I'm 48 going on 18. I try not to think of myself as old, though I am at the age when parts that are going to break have started breaking. So far nothing unfixable has broken.

On Christmas day my wife, our kids, and I met her family at the nursing home to have brunch with her dad, who has been in the home for almost a year. My only fear about growing old is that I may end up helpless, in a nursing home. I feel fortunate that my own parents did not have to go through that indignity, and I sure hope I never have to, either.