TIME FLIES
by
BILL COSBY


Also by Bill Cosby

FATHERHOOD

TIME FLIES

Introduction by Alvin F Poussaint, M.D.

A DOLPHIN BOOK

DOUBLEDAY

TORONTO NEW YORK LONDON * SYDNEY AUCKLAND

DESIGNED BY PETER R. KRUZAN

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data.  Cosby, Bill,
1937Time flies.

"A Dolphin book."  1. Aging-Anecdotes, facetiae, satire, etc.

PN623 LA43C67 1987 818'.5402 87-13083

ISBN 0-385-24040-6

Copyright @ 1987 by William H. Cosby, Jr.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

FIRST EDITION

 To my wife and my children, and my mother and father who can see the
change.  Contents

Introduction by Alvin F. Poussaint, M.D.I

Preface Where to, Old Cos?2 1 From Temple to Tire Rack 33 2That
Magician, Your Mind 53 3Could I Have a Second Opinion?  85 4 Do the
Legs Go Before the Mind?  115 5 Time Lurches On 135 6 Fifty Is Nifty
After All 167  Francis Bacon said, "Age appears to be best in four
things: old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust,
and old authors to read."

This is only my second book, but I am definitely an older author.

Younger than Francis Bacon, but older than I was when I wrote

Fatherhood.

Am I now an authority on age?  Well, I know nothing about gerontology
except how to spell it.  What I have put in this book is simply a
report on the current state of a man who arrived in 1937, just ten days
before the birth of Superman.  But for me, the only thing that flies is
time.

 TIME FLIES

 Introduction by Alvin F. Poussaint, M.D.

I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday and I love
today.

WILLIAM ALLEN WHrrE

Sooner or later, we get there.  Whether we consider Bill Cosby fifty
years old or fifty years young, the fact remains that Time Flies!

Cosby, like millions of us, has reached that point in middle life when,
for better or for worse, he must face the reality of growing old.  He
entertains and perhaps even soothes us with amusing stories that
capture his reactions to the early, sobering signs of the aging
process.  With the philosopher's sleight of mind, he helps us
understand that aging really isn't that bad-or goodl-that our state of
mind about the process is what's most important.  We laugh along with
him as he gets on the mark and gets ready for

 TIME FLIES

what promises to be a fruitful passage through the 'golden years";
Bill

Cosby will grow old, but he will never grow dim.

Throughout his career, Cosby has served as our puckish and empathic
guide to humorous journeys through the fitful stages of childhood,
adolescence, young adulthood, and parenthood.  He is a perceptive
social commentator whose comedy evolves from real-life dramas.  We can
identify our own experiences and reactions with many of his, and we
don't mind that his humor, sometimes bittersweet, touches on the pain
as well as the joy of our passage.

Time Flies offers Cosby a new and special challenge.  He cheerfully
peels away the layers of our normal defenses, allowing us to laugh at
ourselves and at life's ups and downs.  Unlike the earlier stages of
development, growing old can be an especially poignant time, full of
rewarding but difficult tasks.  The "best years of our lives" are
frequently marred by a slow but inevitable decline in our physical and,
occasionally, mental abilities.  Unfortunately, the gradual biological
deterioration that accompanies our advanced years is often aggravated
by society's negative myths about aging and lifestyles inhospitable to
our well-being.

My own reactions to the early signs of aging

 BILL COS BY

were, to some degree, the product of fears and misconceptions I
absorbed while growing up American.  I was not looking forward to a
peaceful old age "on golden pond," and my mind-set was decidedly
negative toward this twilight phase of life.  I became a bit melancholy
and, like Cosby, uneasy about reaching my Big Birthday.  I declined a
fiftieth birthday party because I felt that it was no cause for
celebration.  Did I want to keep my age a secret, perhaps hoping later
to masquerade as a much younger person?  My brain was not working
rationally.  I finally realized that I was experiencing an attack of
aging anxiety, a nonReudian entity that was more immediately worrisome
than the fear of death itself.

Cosby and I--and possibly you--are having concerns that psychologists
tell us are appropriate to our developmental stage in the life cycle.

Many people in their forties and fifties become nervous about growing
old before they experience the so-called mid-life crisis.  Women at
this stage worry about the approach of menopause, men about declining
sexual performance, and both bemoan lives that could have been richer,
fuller, or more successful.  Many middle-aged people plunge into new
careers, new interests, and new relationships as if this was their last
chance to experiment with life before senility sets in.  Fear of

 TIME FLIES

the stereotypes of old age is, I suspect, one of the critical
ingredients in the mid-life crisis.

Even psychologists and psychiatrists are not immune to such feelings of
panic.  It is normal to experience a little anxiety and resistance
toward some of the signposts along the road to growing old.  For
example, Cosby is very funny on the subject of his anxieties about
trifocals; I ignored my need for bifocals for several years before
yielding to the obvious necessity, waiting until I could hardly read
any printed matter and was unable to decipher a menu in anything less
than full light before giving in.  People worry that bifocals will make
them appear old.  (In my opinion, bifocals may threaten some men more
than sexual impotence does.

Only a limited number of people are in the know if you are sexually
dysfunctional, but everyone can see your bifocals and assume that you
are going downhill.)

One friend's anxieties about failing eyesight did not revolve entirely
around the desire to look young.  As a doctor, he knew that he needed
bifocals because the lenses in his eyes were becoming rigid and
inflexible.  Was this also happening to other parts of his body?  Would
he eventually-and all too soon--completely lose his vision?  And would
he develop cataracts prematurely?  A simple thing like bifocals sent

 BILL COS BY

him into a tailspin and made him feel afraid and vulnerable about his
future.

Other early signs of aging can push the middleaged to wonder whether
the time has come for them to develop an old-person identity-whatever
that is.  Similar disturbing associations occur when one's gum fines
begin to recede and the prospect of dentures must be acknowledged.
Hearing deficiencies associated with aging may also be denied even
though corrective hearing aids are readily available.  At mid life, too
many people discover for the first time that, even with exercise, they
cannot quite flatten their bellies anymore--and the paunch they always
thought they could banish is obviously there to stay.

As Cosby notes, the pull of gravity over time wins the battle.  Many
people in their forties and fifties are obsessed with their potential
physical decline and fear that the time will quickly arrive when they
require a wheelchair or are unable to rise from bed without
assistance.

Middle-aged people on the down slope often have these misgivings
despite assurances from their physicians that they are in fine
shape-for their age.  It is hard for many of us to admit that we are no
longer part of the Pepsi generation and that things don't get better
with Coke.

I won't belabor the obvious and common per5

 TIME FLIES

son al apprehensions about gray hair and wrinkles.  A youth -and
-beauty -worshiping culture dominates America, where what is "new" is
generally presumed to be better than what is "old."  Yet the compulsion
to look young and attractive is a burden that weighs much more heavily
on women than on men.  Women whose faces and figures were the primary
elements of their identity and self-esteem may behave with particular
desperation and denial when the aging process begins to show.  They are
the primary purchasers of "miracle" and "anti-aging" face creams and
surgical face- and body-lifts as they try to hold back the tide of
time.  (And an increasing number of men are becoming clients of
cosmetic surgeons.)

In my experience, some women develop aging anxiety as early as their
thirties, particularly if they are concerned about conceiving
children.

For some, unfortunately, the onset of menopause can be a terminal
symbol of lost youth and sex appeal.  It would undoubtedly be a boon to
older women if the attractiveness and allure of the "mature" woman were
emphasized, with diminished focus on youth for its own sake.
Progressive women are supporting such efforts on behalf of themselves
and the elderly.  However, as the middle-aged of both sexes grow
older

 BILL COS BY

and older, they ultimately worry more about the health of their minds
than the decline of their looks.

For example, a friend of my age, a lawyer, told me that her worst
apprehensions about aging were evident whenever she read law quizzes in
journals and had to struggle to remember the answers.  She wondered
whether she was losing her ability to think and recall information
compared to when she was, say, twenty-five.  Like others her age, she
was not getting less intelligent; she was just getting less practice in
taking tests.  Contrary to popular notions, IQ does not decrease with
age, although older people may follow logical sequences different from
those of the young in their cognitive processes.

It is critical to recognize that learning ability does not necessarily
disappear in those over sixty five or, indeed, over eighty.  Many
older, retired people return to school to earn college and graduate
degrees.

At any age, people can keep their brains functioning well by
"exercising" them, by staying involved in intellectual pursuits, and by
preserving a lively curiosity in the world around them.  Disuse of the
brain can lead to atrophy just as disuse of the body musculature can
produce weakness and tissue wasting.  An excellent way to nourish the
intellect and maintain alertness is to stay involved with cur

 TIME FLIES

rent affairs and politics, read newspapers and books, and tune to
interesting radio and television programs.  Stimulating the mind with
fresh and challenging material helps keep it in shape.

