Several years ago when my black hair began showing white strands, the thought of aging didn't bother me. Even when AARP sent me their you're-50-years-old-now packet last year, I didn't wince.
But this week I had a rite of passage for us folks who are 50 and older — a colonoscopy.
Don't worry. This column will not describe in detail the unpleasant preparation and the painless procedure, which detects colorectal cancer for men and women. I'm not Katie Couric, who allowed her colonoscopy to be televised in 2000.
Although going public is worthwhile. Colorectal cancer is the fourth-most-common cancer in men and women, according to the National Cancer Institute.
Couric helped raise awareness about colorectal cancer and demystify colonoscopies. According to a 2003 study by researchers at the universities of Michigan and Iowa, after the "CBS Evening News" anchor went public, more men and women had colonoscopies in the following days, months and years.
People are also reading…
The researchers called it the "Katie Couric Effect."
These days actor Jimmy Smits is on TV and radio, in English and Spanish, urging people to get checked.
I can assure you this column will not cause similar results. There will be no "Neto Effect."
The only effect the colonoscopy had was to give me pause to consider and laugh about getting older. It's good, I figure.
My memory gets shorter. I can conveniently forget about the unimportant things in my life and retain and relish what's worthwhile.
I can sign up for AARP discounts. And I'm closer to getting other "senior" discounts for casinos, airline tickets, hotels, car rentals, tree pruning and "early bird" restaurant specials.
Getting older allows me to say with more frequency and greater authority, "When I was young …"
When I was young I used to hate it when older people would start off their trip down memory lane by reminding me their lives and times were tougher when they were young. I would recoil respectfully, listening somewhat but thinking "Oh, not again."
Now it's my turn to torture younger people with my tales of a hard life when I was young. There was no color television (at least in our house), no air conditioning in the car, no text messaging and no Internet where I could re-create myself on MySpace.com.
Getting older also means I've read more books over the years. In the past year I've read, among others, two books by Patagonia writers, J.P.S. Brown and Philip Caputo; the two incredible books by Afghan writer Khaled Hosseini; a splendid historical review, "The Race Beat," how the press covered the early civil-rights movement; and several detective mysteries.
At the same time, however, getting older means I have less time to read the many books I've been wanting to read. And I must reread several eye-opening books of my youth.
I'm excited about getting older, not just for the discounts but for the thrill of coming changes and challenges. I expect good things to come. Heck, the UA football team might even get to the Rose Bowl in my lifetime.
And even when things aren't good, I can always wait for the good wave to come again.
It's amazing what a colonoscopy can do. It gave me a chance to reflect.
But I'm not rushing to get a second one.
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