Growing older, gradually - Part 1

The following was submitted by The View staff reporter Jerry LaVaute:

Editor’s note: this is the first part of a two-part column.

I was visiting my in-laws in central New York last summer, and we were relaxing on their back porch in the summer sun.

My sister-in-law surprised me with the question: “Jer, you’re gonna be 60 next year, aren’t you?”

The answer was yes, but the significance of the actual age, 60, hadn’t hit me until that moment.

60. Wow.

A couple weeks ago, I talked with a friend. He had invited me to his house for a Super Bowl party, but neither my wife nor I were able to go because we were sick.

He and I began talking about age, and the way its myriad consequences sneak up on you.

And I was reminded of the parable about the frog in the pot of water.

If the water is cold, the frog doesn’t attempt to jump out. If you gradually increase the heat, he will fail to notice the problem until it’s too late.

If, however, you place the frog in a pot of boiling water, he will notice the problem immediately, and leap out of the water.

I’ve since reflected on this, and I’ve learned that growing older, and how it’s perceived by the person who is growing older, is a little like the frog in the pot of water that is slowly being warmed – it sneaks up on you. I am growing older.

The difference is, unlike the frog, the person growing older may not choose to jump out of the pot. It’s inevitable, but it sure as heck beats the alternative.

As I look back, I guess my perception of the inexorable aging process began when I was no longer able to read a book or a newspaper without optical assistance. I was around 40 years old at the time.

My eyesight to that point had been almost perfect, for viewing objects at a distance and for reading up close. In fact, at one point, my eyesight measured 20/15, better than the 20/20 vision that is the standard.

To correct my difficulty with reading as I aged, I opted for a single contact lens, which I wear in my right eye. And it has worked superbly well for me, although as I think back now, it was my first clear concession to my growing older.

The water in the proverbial pot was heating up, although I didn’t realize it full well at the time.

I had a complete physical the other day. When I was younger, I used to round up my height when asked, to 5’ 8’’, instead of the 5’ 7 ½” that I actually was.

The law of large numbers always has you rounding to the even number, right? I was within my statistical rights.

Now, surprisingly, I measure 5’ 6” even, allowing no more room for rounding up.

When I look in the mirror, I still see a relatively young person. My mind’s eye somehow drives past the wrinkles and the hair color, and sees a vital young (relatively speaking) person.

But photos don’t lie like your live reflection in the mirror does. And I am sometimes surprised at how I’ve begun to appear, well, just a bit older in these photos.

Regarding hair color, I was talking with my barber and my wife the other day. As I watched my freshly shorn hair fall on my lap, I was surprised by its silvery whiteness.

I said to both women that I had thought the shade of my hair was more a charcoal grey. Whereupon they had a good laugh about the gap between the perception in my mind’s eye, and reality. My hair is white, they said – period. Forget charcoal grey.

To be continued



Gerald LaVaute is a staff writer for Heritage Newspapers. He can be reached at glavaute@heritage.com or call 1-734-429-7380. Check out our staff blog at courierviewnews.blogspot.com