Many people wonder whether memory loss is part of the natural aging
process.  It does seem that as we age we forget more easily, but the
degree of the problem is greatly exaggerated and the causes are
debatable.  Sometimes older people appear to "forget" things because of
memory overload or simple lack of interest.  The so-called
absentn-dnded elderly may easily be distracted or appear withdrawn
because their minds are on other things; often they can recall with
perfect clarity events of decades pastl Acute stress and anxiety may
impair memory, just as they do in the young; but such impairment is
more appropriately referred to as memory lapse rather than memory loss.
Also, older people's memory sometimes appears to be slow because their
reaction time is sluggish, but it is not necessarily lost.

Experts agree that the elderly are usually not "losing it," they are
just not "using it" as often.  Some of the perceived decline in their
mental faculties results from the negative expectations of family,
friends, and society--and from their own inaction.

Senior citizens might not be so concerned about

 BILL COS BY

the decline in their mental faculties if it were not for a commonly
held stereotype that our mental acuity deteriorates as we grow older.
It's the old senility myth again.  Cosby frequently jokes about our
fears of losing our mental abilities.  Unfortunately, the terror of
senility sometimes becomes an overwhelming obsession of the aging.

Senility was once believed to be a condition that affected all older
people at some point, but only a small percentage are afflicted,
although the incidence increases significantly after the age of eighty
five  The most common form is Alzheimer's disease, which is a specific
disease and not an inevitable consequence of the aging process.  The
causes of this dreaded mental deterioration have not been completely
delineated, but in some cases the origin is a genetic abnormality.

Recent advances in the study of the brain have led researchers to
believe that arteriosclerosis, hardening of the arteries of the brain,
is not a cause of senility in and of itself, although it may lead to
strokes and other brain dysfunctions.  But arteriosclerosis is a
disease that is more likely to affect individuals the longer they live.
However, its development may be forestalled by a low-fat diet, good
medical care for high blood pressure, and surgical techniques that

 TIME FLIES

clear blocked blood vessels.  Other, currently experimental medical
procedures may eventually lessen physical disruption of the brain.

Impairment of brain function is not, of course, always related to
organic causes.  Some of the disorders mistaken for senility may arise
from psychological conditions.

It is ironic that depression and worry can themselves create the
appearance of senility in older people who do not experience its mental
and physical deterioration.  Depression occurs frequently in the aging
population, but it is not a natural, or necessary, condition of that
group.  The elderly commonly suffer many losses--death of spouses,
friends, even children; they frequently live in reduced or difficult
circumstances and may endure physical disabilities that make them more
liable to dismally low spirits.  Psychological depression,
characterized by withdrawal, sadness, and a lack of attention to
personal needs and duties, is often wrongly perceived as dementia. When
friends, family, and health care providers make this misdiagnosis the
individual is frequently denied available treatment that could help to
alleviate symptoms.  Indeed, statistics show that the rate of suicide
increases dramatically in the aged population.  It is important,
therefore, that friends and relatives learn to recognize signs of
depression in the

 BILL COS BY

elderly before an avoidable tragedy occurs.  Drugs and psychotherapy
cannot remedy senility but can often restore health to those who suffer
from melancholia and other behavioral symptoms.

It is a mystery to many scientists why the senility stereotype is so
commonplace.  Many people in their vintage years are actually smarter
in many ways than they were at twenty-five or forty-five.  Their
experience and accumulated knowledge allows them to think, speak, and
write with greater clarity.  As we age, our judgment usually improves,
giving us more intellectual balance and common sense.  While the
senility myth is, nonetheless, deep-seated in American culture, recent
research and education have broadened our knowledge and enabled many of
us to regard the old with greater objectivity.

New medical information and advances in scientific methods have
ameliorated some of the disabilities that accompany aging and allowed
many people to stay physically and mentally fit into their eighties and
nineties.  Modern science and medicine have changed both the concept of
aging and treatment for the aged.  New technology has produced refined
surgical techniques to treat cataracts, orthopedic problems and joint
disease, heart and cardiovascular disease, and dental problems.
Smaller, more com

I I

 TIME FLIES

for table and more effective hearing aids have greatly lessened the
disability of hearing loss that plagues many older people.  Partly as a
response to these medical advances, the retirement age in most
occupations has been raised to seventy or seventy five and in some
fields there is no mandatory retirement at any age.  Increasingly, the
elderly are being judged by their ability to perform-which is as it
should be-and not by some arbitrary cutoff age that defines the limits
of their usefulness.

The importance of maintaining physical and mental fitness in
middle-aged and older people is significant beyond the personal
satisfaction and enhanced sense of well-being it produces.  The social
consequences are extraordinary as we witness the -graying" of America.
Life expectancy in the United States is rising steadily, and the
proportion of the population that is considered elderly has increased
dramatically.  At the turn of the twentieth century, women could expect
to live to about the age of fifty one and men forty-eight; today, those
figures are nearly seventy-nine for women and seventy-one for men.
(Rates for blacks and some other minorities are considerably lower
because of physical and emotional conditions related to poverty and
discrimination.) The approximately 28 million people in the

 BILL COS BY

United States who are currently over sixty-five represent about 12
percent of the population.  By the year 2030, more than 64 million
Americans will be over sixty-five, comprising a staggering 20 percent
of the population.

Contrary to the popular misconception that most of the elderly are
consigned to institutions, 95 percent live in the community, and most
manage their own households.

Sociologists and demographers are, appropriately, beginning to write
more frequently about the implications of these social trends.  The
fields of gerontology and geriatrics-both concerned with the scientific
study of aging-have proliferated as social and medical scientists begin
to grapple with the issues and problems of aging.

Growing old begins to concern most of us to some extent when we are in
our fifties.  But growing old gracefully, in good mental and physical
health, is unnecessarily impeded by attitudes in our culture that
devalue old age.  Too often we accept the myths and stereotypes about
aging that run counter to the common-sense observation that people,
whether in late middle age or quite elderly, are still individuals-and
as different from one another as young people are.  Sometimes societal
attitudes, more than actual

 TIME FLIES

diminution of our faculties, make it difficult for us to age
comfortably.

Bill Cosby understands that older citizens face a prejudice called
ageism, which can be as destructive and disabling as any other form of
bigotry.  Older people are often discriminated against in employment,
education, and housing.  Many are treated unfairly and even abused by
younger members of the community, and sometimes by those within their
own families.  They are too commonly the butt of insulting and
degrading ageist jokes.  The stereotype that the elderly experience a
second childhood has encouraged insensitive people to be patronizing
and condescending.  Gaining dignity and respect as whole persons is a
challenge for the elderly; senior citizens themselves have organized to
protest infantilization and the dissemination of myths and
stereotypes.

This is an "old is beautiful" movement, which all Of us, young or old,
should join; the life we embellish may be our own.

America's deep-rooted obsession with youth has metamorphosed the aging
process into something akin to a fairy-tale beast, without the beauty,
so that many flee from it in terror and disgust.  Reminiscent of our
childhood nightmares, the monster of old age drags us away as we cry
out in vain for help; in the

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end, the creature devours us.  We awake shaken, but relieved to
discover that we are still alive-that we are still ourselves.  When we
are young, if we think about it at all, we expect immortality; we do
not believe that old age and death can really happen to us.  When we
are older and presumably wiser, we should know better; but that is not
always so.

Poets have suggested that death makes a mockery of us all, which is a
jarring-enough thought.  But pessimists have broadened this notion to
suggest that getting older makes a mockery of us all, as well.  That is
like extending one's fear of the dark to include fear of the twilight.
It is apparent that our fears, as we approach the twilight years,
ultimately contribute to speeding our decline.  In fact, many of us
become what we are afraid we will become-or what society has told us we
will become.  Don't we all share at least some of the blame for making
aging an evil force capable of poisoning the rest of our lives?

Growing old understandably reminds us that there is some chance that,
in time, we will become debilitated, helpless, and dependent--a
frightening thought.  The fear of death is often not so much a fear of
dying per se, but a dread of the complete loss of control over one's
life and destiny.

Similarly, apprehensions about aging often involve the terror of
feel

TIME FLIES

ing abandoned and useless, rather than terror about aging itself.  It
is noteworthy that young people struggling for control over their lives
frequently experience much more aging anxiety than the very old.

Happily for his readers, Cosby, in Time Flies, stares down the aging
monster and mocks him right back: "Ha-ha to you, tool" Laughing at
ourselves is never easy; it is even more difficult when we reach late
middle age and perceive ourselves entering the ranks of the elderly.

