I will be 60 this year. I am discovering an introspective streak I never knew I had. When I read the obituaries now I look at the age first and then the name. When I see the age is close to mine� I hope the name won�t be familiar. I tell my family I read the obits in the morning because if I see my name, I�ll go back to bed.

Some people make to 90 years old. If I do, then I�m in the home stretch now. I look back over the past 60 years and in spite of the warning by Satchel Paige, �Don�t look back. Something might be gaining on you.� I start to see a pattern emerge. I was always in the wrong time frame.

As a child��you�re too young to ride a 2-wheeled bike.� Or �act your age and stop whining!�.( I have since found out whining is ageless.) One I heard every time I had a question concerning some sort of social behavior; �I�ll tell you when you�re older.� A variation of ; �when you�re older you�ll understand.�

Mom? I am a hell of a lot older now and there�s still plenty I don�t understand!

I was very lucky to have the parents I had. On top of that, I was an only child and the only girl. The advantages of being an only child are questionable. No older siblings to pass on the answers to questions I was too young to ask. No younger brother or sister to blame things on. The closest I had to brothers were my cousins, Terry (3 yrs older) and Leo (4 � yrs older). When we went to holiday dinners at my Aunt Peg�s, who had no children and had imaginary velvet ropes around areas that didn�t welcome children, Terry and I got blamed for everything. Even the stuff we didn�t do. Leo said that we did it and there were no witnesses to back us up. Besides, Leo was the oldest and somewhat of a goody two-shoes. Any mischief that occurred was the sort that Terry and I could have been capable of. My grand father was a painter,(House, not Art) , and he always had some 5 gallon drums of paint in the yard. One Easter, I think I was about 7, we were all at their house and the �kids� got sent into the yard to play. The only thing in the yard was my Uncle John�s hammock, so Terry and I would head for that. As we were trying to make a large spider web out of it, we noticed Leo had taken the lid off a paint drum. He had also taken a good sized branch off the hedges and was stirring the dark green oil paint with it. We watched as he dipped the leafy end in the paint and started to �paint� the concrete foundation of the house. We stared, slack-jawed with amazement! THIS was one of those things you wouldn�t dare even THINK about!!! Terry said to his brother, �OOOHHH! You are gonna be in so much TROUBLE!!!� I started to giggle thinking of all the times that we got blamed for stuff that Leo did. This was pay-back. Complete, karmic pay-back! Leo had taken about 6 passes with his branch-brush when he put it down and walked up the alley to the front of the house. Terry and I were both laughing out loud imagining the punishment Leo would get. Terry said to me, �C�mon, let�s try to clean it up a little. Oh, for the chance to be a hero! We went to the crime scene, he picked up the dripping branch, I picked up the lid-------TA-DAAA! Who comes out the back door? GRANDPA! When I got �Old enough to understand� circumstantial evidence, I knew that was what convicted me and Terry of the crime of the century. Leo walked like O.J.

The time frame for that one was, �You�re old enough to know right from wrong!� Well,,, YES! I sure was! So why did Terry and me pay the price? Could it be that Leo was lucky enough not to have one drop of paint on him while his brother and me were liberally splattered while trying to clean up? I have been pissed at Leo for 53 years now. Mainly because he was �Old enough to know better.�

I was around 9 when my mother decided to have that �Birds & Bees Talk� with me. This was very daring for 1951 but my mom was a closet liberal. To this day I am still puzzled by how birds and bees �Do It�. Do they go at it in flight? Do they check into a fancy birdie motel? A quickie in the hive? ( Maybe when I�m old enough to understand I�ll figure it out) She sat me down and started to talk about the difference in boys and girls. Hell, I already knew about that! Howie from down the street had done that �You show me yours and I�ll show you mine� scenario. He thought mine had fallen off and I thought he was inside out. Mom was talking about �Boy Organs and Girl Organs� and I wasn�t really listening. I wanted to go outside and ride my bike. To tell the truth, I don�t know if she ever got around to the mechanical aspects of sex. Finally she said �Do you understand what I said?� I twitched a nod, �Uh-huh.� She said �Tell me what I said.� I thought about it for a few seconds and came up with a reply, � There are boy organs and girl organs,,, and,,,uh,,,,Oh Yeah! Church Organs!� She put her hands over her face but I could see she was starting to laugh. �Go out and play. I�ll talk to you again when you�re old enough to understand.� The closest she ever got to part 2 was the night before my wedding. She said, �Do you know what to expect?� I snorted, �Don�t be silly Ma, I�m 19. Of course I know what to expect.� What she didn�t expect was to become a Grandma less than 9 months later. I should have paid more attention to the organ recital.

