It’s Fall. This is significant.

I have been singing an old Frank Sinatra song in my head this morning. I do that. The song is entitled “It Was a Very Good Year.” The words go like this: “But now the days grow short, I’m in the autumn of the year ... It was a very good year.”

I understand that song now. Go to YouTube and listen.  

Wow. What a good comparison of our lives.

Stella loaned me a yellowed piece of paper that had been tucked in an old book of her father’s. It was typed on a manual typewriter, and entitled, “Life After 40 ... How to know you’re growing older.”

Well, duh. When I lie on my back and reach my arms over my head, gravity works in such a way that ... how can I say this? I see clearly that those are my mother’s arms. Wait! They belong to me! 

Here are some of the stellar points from the article. I hope you identify and see where you might “fit.” I chose what I consider the very best points.

1. Everything hurts and what doesn’t hurt doesn’t work. 

2. The gleam in your eye is from the sun hitting your bifocals.

3. You feel like the night before and you haven’t been anywhere.

4. Your children begin to look middle-aged.

5. You join a health club and don’t go. (Same for a diet club?)

6. You know all the answers, but nobody asks you the questions.

7. Your knees buckle, but your belt won’t. 

8.  You REGRET all those mistakes when you resisted temptation. (Really, you wouldn’t have, would you?)

9. You stop looking forward to your next birthday. (I stopped counting years ago. Now I just eat the cake!)

10. Your back goes out more than you do.

11. A fortune teller offers to read your face.

12. You are startled the first time you are addressed as “Old Timer.” (Today, it’s honey, dearie, sweetie.)

13. You burn the midnight oil after 9 p.m. (I went to bed a few nights ago at 8:30 and I thought it was 10:30.)

14. You sink your teeth into a steak and they stay there. (Thank you, God for implants and modern dentistry.)

15. You remember today that yesterday was your wedding anniversary.

Good ones!

I decided to add a few of my own.

1. I wake up with a start at 1:30 a.m., get out of bed at 2 a.m., knowing that at least six of my friends are awake as well. (Maybe we should organize a midnight bridge foursome.)

2. I lie wide awake at midnight, and suddenly remember the glass of iced tea I drank about 2 p.m. that day.

3. My skin is dry.

4. My eyes are dry.

5. My pants are wet (from laughing).

6. My lower arms from the elbow don’t look like my arms. My upper arms resemble ham hocks.

7. Loud music bothers me a lot. Low music I can’t hear.

8. Lawrence Welk doesn’t look as old as I thought he did when I watched him as a teenager (a one-a, two-a).

9. My I-Phone is smarter than I am. Of course, what/who isn’t?

Have a good week. Listen to Sinatra. Enjoy the beautiful Fall. Keep your chins up.

Judi Tabler lives in Pawnee County and is a guest columnist for the Great Bend Tribune. She can be reached at bluegrasses@gmail.com. Visit her website juditabler.com.