[A summer repeat from July 20, 2013]

Every once in awhile, I hear the admonition “act your age.”  Or sometimes it’s “how old are you?”  So I take the lampshade off my head or take out my novelty buck teeth and act contrite.  

I just finished (for the second time) Bob Rotella’s classic book – Golf is Not a Game of Perfect.   Among other things, Dr. Bob talks about golf and age.   He mentions Paul Runyan (1908-2002), the great PGA champ and master golf instructor.  Paul was active in golf (and other things) well into his 80’s.  According to Rotella, Paul and his wife Bernice embodied the old Satchel Paige aphorism about age.  Someone once asked Satchel (who was in his 40’s before segregation ended and he made it to the Major Leagues) if he could still pitch at his “advanced age.” Paige replied “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you was?”  Wow. . . . .    

I’d seen that quote before but this time when I read it, it resonated a wee bit more.  I don’t feel my age.   I don’t feel much different than I did when I was 25 or so.  Apart from a few aches and pains.  For many, age is a state of mind.  As Bernard Baruch, the great financier, once wrote — “I will never be an old man.  To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am.”  Amen. . . .