They had to go do it, to remind me in black and white of the one thing I was desperately trying to ignore for just a few more months.

In my mind, you see, it still seems like only, well, at least a couple of weeks ago that I was taking out of its plastic wrapper the powder-blue tuxedo, bow tie, cummerbund, and dress shirt with the ridiculously puffy blue ruffles that I wore along with white shoes beneath a giant, perfectly trimmed Afro to my senior prom.

That I cannot remember the name of the girl I took ought to remind me, I guess, of how long ago that was.

Wasn't it only a few years ago that Father Charley, unnerved by the incessant clickety clack of the steel baseball spikes I had forgotten to take off in my rush to make 6 p.m. Mass, finally stopped Communion, pulled up my altar boy's alb and glared at me?

Of course it wasn't, as the thick envelope my wife waved at me the other day screamed.

I opened it.

I had not gotten the contents out of the envelope before Kirsten grabbed it back and practically fell on the floor, rolling with laughter.

It was an application to become a member of the American Association of Retired Persons.

In my mind, it was no different than if my kids had given me a cane, a set of dentures and a pair of Sansabelt slacks for Christmas.

How did this happen? How is it that I will turn 50 in five months?

I can still remember sitting in Mrs. Powell's fourth-grade arithmetic class in 1967, daydreaming - as I was wont to do - and figuring out how old I would be in 1977, 1987 and 1997.

I never even bothered to go to 2007. I would be about the same age as Daddy and, well, that simply was not fathomable.

Yet here I am.

Seeking solace, I have called some of my seven older siblings, who in recent years have crossed this threshold.

They basically told me to shut up. Considering they still are breathing, that is fair enough.

So I set in on my friends.

How did you survive turning 50? I asked Mark Perlmutter, 63, a good friend.

He pretty much told me he woke up the next morning.

"Fifty does not change life one bit. It's all in the perception. Billy, you know that," he barked at me.

But I just received a membership application to join the AARP, I moaned to him. I'm old.

"Look, if you view the alternative, it has got to be OK, right?" he said. "Me, I was just glad to have the option of joining."

Getting his AARP membership application was "the most fabulous thing in the world to me," Mark Perlmutter said. "Absolutely. I didn't mind it one bit."

Once he saw how inexpensive things became once he turned 50, he nearly fell to his knees in thanks, he said.

"The savings you get are huge," he said. "I cut my auto insurance by 45 percent the day I signed up. I'm telling you, it saved me $1,000 a year on my auto and homeowner's insurance the day I signed up, and all I did to get that was turn 50."

Nothing costs him full price anymore, he said. Hotel and rental car rates are at least 10 percent below what he had been paying before.

"And only because a page in the calendar flipped."

OK, I am going to get good with that. Mostly because I'm cheap. And no matter how much I whine, I cannot turn the calendar back.

I understand, too, it is why I do not know, much less buy, any album by any artist in the Top 40, believing - as my parents did of my music - that it is just trash.

I do not know, much less care a whit about, 95 percent of the people in People magazine. The only celebrities I have any knowledge about are increasingly being featured in obituaries.

It is why I am clinging to stories I've recently read that say 50 is now the new 40, which only makes sense because 10 years ago I'd read that 40 was the new 30.

Yes, age simply is a mindset.

I can still outscore, if only barely, my nearly 18-year-old, Ben, in golf, which is a blessing, and a reason why I always act like I'm just too busy when he wants to play a little one-on-one basketball.

And once I pick my wife up off the floor, I am filling out the application.

Look, I'm nearly 50 years old. And I know from auto and homeowner's insurance, not to mention the value of a thousand saved dollars.

Bill Johnson's column appears Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Call him at 303-954-2763 or e-mail him at johnsonw@RockyMountainNews.com.

Back to Top