Some may feel that it is no joke to suffer diminished hearing, vision,
and memory, that there is nothing funny about the threat of heart
disease, stroke, and dementia.  But, as Cosby demonstrates, a bit of
counter phobia helps: the middle-aged and the elderly do benefit from a
sense of humor about aging.  The negative aspects of growing old have
to be placed in perspective for the positive aspects to emerge.

Cosby teases us about skin creams, hair coloring, and cosmetic surgery,
pointing out that they cannot stave off our ultimate decline forever,
but he also knows that such assists to nature can help us feel more
youthful and fit-and therefore in control longer  For most people,
aging need not and should not be a time of despair.  Our sunset may
lack some of the brightness of our sunrise, but it has its own
special

 BILL COS BY

beauty if we team to see and appreciate its possibilities.  That is not
always easy, yet one of the positive effects of this book is to
encourage each of us to reflect on our own feelings about aging.

One indication that people's attitudes toward the elderly are changing
is the vote of confidence Americans gave President Reagan in electing
him to a second four-year term in 1984, when he was seventy-three years
old.  In addition to the trauma of a gunshot wound, he has survived
surgical procedures for conditions common to the elderly.  In 1987,

President Reagan continues to function well mentally (whatever one may
feel about his politics), despite his advancing age.  Many other highly
visible, energetic, and successful people are over the age of
seventy:

George Burns, Bob Hope, Lena Home, justice Thurgood Marshall, Mother

Teresa, and Dr.  Benjamin Spock, to name only a few.

Men and women over sixty-five who have an optimal aging attitude have
managed to adapt positively to the triumphs and disappointments of
life.

Retired people are free of the pressures and strains of earning a
living and getting ahead in the world; except for medical concerns,
they should have a lot to feel good about.  They have experienced and
enjoyed living, and many have worked hard to raise a family.

 TIME FLIES

In the mellowness of maturity, they have time for the leisurely pursuit
of their own interests.  Older people-at least some--can savor the
wisdom that comes with age and come to terms with their Maker.  It is a
time in which the elderly can take a broad view of life across the
generations and feel a sense of comradeship with all humankind.

If we fail to adapt well at this stage, then at the negative-attitude
pole, life can be filled with disgust and despair.  The elderly at this
extreme are angry and contemptuous about all facets of life.  Chronic
disappointment contributes to this state of mind.  Some, but not all,
senior citizens are tipped toward the pole of despair by failing health
and other disabilities.  Many have medical problems that emerge after
the wear and tear of time and prolonged exposure to health risks; about
four out of five who are sixty-five and over have a chronic medical
condition.

Physical weakness and persistent disability are among the most serious
issues for the aged population.  A rather strong connection between
mind and body in the aged has been neglected: "A sound mind in a sound
body" is ancient wisdom that needs reemphasis for seniors.

One of the most important ways in which the elderly can stay fit,
physically and emotionally, is

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through regular exercise.  Though their reflexes may have slowed and
their stamina diminished, older people can keep their muscles and
bodily organs functioning well by participating in physical activities
like walking, swimming, bicycling, and other sports; conversely, the
lack of exercise contributes to feeling old and tired.  It is
important, however, for all of them, particularly those who are
impaired, to use moderation and respect the limitations of their
bodies.  They may not be able to exercise quite as vigorously as they
once did--old bones break more easily and do not heal as well as they
did in youth-but sensible, careful activity is both possible and
desirable for most of the elderly.  By slowing down a bit, the older
person can savor each activity, a luxury most of us don't have when
we're younger.

Researchers have also discovered that physical exercise reduces tension
and improves function in the elderly, as it does in people of all
ages.

It is good prevention against the risks of depression and social
withdrawal.  Investigators further report that older people who remain
active and exercise regularly perform better on tests of mental
capacity.

Senior citizens, in my opinion, must also have the opportunity to
dance, sing, socialize, and just act silly on occasion.

 TIME FLIES

Remaining sexually active is particularly important, for it provides
good exercise as well as a strong, relaxing emotional release.  Cosby
jokes about his reduced libido when he discovers one gray pubic hair,
but that problem is only in his headl Sexual energy may diminish in
some people as they age, but the elderly should not succumb to that
other great myth: that they are "over the hill" sexually.  There is
overwhelming evidence to suggest that the capacity for sexual
performance and satisfaction exists well into the nineties.  The chief
causes of decreased sexual activity among senior citizens are physical
disability, lack of interest, and, ironically, embarrassment that they
are still interested.  You can't always control physical limitations,
but you can often control interest.  Elderly men should not abstain
from sex because of inhibiting stereotypes about "dirty old men."
Elderly women who maintain strong sexual interests are also considered
"odd."  Their lives would surely be healthier if there were more "sexy
senior citizens" around.

Part of any sexual enhancement and physical fitness program for the
elderly should include good nutrition.  Overweight, for example, speeds
up any physical and sexual decline that accompanies aging.  It also
predisposes those of advanced years to be at

 BILL COS BY

high risk for diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and other disabilities.
Poor nutrition and lack of essential vitamins and minerals can increase
the odds of disease in bones, muscle, skin, internal organs, and even
the brain.

Preparation for a healthy life during the vintage years should start
when we are young.  The early adoption of eating habits and regimens
that support good health keeps us functioning well and longer into old
age.

Cigarette smoking, excessive alcohol and caffeine consumption, and the
abuse of drugs, added to poor nutrition and lack of exercise, will make
us look old far before our time.  People who smoke, for instance,
wrinkle more quickly.  Those who overexpose themselves to the sun when
they are young not only wrinkle faster, but increase their risk of skin
cancer.

Chronic stress and frustration will combine synergistically with all
the other harmful activities to bring on premature aging.

Parents should begin early, through instruction and example, to prepare
their youngsters for middle and old age by establishing healthy
patterns that will serve them well in later LIFE.  They will then have
less cause to restructure their habits in mid-life and beyond-the
difficult process of re behaving that Cosby humorously describes.

 TIME FLIES

We can age more gracefully, but growing old is certainly not all bliss;
aging eventually catches up with us.  After age eighty-five, most of us
will be restricted to some degree.  Society can help by providing the
necessary support services for the disabled elderly, namely, care by
relatives, home care, supportive retirement communities, transportation
access, and nursing homes.  We must also try to lessen the burdens of
poverty and expensive health care that increase the chances of severe
stress and disability.  Social Security and Medicare may have to expand
their coverage to provide income and health insurance for the elderly,
particularly those stricken with long-term and catastrophic
illnesses.

When the time comes, older people should also have a right to die in a
dignified fashion, without the needless prolongation of their lives by
high-tech medical devices.  The legal and ethical issues involved in
unnecessarily maintaining the "living dead" are being debated by
physicians, lawyers, clergy, and the elderly themselves.

As ever-increasing numbers of our population live longer, new attitudes
and new discoveries have enabled society to take some of the "monster
factor" out of aging.  Perhaps Cosby and other middle-aged people will
be able to look back one day and wonder,

 BILL COS BY

"Why did I have all those anxieties when the early signs of aging crept
up on me?"

One of the important messages Cosby conveys in this book is that the
essential ingredients for a fulfilling life are the same for young and
old.  Older people need not undergo a prescribed disengagement from
life.

Love, friendship, a feeling of connectedness with others, and a sense
of humor remain critical to our sense of well-being.  As time goes by,
we should not forget the redemptive power of smiling, laughing, and
hugging.

Sooner or later, we will all get there-I hope in the right state of
mind.

But now let's go on to Time Flies.  Preface

VMERE TO, OLD COS

 I recently turned fifty, which is young for a tree, mid life for an
elephant, and ancient for a quarter-miler, whose son now says, "Dad, I
just can't run the quarter with you anymore unless I bring something to
read."

Fifty is a nice number for the states in the Union or for a national
speed limit, but it is not a number that I was prepared to have hung on
me.  Fifty is supposed to be my fiaher's age, but now Bill Cosby,
junior, is stuck with these elevated digits and everything they mean. A
few days ago, a friend tried to cheer me up by saying, "Fifty is what
forty used to be."  He had made an inspirational point; and while I
ponder it, my forty-year-old knees are suggesting I sit down and my
forty-year-old eyes are looking for their glasses, whose location has
been forgotten by my forty-year-old mind.

 TIME FLIES

Am I over the hill?  They keep telling me that the hill has been moved,
that people are younger than ever.  And I keep telling them that the
high-jump bar has dropped from the six feet five I once easily cleared
to the four feet nothing that is a Berlin wall for me now.  It is not a
pretty sight to see a man jumping a tennis net and going down like
something snagged by a lobster fisherman.

"You're not getting older, you're getting better," says Dr.  Joyce

Brothers.  This, however, is the kind of doctor who inspires a second
opinion.

