Tucsonan Ron Lancaster: I just turned 40 — for the second time

For a long time, I thought it was strange that I was the same age as old people. Then I saw the truth with my own eyes, looking at my picture taken by at the Department of Motor Vehicles for my license, that that person in the photograph was not only me, but me as an old man.

I wasn’t that unhappy because I realized that I had made it, after all these years. I was finally an elderly person. Patience won the day. I was joining a very select group of people, at the very pinnacle of life, who could gaze down at the less fortunate youth who mill around in the haze of inexperience, not yet tenderized by life’s grinder.

The young now seem like sports cars with their tanks full, rushing about, not grasping they are on a circular track. I was among them once, my vehicle now sputtering as I finally pulled into the winner’s circle, which was the realization that it was a rat race all along.

I had moved onto the elder race; better by far. I was no longer whizzing around for a series of elusive goals that proved to be all limp and tarnished once secured. But now I am leisurely taking in life’s many benefits that I had missed all the years before.

I remember to taste a juicy strawberry, smell a fragrant rose, see the stars at night, and hear a Bach cantata without daydreaming it away. And I am deeply touched by my grandchildren who show that they love me.

I have a nice life, and it is filling another sort of tank. It is full to the brim with appreciation and affection. My tank “runneth” over. I find I read more, sleep more, smile more.

Now, as I get older and am in the company of like-aged folk, I see that sweetest wine comes from the oldest grapes. As we have become more mellow from lolling at our ease on the vine as the years piled high, we find we like each other, especially when politics are excised from any conversation.

We have settled into a common bond, and are able to confide with others of our like concerns and ailments. We know how to hoist one another up when droopy spirits take hold, or when the loss of loved ones bears hard on us. We may not remember the name of someone we just met, but will always remember the name of Gene Autry’s horse.

We chatter on about arthritis, prescriptions and doctors as easily as we once did of stocks, employment and vacations. We are now a comfortable and wiser bunch. Jokes and stories are the coins of our realm, and we do not think of ourselves as yesterday’s flowers, humming yesteryear’s tunes. We are the new morning dawn, the sun always rising from the west.