"In me thou seest that time of day when yellow leaves, or none or few to hang about the boughs..." (WS)

.....I am convinced that aging is a ritual that elderly people, such as myself, are trapped into participating by the laws of geriatrics and gravity. First come the medications; when I was 56 I just took an aspirin in the afternoon and then went out and ran ten miles. Now that my 86th birthday is arriving just as it generally; no, usually, does on the 27th I take 19 medications not including the Tylenol and the Xanax I imbibe once in a while--when the spirit (or the laws) move me.

.....Then the aging phenomenon continues, One day You feel an uncomfortable flutter in your chest or like your heart is going to jump out of your ribs or that your heart is "flip-flopping around." Your pulse is irregular and/or more rapid than normal. like a motor idling too fast in your chest.You may feel lightheaded, very tired, have shortness of breath, sweating and chest pain, and sometimes a distressing need for frequent urination. You decide to get a check-up and the doctor tells you that you have Atrial Fibrillation or as they say, A-fib. (it isn't clear how A-Fib and frequent urination are related). So, now is the time to get a pacemaker in your chest. Reluctantly, or like the schoolboy "with satchel on back crawling unwillingly to school," you agree to the procedure. Of course, now you have to take the medication involved to keep your heart quiet.

.....Now that you have entered into the aging phase of your life you find that when you walk more than a few steps, your left leg bursts into pain. You discover that you have "intermiitent claudication" and so your son buys you a cane which doesn't do a hellova lot of good. But the doc gives you medication for your condition. Now the meds are creeping slowly into your life. As the aging continues, you realize that once you were 5'7" and now you are 5'6"! Gravity is doing its job. Of course, you are now a senior citizen and a member of AARP, and as such it behooves you to fall and break your hip--just like everyone else. So a hip replacement is in order, and afterwards you must purchase a walker. Now you have joined the Walkers Club. This event involves pain--and more meds--pain killers.

.....Reading a newspaper, you learn that the next Super Bowl in Florida will not arrive until 2015, a fateful and scary date because if you want to go, you'll be 91--if you ever get to be 91. By now you are thoroughly depressed and so you seek a visit with a psychiatrist. You discuss your situation with him--or her, and he--or she prescribes more meds. And now you remember Dylan Thomas's poem, "Do not go gentle into that good night" and the first lines, "Old age should burn and rave at close of day...", and the lines that burn your brain, "Rage, rage against the dying of the light." OK! OK! i GET IT!