And so, as I approach the day when my tennis court jumping will be over
the balls (or maybe the lines), I am moved to share some thoughts on
aging with you, in case you happen to be getting older too.  I am moved
to reveal how aging feels to me-physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Getting older, of course, is a distinctly better change than the one
that brings you eulogies.  In fact, a poet named Robert Browning
considered it the best change of all:

Grow old along with me!  The best is yet to be.

On the days when I need aspirin to get out of bed, Browning is clearly
a minor poet; but he was an

 BILL COS BY

optimist and there is always comfort in his lines, no matter how much
you ache.

Whether or not Browning was right, most of my first fifty years have
been golden ones.  I have been an exceedingly lucky man, so I will
settle for what is ahead being as good as what has gone by.  I find
myself moving toward what is ahead with a curious blend of both
fighting and accepting the aging of Cosby, hoping that the philosopher
was right when he said,

"Old is always fifteen years from now."

Turning fifty has not bothered me, but people keep saying it should
have, for fifty is one of those milestone ages that end in zero.  Of
course, in

America every age ending in zero is considered a milestone age.  Fifty
is called The Big Five-O, but Forty is The Big Four-0 and Thirty is The
Big

Three-O.  A few months ago, my youngest daughter hit The Big One-0 and
she wasn't happy about it.

"I wish there were more single figures," she said.

Although reaching this half-century mark has not traumatized me, it has
left me with disbelief about the flight of time.  It seems that only
yesterday I was fifteen and old people were people of forty, who were
always going someplace to sit down.  And now I am doing the sitting;
and now my wife is telling me,

 TIME FLIES

"You sit too much.  You should get up and do something."

"Okay," I say, "let's have some sex."

"Just sit there."

When I was eight, an uncle said, "Bill, how long would you like to
live?"

"A hundred million years," I replied.

"That's a ripe old age.  I wonder what you'll look like at a hundred
million."

"Oh, I'll just be me," I said.

Now, however, considerably short of the hundred-million mark, I am
having to learn to accept a new me, one who has to drink skim milk,
which looks like the wash for a paintbrush; one whose stomach refuses
to process another jalapefio pepper; and one for whom a lobster is
crustacean cyanide.

"If you want a lobster," my doctor says, "Just eat the shell.  "

Have I also become just the shell?  Well, in one or two places, the
meat is missing.  For example, I am now a man with the ability to dial
a telephone number and, while the phone is ringing, forget whom he is
calling.  just yesterday, I made such a blind call and a person
answered with a voice I did not know.  Like a burglar doing research, I
quickly hung up, and then I thought about age.

 BILL COS BY

Wiser men than I have thought about age and have never figured out
anything to do except say, "Happy birthday."  What, after all, is old?
To a child of seven, ten is old; and to a child of ten, twenty-five is
middle-aged and fifty is an archaeological exhibit.  And to me, a man
of seventy is ... what I want to be, weighing 195, playing tennis with
convalescents, and hearing well enough to hear one of my grandchildren
sweetly say, "Grandpa, was "The Cosby Show' anything like "I Love
Lucy'?"

FROM TEMPLE

TO TIRE RACK

 If a Body Lose a Body

In the beginning, Temple was not just my college but a description of
my body as well.  And I was not just any temple but the Temple of
Karnak. Like most young men, I was a perpetual motion machine.  I would
start playing basketball at eight o'clock in the morning, stop for
lunch of a cupcake and Coke, play touch football all afternoon (on an
asphalt field that makes AstroTurf seem like eiderdown), have a couple
of steaks and a quart or two of milk for dinner, and then wonder if I
could shake off the day's lethargy and find a pickup triathlon for the
evening.  In those years when

I was immortal, I could eat a whole pizza on the run, never even
pausing to taste it, and then my magnificent body would burn it as if
it were merely cellophane.

 TIME FLIES

"Chew your foodl" my mother would say.

"Can't!"  I would cry as if I'd just heard the starter's gun.  "I don't
have tim el

"You've got to chew your food.  Why do you have teeth?"

"I don't know.  Why?"

No mother or malady could stop me.  Had I pulled a muscle in my groin?
No problem: it would heal in an hour or two.  Meanwhile, I could play
without it.  Had I separated my shoulder?  It made no difference.  Only
softies needed shoulders that were attached.

I was physically such a splendid thing that one of my pastimes was
pausing nude before mirrors-always in my own house, of course-to admire
the 195 pounds of Super Cos.  How I pitied all the men who weren't me,
especially my father.  Not only did he lack my flawless muscular
definition, but he also had rolls of fat on both his sides that were
known as "love handles," and he grunted whenever he sat down.  He
usually concealed these handles beneath a sport shirt that hung over
his waist, but I knew they were there; and when I looked at him, I felt
the grand arrogance of youth and

I thought, Bhere is no way I will ever look like that I vowed that my
only grunts would come when I crashed through for touchdowns, and I

 BILL COS BY

vowed that my no-frills frame would never be adorned by love handles or
any other utensils.

Yes, when I was twenty-one, as Rank Sinatra likes to report, it was a
very good year for full court games and quarter miles and 195 pounds of
mozzarella-filled muscle.  And even a few years later in that golden
decade, when I was twenty-eight, the former Temple three-letter man was
still high-jumping six feet five with the body that Michelangelo really
had wanted when he'd had to settle for David.

But when I was thirty ... One day just after my thirtieth birthday, I
was playing basketball with some teenage boys, trying not to be
patronizing while I taught them some of my moves.  Suddenly, while I
was fighting for position under the backboard, one of the boys went up
high for the ball.  For a moment, I accompanied him and then I returned
to the launching pad.  A little while later, he also came down and
found me pondering a melancholy truth: if a man of thirty wants to go
flying with a boy of sixteen, he had better do it on Pan Am.

What had happened to the temple?  It was being vandalized, and the
vandal was time.

One morning the following year, after I had spent the previous day
jogging, I woke up and wondered who had come into my bed and put a
knife in

 TIME FLIES

my right thigh.  There was, however, no pain in my left one: it was
painlessly paralyzed.

A few days later, when I felt healed, I went jogging again and the pain
returned, this time a knife in my knee.  With a burst of machismo, I
ignored it and continued to run.

What's the matter with you?  said one of my legs.  Didn't you hear us
when we first spoke to you?  The legs go first, so we want to take this
opportunity to say good-bye.

A couple of weeks after that, I felt an ache in my shoulder when I
began to brush my hair.  Of all the indignitiesl A three-letter man
going on the injured fist during his toilette!  A man who had laughed
at losing his groin, a man who had dared his shoulder to separate, was
being drawn into the world of hnimentsl

Moreover, the hair that I was trying to find the strength to brush, one
of the fundamentals of my manliness, was being rearranged in ways both
funny and sad.  Instead of growing hair on my head, I now was growing
it in places where I didn't need it, like the top of my ear.  A strand
had sprouted there overnight and made me look like something in The Cat
in the

Hat

As I helplessly watched my body turn from a

 BILL COS BY

temple to a storefront church, I was filled with frustration and
disgust.

I was in a war.  Was it a war I wanted?  I had no choice: I had been
the victim of a sneak attack by an enemy called aging, an enemy that
was daring me to play a game of beat the clock.

And so, I became a part-time athlete, desperately trying to recycle
myself to a rough approximation of my former mint condition,
desperately trying to keep my father's body from taking over mine.
Sports that once had been effortless fun were now painful work as I
tried to recapture vanishing skills and do what I once had done with
such happy ease: to be as fast, as graceful, and as strong as I had
been for my three varsities in 1956.  Needless to say, the odds on my
succeeding were almost as good as the odds on a bullfighter losing his
ear to a bull.

I did not want to turn to playing golf because golf is about as much
exercise as shuffling cards.  Instead, I became a tennis player and I
got pretty good.  In fact, I am now considered to be one of the best
celebrity players.  Of course, this is not a Wimbledon group.  Mother

Teresa is a celebrity too.

 TIME FLIES

These jockeys Are Good in the Stretch

During these twenty years of competing with time, I have been forced to
witness many other signs of defeat deep in the hide of me, and on the
top as well.  It distresses me to report that, at the half, the score
is: Time-37,

Cosby-O.  For the man of fifty, it is always third and long yardage,
with a nearsighted quarterback.

All the assorted parts of me used to be flat and hard; but in these
twenty years of going downhill, I have seen the growth of a gut, the
thickening of thighs, the emergence of flab, the receding of a hair
fine and the coming forth of gas.  And the most mortifying betrayal of
me by my flesh has been one particular form of the flab: the growth of
love handles, which are hated handles now that they've moved from my
father to me.  A man needs rungs on his side only if someone is going
to climb him.