Ever been told to �Act your age.� It has always mystified me. If I have never been this age before, How can I know how to act? Do you get a pamphlet from the vital statistics bureau, �How to Be a 45 Year Old.� With yearly updates? Do you take a test somewhere? I can�t act my chronological age because I have no experience with it. My emotional age is what I usually act. I seem to have leveled out about 14 years old. Of course if I�m really pissed, I�m 2 years old. If something bad happens, I�m 103. I have let my hair go gray at last. I have had every color of the rainbow on my head, (Some unintentional, i.e. Maroon, Chartreuse.) and if my parents had bought stock in Clairol I would�ve led and elegant life. In a few years I will probably use the blue or lavender rinse in it. For my � Silver Years�. I don�t wear mini skirts or hip hugger jeans but I haven�t sunk into the Polyester Pit either. I love bright, screaming colors and T-shirts with pictures on them. I went to a Halloween Party some years back and the hostess� grandmother was there. She was wearing a lavender crepe dress with a white lace collar, her hair in a bun, small pearl earrings and some black orthopedic shoes. I was dressed as a �White Trash Cleaning Lady� complete with mop & bucket. I went up to her and started babbling about what a �Great Old Lady Costume� she was wearing. I noticed the sudden silence at the same moment I realized she wasn�t in a costume. I don�t know if the cleaning lady part worked but the white trash sure went over big.

There�s one time frame that has always given me hives. HIGH SCHOOL! I remember my Mom saying things like �These are the best years of your life!� There should be a law that unless your kid is a cheerleader named Muffie or a football captain named Lance�..YOU SHOULD NEVER SAY THAT!!

The only parts of high school I liked was I had a steady boyfriend who was 6 years older than me and he drove a new, bright red, �57 Chevy convertible. ( It is good to be Queen.) The other part was the day I quit school after convincing my parents that if they didn�t let me quit I would do something so awful that I would get expelled. ( I didn�t know my bluff would work!) I only liked one class,,, Art. I almost liked photography but it had some restrictions I didn�t like. To this day the only thing I can do with Algebra is spell it. Home Ec was a joke. T.V. dinners had been invented so what was the point? English? Nah�. I already spoke it. Science,,, Once I found out that adding vinegar to baking soda made a large bubbly mess the rest was Ho-Hum. Business was something I had absolutely no interest in. Learning to type with a shield over the keys so you couldn�t see them was a torture designed by Torquemada. The one that was worse was the typewriter with blank keys. So close and yet so far. Besides which, my mother typed with the speed and accuracy of a machine gun and I knew I was never getting to that plateau.

I wanted to be an Artist and this was the time-frame that starred �Beatniks�. Dress in all black, wear your hair long and straight with a beret and use only white lipstick�.BANG!! You�re an ARTIST!!

I got to Greenwich Village 2 or 3 times with some friends and while we walked around I never spotted a cheerleader or a jock. They had all gone to yet another prom.

I had zero interest in the prom. That was for Muffie and Lance. I was already getting plenty of prom night activity in the chevy with my boyfriend and we didn�t need music or beer. Now that I am back here in Memory Lane I realize none of my friends went to the prom either. Some of them were already married by then anyway. (There were no �single moms� in the 50�s unless they were widows.) Our high school was all girls then. We were a public school convent. The Boy�s high was about 6 blocks away and the only mixed activities were the cheerleaders who went to the sports stuff. They were the ones who loved the idea of a prom. Even the Catholic high school across the street had both sexes in it. We referred to the boys who went there as �Saint Mary�s Fairies�. We didn�t live in an Archie comic book world. I never wanted to be Veronica. ( I thought Betty was more real and I even thought Jughead was sexy.) If I had believed my mom, who had graduated at age 16 and got a really good job, that these were �The Best Years of My Life�� I would�ve been a statistic. My father�s take on it was, �just get through it.� I did. I got my G.E.D. at age 32. Too bad the School of Hard Knocks didn�t have a prom. I would have gone.

The Age of Echoes came next. Raising 3 kids you always hear your parent�s voice emanating from your own mouth; �You�re not old enough to ___________(fill in the blank) or �I did / didn�t (choose one) do that at your age!� �You�re too old to ______________!� and �Grow Up!!� followed by, �You�re just a kid!�. The one phrase I never used was� �These are the best years of your life.� I didn�t want them to lose all hope. At this end of the track I am hearing my children using some of the echoes.

About 6 years ago, on St. Patrick�s Day, my oldest daughter and I went to the mall. In honor of the day I painted a small green shamrock on my right cheek. (I am � Irish.) She didn�t notice it until I got out of the car and walked next to her. �MMMAAAAA! What the HELL are you doing???� At that point, I had a flashback to my mother taking a spit moistened hankie to my face. And then she said, (I swear she did!) �:ACT YOUR AGE!!!� I smiled at her and said,� I am acting my age. I�m old enough to be senile� This is the same daughter who won�t let me take the Senior Discount at the diner or a Free Senior Beach Badge. I have thought about that and concluded that; If I am older,,, So is SHE! HAH!!

I have been accused of being a �Sally Sunshine� by my Significant Other, The Troll. When the mortgage is overdue and the phone bill is abysmal and the checking account is scrawny, I don�t piss, moan and sigh. I follow the philosophy of �It�ll all work out somehow.� I can honestly say it usually does. Not counting the time they shut off the electric and the other time the long-distance went bye-bye.

I think I have discovered the truth. It isn�t the �Best Years Of Your Life�. It�s the best moments that count. If you can survive those long, drawn out years of �Not-so-Hot�, revel in those moments of your life where all is in balance and harmony. They may be rarer then hen�s teeth, but as such, They count for a whole lot more!