Cobb: Here’s hoping age 60 is the new 40

This year I turn 59. Fifty-nine and holding. With some of the aches and pains that have set in recently because of aging, that’s an absurd proposition.

Best reserved for those 39 and holding, like Jack Benny. Wait, he’s dead. But he did live to be 80, so that adage must have helped his outlook.

The best we can hope for is to die of old age. Why think of death when this is a new year? It’s time for resolutions, but only for the resolved I’d say.

Resolved: If my belly button sticks out when it used to stick in; if the ball of my foot feels like two balls when I walk; and if my neck gets a crick when I simply blow my nose, what’s the use?

Does that mean I give up? Hmmm. I wanted to say, does that mean I charge ahead and find a new career or hobby full of promise and challenge?

A little voice says that this is reserved for the young. I don’t want to hear positive feedback anymore. (Actually, I’d like to not hear little voices anymore.) It doesn’t motivate me and it doesn’t make me feel younger.

And I refuse to wear a suit, unless it’s a sweat suit, roomy in the rear and front.

Is the future an abyss to me? Not at all. The future holds many mornings at the breakfast table reading the obituaries, I’ll tell you. We read that someone has “passed on” or “transcended the present” or “expired” or “met his Maker.”

I say, in many instances, it’s just that the body’s organs start to fail one after the other. As my doctor said about how my dad died, “It’s a cascading effect.” An elegant phrase for an inelegant ending.

At least Dad got his wish: He didn’t linger and become a “burden.” When you think of it, “burden” sounds more devilish than “passed on.”

Speaking of aging, I’m clumsier than I used to be. It’s like I don’t know my own body anymore. Forget being comfortable in your own skin like Ronald Reagan. I used to dash up the stairs like a Fred Astaire or something. Now I don’t even think about doing that because I have way too much respect for my shins.

My butt gets in the way of the refrigerator door too often. I don’t mean I get into the refrigerator too often (perhaps), but that if it’s a contest between me and the door, the door wins.