Have you been guilty of looking at others your own age and thinking, "Surely I can't look that old?"

I was sitting in the waiting room for my first appointment with a new dentist. I noticed his DDS diploma, which bore his full name. Suddenly, I remembered a tall, handsome, dark-haired boy with the same name had been in my high school class some 40-odd years ago.

Upon seeing him, however, I quickly discarded any such thought. This balding, gray-! haired man with the deeply lined face was way too old to have been my classmate. After he examined my teeth, I asked him if he had attended Lawton Senior High school.

"Yes. Yes, I did. I'm a Wolverine." he gleamed with pride.

"When did you graduate?" I asked.

He answered, "In 1961. Why do you ask?"

"You were in my class!" I exclaimed.

He looked at me closely. Then, that ugly, old, wrinkled son-of-a-bitch asked, "What did you teach?"

Some people try to turn back their odometers. Don't bother, tell them you look this way because you've traveled a long way and some of the roads weren't paved.

HOW TO STAY YOUNG

1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you pay them.
2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.
3. Keep learning. Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever. Never let the brain idle. " An idle mind is the devil's workshop." And the devil's name is Alzheimer's.
4. Enjoy the simple things.
5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.
6. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person who is with us our entire life, is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive.
7. Surround yourself with what you love, Whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.
8. Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.
9. Don't take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county; to a foreign country but NOT to where the guilt is.
10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.

When you are dissatisfied and would like to go back to youth, think of Algebra.

I don't know how I got over the hill without getting to the top.

One of the many things no one tells you about aging is that it is such a nice change from being young.

Ah, being young is beautiful, but being old is comfortable.

Old age is when former classmates are so gray and wrinkled and bald and have such terrible eyesight, they don't recognize you.

If you don't learn to laugh at trouble, you won't have anything to laugh at when you are old.

First you forget names, then you forget faces. Then you forget to pull up your zipper. It's worse when you forget to pull it down.

Long ago when men cursed and beat the ground with sticks, it was called witchcraft. Today, it's called golf.