Love handles are more than just depressing

 BILL COS BY

breaks in a symmetry that women once joined me in admiring: they also
destroy your lower abdominal chic because your jockey shorts no longer
fit; and it is a point of pride for the American male to keep the same
size jockey shorts for his entire life.  He can lose his house in a
crap game and his wife to the mailman, but his ego cannot tolerate an
increase in his jockey short size; and so, you have a man with a
brand-new 40-inch waist who is trying to get into size 36 jockey
shorts, a man who is now wearing a combination of supporter and
tourniquet.  Proud men in their thirties and forties have gone to the
brink of gangrene to maintain the interior fashion of their youth.

And this proud man of fifty has been on the brink of embarrassment,
too.

One day last week, I went to a men's store and asked for three pairs of
jockey shorts.

"What size, sir?"  said the clerk.

"Thirty-four," I replied.

"Would you like them gift wrapped?"  he said.

When I brought the jockey shorts home, I cleverly cut slits in the
sides of each pair so that there would be a chance for blood to flow
below my waist.

Your pants are an even greater challenge once your stomach muscles have
surrendered to fat because you cannot fake your belt size the way you
can fake the size of your jockey shorts.  If you're a 38

 TIME FLIES

waist, you might be able to fake the first hole of a 36 belt, but a 34
will circumnavigate you about as neatly as Columbus reached India.

No matter what size belt is strangling you, there are times when it
will disappear under a roll of dough.  This roll has a texture that
feels like a melting candle.  You can grab it with your fingers and
even look under it to see if anything besides your belt is hiding
there-a deck of cards, perhaps, or an overdue library book.

I wish that there were a way to take a shower and still keep on my
clothes, for the sight of my naked body to me is like an X-rated film.
to an archbishop.  I look down and I can see it all, the rolling hills
of fat, and the view moves me to pray:

God, either give me longer arms or put my feet higher, perhaps at my
knees, so I can take off my shoes without feeling as though I'm about
to give birth.

 BILL COS BY

Restoring the Navel Base

I once had a lovely body and vestiges of it still exist.  I know, for
example, that I once had pectoral muscles because the two brown dots
that marked their location still remain on my chest.  The first twenty
or thirty times that a middle-aged man beholds such a vestigial body,
he decides that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and breaking down
is in there too.

"It doesn't really look that bad," he says, an observation equivalent
to the captain of the Titanic announcing, "We may be stopping near
Newfoundland for a while."  Living in this fantasy isn't easy for you
because certain indications of your decline keep coming from other
people, who look smilingly at your stomach and say such cute things as
"Can you feel it kicking yet?"

However, once you have passed through your stage of denial-your lunatic
stage-then you are ready to say, "Well, okay, I admit it.  Maybe I do
have a certain amount of flab, sag, and bloat, but I can get

 TIME FLIES

rid of it any time I want.  I can exercise, I can diet, and there are
wonderful new operations."

Your diet right now, of course, is chocolate cake and self-deception:
you have convinced yourself that it would not be hard to find your
navel again.  In fact, you do catch sight of it from time to time.
While you are standing, it's the same fine circle that was part of your
charm at the beach; but when you sit down, your geometry changes and
the navel turns from a circle into a slit.  In fact, the navel of a man
of fifty belongs on Dracula because it hides from the light.

It is also a tiny reservoir.  One recent day, I got out of the shower,
dried myself, and then accidentally knocked my toothbrush from the sink
to the floor.  When I bent down to pick it up, enough water came out of
my navel to make a hydrangea bloom.

The restoration of a navel base may be more important to a belly dancer
than to you, but such restoration is a symbolic part of your war on
fat.

After years of telling yourself that you don't really look that bad,
the day i~ally arrives when you have to admit that the emperor has no
clothes and parts of him look like the empress.  And you also have to
admit that the mound in your stomach that forms after a meal is now
taking longer to disappear; it may even take years.

 BILL COS BY

Moreover, as your size increases, your energy is going down.  Like
Noel

Coward's mad Englishman, I used to play three sets of tennis that began
at high noon; but now one set of doubles at four is fine-or one lively
game of bridge-because I have to get ready for the main event.  I have
to get ready for dinner.

Because of my dedication to the main event, I was recently disheartened
by a story that my ten year-old daughter told me.  Her teacher had
somehow managed to inform the class that the only thing in an adult
that keeps on growing is the nose; but the problem is that I have been
doing no exercises for the nos cpt, of course, inhaling new dinners.

"You know, Daddy, the teacher was wrong," my daughter then said.

"In what way, dear?"  I asked her.

"Well, the stomach also grows.  At least yours does."

 TIME FLIES

Can You Dig It?

Whenever I see a picture of myself at twenty-three, I know that beneath
all this superfluous flesh, there has got to be a body somewhere.  And
so, I have become an archaeologist digging in the ruins of myself, in
the junkyard beneath my spare tire, to find the pure body below.  I
know that such archaeology cannot restore my hair or my old eyesight,
and it cannot get me a new Achilles tendon or a new pair of lungs.  All
it can do is let me be reconciled with my old suits.

From time to time, I go into my closet and poignantly address what is
hanging there.

"Suits," I say, "don't go anywhere.  I'm coming back."

Once in a while, I do return; and, by happy coincidence, by the time
that

I do, the suit is back in style.

The man who is striving for a reconciliation with his old suits will be
wise to pick only certain moments to look at himself.  For example, he
should not look at himself immediately after dinner because the food
is

 BILL COS BY

still there and the spare tire is inflated to maximum pressure.  The
ideal time to look at yourself is first thing in the morning, when you
are not ftffly awake.

Shake a Leg

One of the compensations of getting older (and so far, I've thought of
only one) is that the medicine ball in your stomach forces you to
replace the athletic skills you have lost with interesting new ones.
For example, you learn the challenging gymnastic arts of putting on
your socks and tying your shoes.  Sock putting on and shoe tying are
not yet AAU events, of course, but at times they are harder for me than
it was to clear a high-jump bar at six feet seven.

When a man with an excess of mid sectional bloat bends to tie his shoe,
his reach is not only obstructed but he may even cut off his wind and
find the blood rushing to his head.  It is a dangerous part of getting
dressed.

"Why is Daddy taking a nap on the floor?"  your son says to your
wife.

 TIME FLIES

"Oh, he's not taking a nap," she replies.  "He passed out."  "from
drinking something?"

"No, he was trying to tie his shoe and that's not easy for a man of his
age.  He really should go to spring training before he tries it."

"I've got a good idea, Mommyl "What's that?"

"Let's fix it so Daddy doesn't have to wear shoes and then he'll be
conscious much more."

"You mean move to the beach so he can go barefoot all the time?"

"No, let's get him some slipper socks."

"A nice thought, honey, but he can't put those on either."

This mother has obviously seen me in the morning.  There have been
times when I was so out of shape that I could have used the help of a
small boy in putting on my socks.  Without such a boy, I was able to
put on my socks only by picking up each leg with both hands and then
putting my heel on a chair.

Without such a boy or a chair, a man of my age who puts on a sock is
participating in an event that requires split-second timing.  As the

Fernando Valenzuela of sock putting on, let me tell you how I do it.  I
raise my leg as high as I can; and then, for the

 BILL COS BY

second or two that my foot is quivering at its peak, I quickly bring
the sock down over my toes.  When my foot hits the floor, I finish
pulling up the sock.

It is clear to me why "Miami Vice" has been so popular with men.
Because millions of them watch it and dream of never again wearing
socks.

Still another bit of sartorial aerobics for the middle-aged man is
buttoning a dress shirt all the way up to the top before tying a tie.

Because your neck has grown to keep pace with the rest of you, your top
button prefers not to make the trip all the way to the buttonhole.  In
fact, the button below it is tight enough--and sometimes the one below
that.  What you need are dress shirts with zippers.

In your gritty effort to close the top button, you first lift your chin
and then you begin to turn and bob your head.  What you now are
involved in is an original way to commit suicide because you are
choking yourself as you get the top button halfway into the hole, you
feel you can't breathe and your face might explode.  You wonder if the
Heimlich maneuver has ever been used for a man getting dressed.  Six or
seven times, you bring the button to the hole and manage to get it
halfway in while making little gurgling sounds, as if you are gargling
without water.

 TIME FLIES

Eventually, of course, your acrobatics end because the button snaps.

It is precisely what your mind was just about to do.

There is, of course, one other way for a man with a size 17 neck to fit
into a 151/2 collar: with the help of one of his children.  Sometimes,
when I'm not in the mood for a long lonely struggle to squeeze into my
shirt, I call one of my daughters and ask her to strangle me so I can
close the button.  She grabs the skin of my neck and pulls it tight, I
button the button, and then she lets go and my neck expands.  I now
cannot swallow and have to take all my meals intravenously; and if the
button ever snaps, it might kill a passerby; but I am a 151/2 again.

