So this is what being 70 years old is like

COLUMN — I’m 70. Jesus.

The big milestone came yesterday. I wasn’t paying attention, and suddenly it was there.

When I hit 62 I wrote about getting older. I talked to some other people who were hitting 62. One of them is still working, another is in poor health and another, I think, is doing well and enjoying retirement.

I enjoyed retirement for awhile, and then started working again. I joked to a news contact a few days ago that retirement seems to be about working as much as ever, except you don’t get paid. He said working for nothing is what all journalists do.

I look a little the worse for wear, just like my ’55 Cornbinder. I’m not a vain man, but let’s face it, I’ve seen better days. Pass the retinol and some Grecian formula. Bang out a few dents and put in some fibreglass filler and I’ll be good to go.

I ran into a fellow at a meeting a couple of weeks ago who I’ve known for many years. “You need more sun,” he told me. I wanted to give him directions to where the sun don’t shine but I resisted.

I met someone else the other day who said, “You’re looking great. A lot healthier.”

I like the latter assessment much better. I find myself trying to figure out how old people are and judging who looks better for their age, me or them. I interviewed a guy who’s older than me and looks like a million dollars and I felt just a little jealous.

It could be worse. I have a wife and family who put up with me and a dog who wags his tail when I come through the door. I’m not rich but I’m not poor. I get out of bed every day, quite early, actually, and set a pretty good pace till late at night. By midnight, though, I’m starting to fade and am ready for bed and a good book.

I’m still learning things but sometimes wonder whether it really matters. It’s not like you can transfer all your data onto a memory stick before you go, though there’s a Johnny Depp movie out right now where he does something like that.

But here’s the thing. The urge to learn that I took for granted in the high-adrenalin news business doesn’t turn itself off when you retire or hit a certain age.

Experts talk about just-in-time learning. That’s for people who are built to learn just enough for the essentials but don’t feel an urge to learn for its own sake, for fun.

It’s like grade school teachers who wait for that wonderful day when a child stops learning to read and starts reading to learn.

Some older people enrol in programs designed to nurture their innate desire to keep learning. I haven’t taken a class yet but I don’t rule it out. So far, my thirst for learning is being quenched by everyday life, including publishing this blog.

Many people these days stay on the job into their 70s. I chose not to do that but I’m still working because that’s how I keep learning.

There’s a study for everything, and one of them says people become increasingly cheerful and optimistic in their 70s and 80s. Some say I’ve mellowed. Seriously, that’s what they say. Maybe it’s because I can manage my learning better.

Seventy. Not so bad.

AROUND THE TOWN — Nice long phone chat with Clair Methot this week. He’s 85 and lives in Vernon. Clair used to be a regional district director here. We originally connected in the wake of a huge train derailment in Vinsulla — across the river from where we live now — in 1971. It was a terrible event. Sixty-five cars of a CN Rail freight full of propane and chemicals went off the track into a hay field and exploded. The fumes killed trees two miles away. If it had happened in a populated area, like Megantic, I hate to think about what could have happened. Clair, as the TNRD director in whose area the wreck occurred, was right in the thick of it and I, of course, was writing about it for the paper. That’s not why he called, though. Just called to catch up on a few things so we reminisced and talked some politics. He sounds good.

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