Years ago, someone showed me an “aging test.” What you do is grab the loose skin on the top of your hand and pinch it together. Then you release the skin and watch to see how fast it recovers its original position. The slower it goes back, the further along in the aging process you have traveled — supposedly.

To me, all this test really shows is the elasticity of your skin. I guess that’s the point though; the older you are, the less elasticity you have in your skin. (You paused your reading and did the test, didn’t you?)

Weird as it may seem, I find myself doing this “test” quite often, all the time wondering how fast I’m aging. I’m still in what I call my mid-life crisis, which I expect to span the middle 50 years of my life – from 25 to 75. I keep changing my interpretation of how mid-life is defined.

Obviously, we’re all growing older. My body is constantly reminding me that “the old gray stallion ain’t what he used to be.” When I mow the lawn each weekend, I get reminded. When I go up and down the stairs at home 40 times a day, I get reminded. When I get out of bed in the morning, I get reminded.

An event years ago was one of the first times I really felt the effect of overdoing myself physically and telling myself, “Maybe I’m too old for this.” The call went out in our neighborhood that help was needed to lay sod for an older couple who had a newly constructed home.

About 20 of us showed up and more than 13,000 square feet of sod was put down in less than four hours. The next morning, the muscles in my legs and back asked me, “How young do you think we are?”

A couple of days later, I went dancing. My wife had arranged to have old (and I mean old — because they’re my age) college friends come to Snow College and reunite their ’50s/’60s band – The Malibu Revue.

These guys traveled from as far away as Texas and California for the event. There were hundreds of college kids doing the twist, the swim, the swing, the limbo, the bunny hop and who knows what else out on what was then the new Heritage Plaza at the college. It’s the space between the relatively new Karen Huntsman Library and the Noyes Building.

My wife put on a polka dot skirt and flipped her hair and we were out there with the younger generation movin’ and a groovin’. As I look back now and sometimes walk with a slight limp, I think it was the Beatle’s “Twist and Shout” song that did me in. My knees have never been quite the same since.

I remember having a great time at the dance. The music was terrific and the crowd was lively and fun. At the end of the dance, they chanted “one more song, one more song.” The band did two more songs. I had a great time, but my age showed. And, my age hasn’t stopped showing since.

Nowadays, I enjoy watching people dance as much as doing the dancing myself. Last Saturday, I watched my daughter and granddaughters learn some line dancing dances off of YouTube in my front yard. I somehow was not tempted to join them.

To young children, getting older is a positive thing. They are always looking ahead to the next milestone in their lives. We as adults seem to encourage this thinking. “Oh, you’re 4 years old. I bet you can’t wait to go to school next year.” “Just think, when you turn eight years old, you’ll be able to stay up until eight o’clock for your bedtime.”

Soon kids can’t wait for their next birthday so they can do something new. It might be seeing a PG-rated movie or going to a dance. Sometimes it’s dating or driving a car.

Somehow, they lose the ability to enjoy the age they are at currently because the next age coming up looks so attractive. Appearing to be older is often a goal of young people.

I used to grow a beard so as to appear to be older. I believed looking older gave me more credibility. It also made me feel “tougher” as I walked down streets in cities. (Hey, don’t mess with me because I’m tough. See, I’m older and even have a beard to prove it)

Of course, time marches on and the tide turns. Aging and looking older becomes something to avoid. My beard growing phases now are simply motivated by becoming sick and tired of shaving. I now usually go clean shaven in order to look younger because my facial hair is white.

I know people who go to great lengths to attempt to slow the aging process. You know? – a face lift here, a hair coloring there – always fighting the forces of time. I have no problem with that, unless it becomes an obsession and occupies every waking moment. (Don’t look at my eye brows too closely. Yep, a little mascara never hurt anyone.)

I say that youth is all in your mind. (Even though my body seems to disagree.) Dylan Thomas wrote something that goes along with this concept. He wrote it in the year I was born which was the year before he died.

“Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rage at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light”

My interpretation of those serious lines is simply this: Don’t become an “old fogey.” Live until you die. Go and do things. Get off the sidelines occasionally and don’t treat life solely as a spectator sport. Even if it means doing the twist at a college dance and living with sore knees for a few days (weeks? rest of life?).

— Merrill