Wisdom discounts and getting older

 I guess there are certain privileges to getting older.   One of them is the brilliant idea of a local grocery to give "seniors"   "wisdom discounts" of 5%.   I like that.   Once you pass 60, you like to think your life has attained that certain level of maturity or "wisdom", if you will, that is both hard earned and, hopefully, inevitable.  Not always and not everyone, but most people get wiser as they get older.  

At first a few years ago, I disdained the idea of senior discounts for all that implied.  Now, it’s funny, but I could care less.  I save a few dollars and my dignity is somehow still intact, though a bit tattered.   One of the vicissitudes of life.  Getting oldER, not old.   We Baby Boomers will "rage against the dying of the light" until the final twilight curtain call.  

I don’t know about others who are past 60, but a kinda of tranquil acceptance of age has taken over, especially when one turns 61 as I did just recently.  It seems a bit surreal, but nevertheless it’s real, and boy is it ever.   

Here are some signposts of the 60s, so far as I see them:

     ** You think of retirement seriously for the first time, whereas in your 50s it hardly seemed possible or thinkable.

     **  You notice other people your age and think,  "I couldn’t possibly be THAT old, could I?

     **  If you are male, you envy women for the first time for their seemingly effortless ability to stave off the more obvious signs of aging, such as GRAY HAIR.   I know many, many men dye their hair.  It just does not seem natural at all, whereas women can get away with it.   It seems right.   All this is the result of my looking in the mirror recently and noticing that my hair is now officially not salt and pepper anymore, but all salt (ie., GRAY)  

     **  Clerks at the grocery store don’t even look twice when you ask for the "wisdom" discount.

     **  You still get slightly miffed when a young person bagging your groceries asks if you need help getting them to your car, even if it is company policy to ask everyone with a loaded cart this question.  At least I think it must be, or someone told me it was, and I am not sure but want to believe it’s true.

     **  You feel guilty afterward when you reply to above-mentioned grocery clerk, "No thank you, I will hobble out to the car with the groceries on my own."

     **  You sense how especially galling it is when a grocery store employee your own age asks you if you need help with your groceries ( though he or she is just doing his or her job, of course)

     **   I wrote this one before several years ago, but it’s still true:  You know you are getting older when you don’t care what you look like in shorts during summer.

     **  You notice for the first time ( really and truly) that your hands and arms look older.

     **   You take special pride in the fact that you dont get winded walking up two flights of stairs.

     **   You see college kids walking or skateboarding to class as you drive through the downtown campus on the way to work and marvel at how long ago it was that you were doing something similar.

     **   You start buy teaching company recorded college lectures on DVD like they were going out of style for that day coming up soon when you will be retired and can enjoy education at a leisurely and non-test-and-papers-due pace.   In other words lifetime learning as it’s meant to be.

Finally, this humorous anecdote.  At the grocery store a few weeks ago, a new clerk did a double take when I asked for the "wisdom" discount.   "You can’t be a year over 49," she said.   I was startled at first.  I am no scofflaw.   Then I saw the smile or maybe it bordered on a smirk.   "Do you want to card me," I replied, ever quick with a comback and ready to defend the dignity of aging and actually admitting to it.