After all, clothes make the man, even if the man is turning blue.

I've Got You Over My Skin

Some of the skin not far from what my daughter jams into my collar has
lately started to develop little black dots.

 BILL COS BY

"Look at this thing that just popped out," I said to my wife last night
as I pointed to one of them.  "What do you think it is?"

"A rerun of adolescence," she said, not wanting to tell me the truth:
that it was age.  "You've been eating too much junk food.  Underneath
that skin of yours are ten thousand Twinkies."

How sweet of her to comfort me with the thought of fifty-year-old
zits.

"You know, at your age," she often says, "you should get your food from
a health food store."

Because of this suggestion, I have made a few trips to health food
stores, but I have always left empty-handed, not because of any defect
in the supplies but in the customers.  Did you ever see the people who
shop in those places?  They are pale, skinny people who shuffle around.
They may live forever, but they look half dead.

In a steak house, however, you see robust, ruddy people.  They are
dying, of course, but they look terrific.

Although I just can't take the plunge into bean sprouts or alfalfa, one
day I did put a few carrot sticks and celery stalks into a bag and I
took a healthful walk in the park.  After a while, I sat down on a
bench beside an old man, who was both smoking and eating

 TIME FLIES

a chocolate bar, two serious violations of a longevity diet.  " Do you
mind my asking how old you are?"  I said.  Ninety-two," he replied.

"Well, if you smoke and eat that stuff, you're gonna die."

He took a hard look at my carrots and celery, and then he said, "You're
dead already.  "

THAT MAGICIAN,

YOUR MIND

 The Case of the Living Case )f

It might have been lucky if your mind had snapped while you were trying
to button your shirt because then you would have been taken away to a
place where you would have worn mostly bathrobes and pajamas. Moreover,
when the mind of a middle-aged man is AM in one working piece, it is in
excellent shape to torture him.  Mine has tortured me creatively.  It
has, in fact, given new meaning to the word "being in a fog."

When you reach my age, the fog makes your head seem like London at
dawn.

For example, one morning you start the old routine of packing your
attache case before leaving for work.  On this particular morning,
however, you also have two shirts that

 TIME FLIES

are going to the cleaner and a can of insect spray in case you're
attacked by killer bees.  And so, you pick up the fully packed attache
case, the two shirts, and the insect spray; and there you stand, a
well-organized man of mature years, who is ready to meet the day.

But not this day, for suddenly you remember that you have forgotten to
put something into the case: the smudge pot you always like to have
handy in case you run into a friend with frozen orange trees.  So you
open the case, put the smudge pot inside, and close it; and then you
pick up the two shirts, the insect spray, and the case--and you look
down to discover that something that was inside the case is now
outside.  a letter from the

Internal Revenue Service inviting you to the upcoming auction of your
house.

Now you open the case again, put the letter back inside, and close it.
You pick up the shirts and the insect spray and then you discover that
your new Whiffle ball, which had been inside the case, is slowly
rolling across the floor.  You are the owner of an attache case that
belongs in a Stephen

King movie.  You do not, of course, need a piece of leather to destroy
your mind because at your current age your mind

 BILL COS BY

can nicely self-destruct.  Nonetheless, here is a case that somehow has
been repacking itself.

After putting the Whiffle ball back, you decide to get a drink of
orange juice.  What you really need is a drink of grain alcohol, but
you take the orange juice because you want to keep a clear head in your
battle with your possessions.  And so, you go to the refrigerator and
pour out a glass of juice.  While drinking it, you hope that the
vitamins will go directly to your brain.  Then you pick up the case,
pick up the two shirts, and are on your way back to the front door when
your refreshed brain says, "Just a minute, pal.  What did you do with
the insect spray?"

With growing despair, you begin a hunt for it.  There is no point, of
course, in also hunting for your mind: it is permanently lost.  After a
while, you drift back upstairs and are about to start the day again
when your eye happens to fall on your desk, where is sitting the can of
insect spray.

How did it get all the way up there?  Why does the salmon swim
upstream?

Why is there a law against removing a mattress tag?  Why do children
always wait to ask you questions until you're on the phone?  Why are
the

Atlanta Braves in the Western Division?  Some cosmic questions can
never be answered.

 TIME FLIES

And now, ostensibly in control once again, you go back downstairs, pick
up the attache case, and cannot find the shirts.  The reason you cannot
find them is that you left them at the front door on your way back
upstairs to look for the insect spray; but you cannot remember this
right now because you have entered a period in which you cannot
remember your name without looking in your wallet.

At this point, you decide it is getting late-both in the morning and in
your life-and you will find the shirts tomorrow; so you go back to the
front door, where the shirts are waiting for you, still neatly buttoned
up.  You, on the other hand, are not wrapped too tight.

One more time, you pick up the shirts, the attache case, and then
softly say to whatever puckish powers run the universe, "Now what the
hell did

I do with the insect spray?"

You're losing it, old boy, says your mind.

"You mean the insect spray?"  you reply.

No, much more than that.  -Nonsense; I'm just tired."

Really?  Then where is the spray?

"In the attachC- case."

Okay, look says your mind.

"I don't have to look; I know it's there," you

 BILL COS BY

reply, continuing to talk to yourself without moving your lips.

You're afraid to look.

"No, I'm not."

And you open the case, try not to look inside, and you find the spray
nestled mockingly there.  You now decide to stop thinking about what
you are carrying and go to work at once, hoping that you will not
arrive at the office in your jockey shorts.

Wait a minute .. . Did you remember to put them on?

And did you also remember that when you were young, you never dreamed
that anything like this could happen to you?  A young man has
absolutely no notion that life will one day turn him into one of the
Three Stooges.

When I was fifteen and arrogant-a redundancy, of course-I once heard
some really old people in their forties telling each other how their
minds were playing tricks on them.

What stupid people, I thought.  How can your mind play a trick on you?
It's right there inside your skull.  How can it whisper so you can't
hear it?

But now I know only too well that the mind of a man my age is a
magician who could play Radio City.

 TIME FLIES

Through a Glass Darkly

I wear glasses, primarily so I can look for the things that I keep
losing.

One day, however, I did something I do not usually do: I pushed the
glasses up to the top of my head when I began to read a magazine
because I do not need them for reading.  A few minutes later, I put the
magazine down, walked out of the office in my house, and went to the
kitchen for a glass of lemonade.  When I returned to the office, my
children were circling my desk like vultures around a dying zebra.

"I would like all of you to please leave Daddy's stuff alone," I told
them.

"Don't mind us, Daddy," said my little one.  "We're just playing."

"And this is the one place I don't want you to play."

"What's this, Daddy?"  she said, picking up a script she was planning
to shred.

"Your next fifty meals," I replied.  "Now go out60

 BILL COS BY

side and bother your mother.  That's what mothers are for."

After they had left, I went back to my reading; but a few minutes
later,

I decided that I wanted to go to town for some shopping; and so, I put
on my jacket, and I also wanted to put on my glasses to drive because
part of safe driving is being able to see the other cars.

But where were my glasses?

I began to look around my desk, both in and under things, wondering
where my glasses had gone to hide.  I checked my cigar humidor and I
even checked the big box containing all the things I never use and
cannot throw away.

The reason I cannot throw them away is simple: some day a friend may
call and say, "Do you happen to have any dried-up felt markers?  I
can't seem to find any in the stores.  And do you also happen to have a
two-inch pencil with the eraser chewed off?  It's my favorite kind.
With a blend of determination and dismay, I now got up and started to
walk around the office.  I looked like a man who was hunting for Easter
eggs.

This does it, I finally thought.  There's no question about it.  the
kids have definitely taken my glasses.  Maybe they need them for the
school play.

Or maybe they think I'm handsomer without them.

 TIME FLIES

I did not, however, want to go right in and yell at the kids because
such anger in the past had usually triggered the reply, "Of course you
can't find something.  You always leave your stuff lying all over the
place.  The other day there was a can of insect spray in the fridge. It
had to be yours."

"If people would just leave my stuff where I put it," I always say with
partial conviction.

I am just like any typical nuclear physicist.  My office may look
messy, but I know where every atom is.

After brooding about the situation for another few minutes, I suddenly
decided that the culprit was not one of my children but my wife, who
had moved my glasses to a place in our home where they made a better
blend with the color scheme.  However, greater than my anger at my wife
was my desire to do my shopping in town; and so, in one last desperate
effort,

I searched the living room, the dining room, the kitchen, and even the
fuse box.

