The Benefits of Old Age

                  Friends raised their glasses last month to toast my 56th birthday.
                  Less than two weeks later, I couldn't raise my left arm.  Didn't fall on it.  Didn't wrench it.  Didn't throw batting practice with it.  Didn't turn it the wrong way.  Didn't repaint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel with it.  Other than shouldering the weight of family responsibility ------- just kidding; the wife handles the bulk of that ------- the reason for my pain remained a mystery, kind of like the unexplained reason Mickey Mouse wears pants but no shirt and Donald Duck wears a shirt but no pants.  The root of my pain was one big pain to me.
                 But not to one of my close friends.
                 "It's not that you turned it the wrong way, buddy," he explained.  "It's that you turned 56."
                 With friends like those......
                 Two weeks after a cortisone injection from an orthopedist, who diagnosed an inflamed rotator cuff and tendinitis, I'm well-armed again.  I've been assured a few weeks of physical therapy will place the cherry on top of this sundae of recovery.  The problem should go away.
                 Aging, however, will not.
                 Thirty-one years ago, as I was about to begin my first day at a daily newspaper, my father offered me a bit of sage advice:  "Resist wanting to sit next to the prettiest woman in the newsroom," he said.  "Find a desk next to the oldest reporter and soak in everything he tells you.  Nothing beats experience."
                 On my 56th birthday, I wrote a column about growing old, asking when exactly you become old.  Many readers weighed in with opinions about age.
                 But the best may have come from the oldest guy in the room.
                 Walter Thomas is an 89-year-old resident at Ann's Choice in Warminster.  He realizes he's old.  But that wasn't the case 20yearsago, he said, when he mowed his lawn, cleared his driveway with snow blower and bowled.
                 "Then old age crept up on me," said Thompson, who delightfully addresses himself as The Old Codger.  "I found I was doing more resting than mowing.  I was paying some youngster to clear my driveway.  I quit bowling because of a pulled muscle in my right biceps.  I discovered aches and pains I couldn't explain.  I walked less than I liked.  I was taking pills to control blood pressure and cholesterol."
                 Aside from the aches and pains that come out of nowhere, the oldest guy in the room says aging isn't all that bad.
                 "People don't expect much from you," he said.  "You're not called upon to volunteer for committees anymore.  No one asks you to help them move.  Young fellows and girls hold the door for you.  No one gets upset if you can't remember their name."
                The oldest guy in the room offered me advice on how to deal with aging:  Ignore it as long as you can.  Don't retire early; he still misses going to meetings and coming up with answers to problems.  Continue thinking young.  Accept new things, like smartphones and iPads.
                "And learn from the youngsters," Thompson said.  "They think they know it all, but they do know a lot.  Do The New York Times crossword puzzles.  I still solve them at times.  And enjoy as much chocolate as you can."
                Thompson says even when you get very old, and aches and pains become a daily companion, the world is still a great place.
                "Enjoy life," Thompson said.

                "You only get one chance at it."