Young to Old

The secret to staying young is always telling the time by hours, minutes, and even seconds. Think about it. Give a child a digital watch and then ask them the time, what do they do? They tell you the hour, the minutes, and then the seconds as they tick by,

“…forty-three, forty-four, forty-five…”

Middle-aged people will sort of fudge the time a little by the minutes, or they round off, up or down it doesn’t matter. They see a clock with the time reading: 5:21, and without hesitating they say, “It’s five thirty.”

The old are more concerned about how long between naps or meals. You can ask an old man what time it is right now and he won’t tell you in any straight way. He might tell you what time he got up this morning: “Four A.M.” He might tell you when he had lunch: “I had a sandwich at ten.” He might even tell you how long it takes him to get up the stairs. “Yesterday it took me ten whole minutes, but today I couldn’t make it that fast. I think the top three stairs alone took me ten minutes. I need electric stairs.” I know a few oldsters who wouldn’t even talk about time if you brought up the subject. They’d talk about their time in the war, or tell you about their latest knee surgery.

“You wanna see the scar?”