Honey Have You Seen My Glasses?

An old college buddy of mine from Chicago recently sent a magazine article to me about the effects of aging on the brain.  After reading it, I think AARP might want to make it required reading for admission to their fine organization.  I’m also wondering if my wife might have put my friend up to sending me the essay.  Being a scientific article, there was some pretty heavy-duty verbiage used to express the author’s conclusions, one of which is – Older people tend to want an easy life but they don’t realize how bad that is for them.  (The author is probably in his 30’s)  He continues – As people age, the brain starts to shrink, the cerebral cortex thins and there is a drop in the neuronal architecture that supports learning.  Translation: It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks. I don’t disagree with him at all and believe I could have been a poster boy for his research.  In fact, just the other day I was working at the computer and I had misplaced my glasses.  I looked everywhere for them and the cottage is not that big. I searched high and low and couldn’t find them anywhere! My bride saw me rummaging around and grumbling to myself.  When she asked if she could help me, I told her that I couldn’t find my glasses.  She just stared at me like wives often do. Then she kindly informed me that my glasses were shoved up on top of my head! I might add that this has happened more than once. I never had this problem when I was thirty but of course, I didn’t even need glasses until I was in my forties! I think most of us have had similar experiences. I’m sure you all have experienced going down into the basement, out to the garage or some such place, to retrieve something that you need desperately. You get there and then just stand for a moment trying to remember what it was you came for. You stare off into space hoping it might come back to you. Sometimes you remember and other times you must first return to the beginning of your journey before the fog lifts.  This not only helps you remember but also gives you a little exercise as a bonus.  I don’t recall that happening to me when I was in my twenties. We often hear a word tossed around these days that didn’t even exist when we were younger – multi-tasking! It was a term that appeared on the scene when the younger generations began to get too many electronic gadgets. They have laptop computers, cell-phones, pagers, PDA’s and of course something called a Blackberry.  To justify having all this stuff, they needed to learn how to use them all at the same time. One day we were eating in a local restaurant and I saw a young professional eating all alone. He had his laptop computer open on the table, was talking on his cell-phone, and was pushing buttons on some unknown hand held device. During this flurry of activity he was taking an occasional bite out of his burger.   I wish I could be around to watch him when he becomes a senior. I didn’t really need a scientist to tell me that I’m not remembering things as clearly as I once did.  I didn’t know, however, that my brain was actually shrinking in size. The funny thing is that as we age, other things shrink too. I can remember my grandmother seemed to get shorter every time I visited her.  I wonder why our waistlines don’t shrink as we age? Is there no justice for seniors? The point of the whole story is that we do need to exercise our brains. We need to do things like work crossword and sudoku puzzles, read books, or write a newspaper column. We need to volunteer and serve our community and fellow man.  We need to exercise and stay fit to keep the old ticker working. There are so many things we retired folks need to do. I am beginning to wonder if we are retired at all.  Now, does anyone know where I put my glasses?

 

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