At last, I went upstairs and searched the bedroom, after which I
decided to go into the bathroom for five or ten aspirin.  As I entered
the bathroom, I caught sight of myself in the mirror; and I also caught
sight of something on top of my head: my glasses.

 BILL COS BY

They had been resting all this time on the great empty spaces there.

Aree for the Show

Those glasses were trifocals, which were invented by Benjamin Franklin,
who should have stuck to inventing things like electricity and the
United

States.  Trifocals are given to many people my age who need three
different fields of vision.

"These will be perfect for you, Mr.  Cosby," said my ophthalmologist
when he fitted me for my first pair.  "In the top band of the glasses,
you can see things far away.  In the middle band, you can see things
about fifty yards away.  And in the bottom one, you can read your
medicine."

In spite of the brilliance of Benjamin Franklin and your
ophthalmologist, your first pair of trifocals can turn a simple stroll
down the street into the asphalt equivalent of a trip up Mount
Everest.

The adventure begins when you go for the knob of the door of the room
you are trying to leave.  You

 TIME FLIES

have left thousands of rooms before, so this particular departure
should not be difficult.  All you have to do is figure out how far away
the doorknob is.

In one lens of your glasses, it's two hundred feet; in another lens,
it's on top of you; and in the third lens, it's missing.  In the spirit
of Magellan, you decide to determine the distance by a kind of
ophthalmological navigation: you take the average of the two distances
and conclude that the doorknob is one hundred feet away, give or take
fifty feet.  Unfortunately, the chart in your eye doctor's office was
full of useless things like letters instead of doorknobs and elevator
buttons.

Yes, elevator buttons.  Approaching the elevator, you again have your
choice of three lenses and three distances.  Is the button thirty yards
away, forty feet, or almost behind you?  With one chance in three of
being right, you quickly take your shot and you lose by jamn-thing your
index finger.  You finally start to understand why people in their
seventies and eighties who wear trifocals walk the way they do: with
tiny steps.  The problem is not in their legs.  They simply do not want
to walk off the edge of the cliff.

Many people my age, of course, do not want all the confusion that
trifocals bring and prefer instead to go through LIFE using three
different pairs of glasses: one pair for reading, one pair for middle
dis BILL COS BY

tance, and one pair for lunar eclipses.  The flaw in this system,
however, is that occasionally someone enters a room while you are
between glasses and you are caught with your naked eyes.  You are
frozen in a moment when you are unable to put on a pair of your
glasses, primarily because you don't know where they are; and so, you
have to play an increasingly popular American game called Who the Hell
Is That?

"Hi .. . George," you tentatively say, taking an educated guess that
what you are seeing is not a woman.

And when a female voice replies, "Hi, Bill," you have new insight into
the meaning of middle age.

While coping with middle age, at least I have the comfort of knowing
that

I will never have to cope with senility.

"Don't worry about senility," my grandfather used to say.  "When it
hits you, you won't know it."

And he was right.  He lived to be ninety-eight years old, thinking for
the last fifteen of them that he was Frederick Douglass.

 TIME FLIES

Sights for Sore Eyes

The indoor adventures that trifocals lead you into are scary enough,
but going outside with them adds new dimension to the terror.  The
first time I went outside with my new trifocals, I took a three-mile
walk through the lobby of my ophthalmologist's building, climbed a
five-foot curb, and then met an autograph seeker who happened to be a
giant eye.

"Mr.  Cosby, could I have your autograph for my daughter?"  said the
eye.

"Yes, yesl" I replied.  "Just don't eat me!"

After signing my name, I staggered on, expecting to encounter a sea
monster at the traffic light; but instead, an enormous eyebrow came
over and said, "Are you all right?"

"Would you please take me to a phone?"  I told the eyebrow.  "I want to
call my wife."

When I reached the phone, I dug out some change and spent a few minutes
trying to find the hole for it.  Luckily I had enough change for the
three

 BILL COS BY

wrong numbers I reached before I finally reached my own.

"Dear," I said to my wife, "this may be the last time you ever hear my
voice, unless you come and get me before I'm run over.  These trifocals
are about to get me killed."

"You idiot," she tenderly said.  "Take off the glasses and come
home."

Memory Is Made of Ais

The poet T. S. Eliot said:

April is the cruel lest month ... Mixing memory and desire.

Well, what I desire is my old memory, and not just in April; I forget
messages in October, phone numbers in March, and assorted appointments
in July.  I do, of course, remember certain things.  I remember my
anniversary because it celebrates the happiest association of my life,
an association with the person who knows how to save me from an
inter

TIME FLIES

section; and I remember my wife's birthday because she announces it
well in advance and momentously, the way astronomers announce Halley's
Comet.

However, in a few dozen other endeavors, my memory can hardly be used
as proof of man's evolution from the chimpanzees.

Short-term memory is particularly challenging.  These days, whenever I
come into a room, I need all my skill as a performer to pretend I
remember why

I came.

"Retrace your steps and it'll come to you," one of my children will
say, for you can never fool your own children.

"Retrace them to where?"  I reply.

Certain connections just seem to be beyond me at this age.  For
example, if someone calls me on the telephone and says, "Can you meet
me at the

Seven Eleven at eight?"  I show up at the Five-and-Ten at nine.

I used to be brilliant at remembering telephone numbers: I carried in
my head more than fifty of them, complete with area codes, and some
were even overseas.  In those days, if you had said to me, "Bill, do
you happen to know the number of the Yokohama Holiday Inn?"  I would
have given it to you at once, and I might even have thrown in the
address

 BILL COS BY

and zip code.  But today my mind is functioning in a different gear; in
fact, it's not really a gear, it's neutral.

The telephone rings at our house and I pick up the receiver and say,

"Hello."  That much I still remember.

"Hello," a girl says, "is Erika there?"

"No, she isn't," I reply, still.  on top of things.

"Well, when she comes in, will you please tell.  her that Lori
called?"

"I certainly will."

Lori's request is a simple one; a child of four can do it.  And I
should get a child of four because this man of fifty is not equal to
the job.

But what a proud airhead I aml Someone will.  call on the phone and
give me an important piece of information that must be preserved.
Instead of writing it down, I decide to keep it in my head, perhaps
because of all the room for it there.

"Write it down," says my wife.

Oh, you don't have to write it down, my ego tells me.  You can remember
that.

"Remember what?"  I reply.

Do not, however, think that I am incapable of growth.  After having
forgotten an impressive num TIME FLIES

her of messages, I finally started to write things down.

Okay, said my ego, we're giving in a bit But if we have to write things
down, we certainly don't have to write them down in longhand.  We can
use a code, just like a doctor.

And so, I began to write my reminders in code.  For example:

Tell E that L called

The only problem was that when I tried to read the messages back, I
needed some help from the CIA.  Who was E?  Who was L?  Perhaps this
message meant:

Tell Ennis that Linus called

Or perhaps:

Tell Ennis that London called

Or perhaps:

Tell the Extraterrestrials that London called

Not only did I have trouble breaking the code, but sometimes I didn't
recognize the handwriting.  Who, I wondered, had become my pen pal?

 BILL COS BY

As another part of this unintelligible correspondence with myself, I
also keep a pad by the side of my bed for writing down great thoughts
at night without having to turn on the light.  In the morning, these
great thoughts sound like excerpts from the Dead Sea Scrolls.  The
other day, for example,

I awoke to read:

Brans der grimble dbl wing & wang

Was this my solution to the mystery of life?  Or a reminder to pick up
cottage cheese?

I Wonder as I Wander

People above a certain age should not be allowed to have two cars
unless they are identical because these people often have trouble
remembering which car they happen to have brought with them.  There are
few moments in LIFE more damaging to your self esteem than to leave a
football game, a supermarket, or a mall and forget not only where you
left your car

 TIME FLIES

but where you left your mind because you cannot remember which car it
was.

And so, you start to wander around in the wilderness, trying to conceal
that you are looking for a car whose make has become foreign to you;
it's on the tip of your mind, that pointy little place.  just as in
look.  g for your glasses, you have to conceal that you are looking for
something you handle every day; and a car of course, is generally
harder to misplace than glasses, especially a four-door.

When you parked the car, you had said to your d, "Okay, now take this
down: we're a blue Valiant parked in A2."

And your mind had replied, Got it.  Have fun shopping.

So off you went, even walking backward part of the way to remember
exactly how your car looked and exactly where it was.

For the next few minutes or hours, you keep interrupting your shopping
to reassure yourself that nothing is simpler to remember than A2 blue

Valiant.  You even make up a little poem to fix the picture in your
mind:

Roses are red, My Valiant is blue.

 BILL COS BY

An Al car In row A2.

