Sometimes I find myself saying someone is “old.” The other day I told Kris that someone who is “old” to me is someone who is 10 years older than me — which means “old” keeps changing. The nice thing about this calculus is that I’m never going to be old. Nice thought, don’t you think? It means today that someone has to be at least 63 for me to consider them old. How do you determine who is “old”?
Now being 10 years older than me doesn’t mean you have to be considered old. For instance, our friends in Florida, Jim and Bonnie Panther, aren’t old. I think they are about 10 years older, but they are way too young and like us to be considered old.

Which means, there are only three real ages for me:
1. There are the “old” — 10+ years older and act like it;
2. There are folks “our age” — and that means anyone who is like us in all sorts of ways;
3. And there are those who are “young.” They are age-wise younger and aren’t like Kris and me in all sorts of ways.
(College kids and younger are not yet “young”; they are still kids. They get in our sights when they start working. My two children and their spouses are now “young.”)
My colleagues Brad and Barb Nassif and Boaz and Sarita Johnson are “our age” but I think Joel and Karla Willitts and Genevive and Peter Dibley are “young”. If you still stay out late on Friday night or Saturday night, you’re “young.” If you are regularly home on Friday night by 8pm or so, you are “our age.” If you eat dinner at 4pm so you can go to the matinee, well, I suspect you are “old.”