moved to the United States in 1978. I became a U.S. citizen in 1988. I became a geezer in 2008. It is all a mathematical march of destiny but I am not sad (I always cry when I laugh) and I am not afraid (I am terrified). Happy New Year from the birthday boy.(Reg Henry is a columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. E-mail rhenry(at)post-gazette.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)