aging is an interesting inevitable process! I think about it all of the time. I am 48. I figure I have another 22 good years left and then I will be 80! 80 in just 22 years!!!! Happy birthday, you are definitely a young 60 year old. :)

Start using them on yourself and pretty soon you and those words are joined somehow you don’t like. And then you start feeling crappy.

Like you said earlier, there are people who begin feeling some measure of life passing them by at 20. 30 is over the hill. What the heck is that about?

Being ageist is just another way of slicing and dicing – tossing people into categories and generalizing, exercising a kind of witlessness. So knock it off! And happy unbirthday.

No one even told me it was your birthday!!! HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY, Old Man!!!! ;) ;)
But I get what you write though… there’s just something about a number sometimes, no matter how you feel inside and how little you put into numbers… It’s like if they have a life of their own or something.

is a cool age, I think. I don't know, I've always looked forward to it... a nice number :)

Well, my dad’s 61, so you could be my dad :p That doesn’t make you feel older, does it? ;)

...I’m as “old” as you are when I’m as old as you are. Complete with the sexy, gorgeous (at least to me), libidinous honey of whatever age.

^{Line up over here. No stampeding.}

I would not agree that 60 is old. Not in your case anyway. It’s subjective, age, in part, though. Some people are more trapped chronologically than others. I’ll offer my father as example. He is 66. But he looks and acts and lives as if he is 20, 30 years older than that, as a result of hard work alloyed and or allied depending on how you look at it, with over 50 years of severe and chronic alcoholism, substance abuse, heavy smoking, malnutrition; a lifetime of self abuse (and abuse of others) and neglect have ravaged him. He weighs 97 pounds and can not be without his oxygen tanks, more pills than he or anybody else can keep track of, can not go anywhere or do anything except visit his doctors and the hospital, more and more of his bodily functions shut down annually, and he is an incredibly pessimistic, negative, asshole who has always had and still does have, a piss poor attitide about everything, and as most of us are aware attitude is as much a part of good health as anything else. (After spending time with him, I feel like I need to go into detox just to rid myself of his negative vibes.) My point is that you and he are on opposite ends of a continuum, with you being on the beneficial end, brother. You are a young 60, he, an ancient, decrepit, corpselike 66. Lifestyle, choices, attitude…........sure, genetics too. But it’s apparent you choose life. He has been dying since he was in his 20’s, when he was first hospitalized for his alcoholism. My brothers and I refer to him as “The Longest Running Suicide Attempt in History”. I know that sounds cruel, but try being that man’s child; it has not been an easy thing to watch someone do that to themselves for 40 years, nor to have been caught in the middle at times, by proxy. I say that not by way of complaint; I am who I am because of all of my life experience and I’d not change any of it or wish to be anybody else. I am merely using him as an example of what is the opposite of you. How age is subjective. You chose life. He never did. Good for you: you’re young at heart, your arteries are clean, YOU have a daughter who adores you instead of one who merely tolerates you because it’s the right thing to do, a girlfriend who adores you, a foot that WILL heal in time, and a healthy attitude about life and living. You’re not a statistic (ie, living til 80, 75 percent of your life being over yada yada yada….......) My father is a statistic. One of his own making, just as you are NOT. I understand why you’re thinking more about mortality right now. We all have milestone moments when it becomes more of a consideration. But honestly, you and life are good friends, I’d say, so whatever time you have left whether it’s 20, 30 40 years, the quality of it is going to be wayyyyyyyy better than if you were on the same end of the continuum as my old man. Keep on carping that diem Unc….....

You just articulated what’s been going through my mind for the past year or so. I’ve said it before, what I really feel like, emotionally and mentally, is a 20 year old with 41 years experience. Physically…well, there’s no denying that the spry factor ain’t what it once was. But I look at some other guys our age and see broken down old men, and I know in my heart the difference is, they didn’t eat enough bacon or drink enough bourbon. It’s sad to see a guy let himself go like that.

So… On the issue of staying young… Burning Man 2009, Uncle. * Say you’ll go. It’s more than just another Dead concert, it’s not some stinkin’ craft fair, it’s not a circus tent revival for evangelical wannabes. It’s art. It’s life on the new frontier. It’s a fucking *EVENT!

Say you’ll go, old man.

I dare ya.

_{you’ll be needing a costume}

say you’ll go!!! (and then DO it, of course).

You can wear ANY costume you want. In fact,better yet, I’ll Hawk’ll wear any costume you want!

C’mon, G….

^{I DOUBLE dare ya. ;)}

My mom said at 80 she still felt like a teenager a lot of the time, just looked different. One of her friends was in her 90’s, happened to have great health, and was one of the most astute, fun, kind, au courant people I’ve met. It was just who she was. So… I agree it’s unsettling to greet each one of these numbers after a certain point (that I also passed some time ago), but we might as well expect to simply be ourselves for however long we get the opportunity. It just doesn’t make sense we’d turn from ourselves into whatever childhood stereotype we had about people of a certain age. I think that fear is one of the top scary fears (but bested by straight mortality and health fears) about aging.

it’s weird to think of you as 60 or me as (gulp) 40 or Jen as 20… more and more I see how time likes to fuck with us. Just cruisin along and boom, you’re there.

Maybe we never feel our age, whatever that means.

I certainly don’t see you as an ‘elderly parent’. Crotchety maybe… but you won’t fit into the ‘old’ category until you have to go live with Josh. lol.

One can be age 28 and think and act like a 75 year-old. My grandmother used to act younger than my mother. They were often mistaken as sisters.

Just remember, Unc, “time” is a man-made invention.

pal your name was always in the GR’s book…get used to it. But you have surprised me by showing some sagacity in your dotage; things are what they are, there’s hope for you yet.