When you leave the mall, however, you find that this verse has taken
wings and in its place is a less winged one:

Roses are red, My car must be near.  Am I insured For losing it here?

People like me need a cute little yellow sign in the back window of
their cars:

NOBODY

ON

BOARD

The Face Is Familiar

That magician, my mind, can do another trick as impressive as losing my
car: it can suddenly erase the name of a person that I not only know
well but also

 TIME FLIES

happen to be looking at.  I still cannot understand how I manage to do
this trick, but I am capable of forgetting the name of someone I have
known for years-for example, my wife.

I will walk up to a group of people who have never met Camille, proudly
put my arm around her, and say, "This is my wife ... my wife .. ."

And she will have to fill in the blank.  Of course, the blank that
cannot be filled is the one she married.

Even rehearsing her name doesn't help me.  When I approach a group of
people, my brain says, Don'tforget the name of your wife.

And I reply, "Now how could I forget what'sher-name?"

But my wife should never laugh at me for my journeys into the fog.  She
is younger than I am, but she is already in training to be middle-aged:
she is starting to have moments of wondering if she has put the right
letter inside an envelope she has just sealed; and once a person starts
wondering what she has put into an envelope just a moment before, it is
only a short step to wondering if her return address is correct.

Losing track of the inside of an envelope is one thing, and losing
track of your car is another, but at my age it is also possible to lose
track of your house.  It

 BILL COS BY

happens like this: you are talking on the phone to a person you haven't
seen for years and you are describing the appeal of your house.

"It's a wonderful place," you say.  "You really should come and see
it."

"I'd love to," the other person says.  "N'at's your address?"

And you reply, "Five sixty-one North Twentyfirst Street," which is a
lovely address but does not happen to be yours.  You have given your
old address, where you haven't lived for seven years.  Your mind, like
a

French post office, now has trouble forwarding things.

Because of this condition, I am always sure to carry my wallet; and
then, when a person requests my address, I can say, "Just a minute;
it's right here on my license."

My name is there too, in case I am having a particularly bad day.

 TIME FLIES

A Room with a View of the Funny Farm

Although I like to work out on a track, I cover just as much ground
inside my own house because, as I have confessed, I am constantly
walking into a room, forgetting why I made the trip, and then trying to
jog my memory by retracing my steps.  Of all my shortterm memory
lapses, this one and forgetting my parking place are the two that at
least can lead to some good because they lead to exercise.

With an object I need in mind, I take a short walk to a nearby room;
but when I enter the room, I have forgotten what I came for.  My body,
however, still senses there must have been a point in making this
trip.

We're here, says my body.  Pick it up.

Pick up what?  replies my mind.

As I begin to circle the room with big blank eyes, my mind stops
talking to my body and addresses what's left of me, which isn't much.

 BILL COS BY

You need a break, says my mind.  Stop circling the room and take a lap
around the house.

"No," I reply.  "Before I take a lap, I'll stay in the room and look
around.  Maybe I'll find what I came in for.  Face it, old boy, says my
mind.  You're starting to lose it.

"Lose what?  Is there something else I should be looking for?"

Eventually, I remember why I came, but only after returning to the
other room and sitting down.  I remember because the thought that left
my mind went and hid in my behind and sitting down has jogged it loose.
You can save yourself a lot of this traveling if you simply slap
yourself on the behind whenever you start circling in search of a
phantom pickup.  Do not, of course, let your children see you
dislodging the thought this way.  They already suspect that certain
things in you are rolling around loose.

 TIME FLIES

Atten-shun!

All the failures of memory that can plague you, such as losing your car
at a mall or losing your glasses on your forehead or losing the reason
you entered a room, are minor when compared to the most embarrassing
trick your mind can play: forgetting what you have been talking about.
After scientists find a cure for the common cold, they will have to
move on to a greater medical challenge: why a man my age clearly
remembers events of thirty years ago but not what he said in the last
thirty seconds.  It is perhaps the most demoralizing moment that a
middle-aged man can know, even worse than learning that his twenty
six-year-old son is about to move back into the house or that his high
school sweetheart has applied for membership in the Gray Panthers.

The moment happens to you like this.  You and another friend in his
fifties are sitting together, perhaps at a party where none of the
younger people will talk to you because you still read books, or per

 BILL COS BY

haps in the waiting room of a doctor who specializes in the treatment
of people who have begun to click.  You have started talking to this
man about a subject in which you always have been deeply interested:
the history of hot chocolate.  You can see that your friend is
listening with attention as you spellbindingly reveal how the ancient
South Americans invented hot chocolate for an apres-sacrifice: they
would toss a fellow tribesman into a volcano and then relax with a nice
hot cup.  Not only are you being fascinating, but you are also building
to a major medical point: that hot chocolate is the safest drug and
should be given to babies before they develop a yen for something
else.

And so, you are merrily spinning these unforgettable thoughts, while
your friend is responding with continuous support:

"Oh yes, Bill, absolutely .. . A point well taken and I'm taking it
well You've a winged tongue there, man ... For sure, Bill, for sure ..
."

But suddenly another person approaches you and says, "Would either of
you gentlemen like some coffee?"

"No, thank you," you reply.

"No coffee for me," says your friend.

"Some tea or prune juice, perhaps?"

"No, thanks."

"None for me."

"Perhaps a mint or a Tootsie Roll?"

"No, nothing, thanks."

"Right, nothing for me either."

And then you speak the chilling words: "Now where was I?"

You are trying to return to your train of thought and discover that you
can't even find the station.  And neither can your friend, who has been
listening with such attention.

I have helplessly watched my mind shift into neutral on both sides of
this grand embarrassment: as both the derailed storyteller and the lost
listener.  If you're the listener, you say to yourself He must think I
haven't been listening, but I really have.  I love stories about .. .
about ... about .. . whatever he was saying.

And if you're the storyteller, your distress is even more painful
because your thoughts had been organized and you had been building to a
point.  You know many pointless stories, but this did not happen to be
one.  And so, seized by a mental power failure, the storyteller doubles
back desperately in his memory, but he still cannot find the train of
thought, which is running on a holiday schedule.

 BILL COS BY

This is the.  general style of going blank one-on one  If, however, the
storyteller has been talking to more than one listener when he goes
blank, then he has a chance to take a poll to reveal the subject he has
been talking about.

"Listen, folks," he says, hoping that he is still concealing his
dismay,

"I never like to repeat myself, so please tell me if any of you has
heard this story I was telling about .. . about .. ."

And hopefully he waits for someone to play Password with him.

But no one is able to play.  At last, his mounting frustration makes
him shed his subtlety and he says with a casual air, "By the way, does
anyone here happen to remember what the hell I was talking about?"

"I'm afraid I don't," one listener will reply.  "It happened too
recently.  But ask me about the night we put the donkey in the dean's
office to celebrate Kennedy's election.  Or ask me about the Battle
of

Gettysburg.  Eighteen sixty-three is like yesterday to me."

"I can't remember it either," another listener will say, "but it was
certainly memorable."

"Wait a minute now .. . it's coming to me," a

 TIME FLIES

third will say.  "Yes, here it comes.  Chalk .. . chalk ... You were
talking about the history of chalk.  "

The lesson for us middle-agers in this piteous tale is clear: we cannot
start a monologue leading to any kind of punch line or point unless we
are in an environment where no interruptions are possible.  The good
environments for storytelling, like the confessional, you can figure
out for yourself, but even in the ideal environment, people with
sometime memories like mine should still tell only the shortest
possible stories.

"Knock, knock," I said to my wife last night as we settled down to some
sophisticated after-dinner talk.  -Who's there?"  she replied, and I
quickly moved my story to its sparkling conclusion.

If, however, my "Knock, knock" had been followed by a phone call from
one of my children requesting money by Federal Express, the story would
have been no easier to remember than my story of why those old South

Americans got acne.

No matter what the length of your discourse happens to be, it is wise
to carry a pencil and pad; and then, when someone interrupts, you can
say "Just a second" and write down exactly where you stopped.

 BILL COS BY

Of course, some people need more than a pad.  Some people need cue
cards.

The only good thing about the decline of my memory is that it has
brought me closer to my mother, for she and I now forget everything at
the same time.  When I was younger, I used to look at my mother
impatiently and think, Lord, can't she remember anything?  But now that
we go blank simultaneously, I look at her and think, Is she supposed to
say "Knock, knock" or am I?

COULD I HAVE

A SECOND OP MON7

 Hello, Sponge

It is probably a good idea for a man in his middle years to get his
annual physical from Dr.  J because Dr.  J would never tell him,
"Things are getting spongy."  This has become the favorite word of the
American doctor in summing up the condition of a man my age.  Whether
he is referring to your prostate or your spine, "spongy" is what he
calls it.  You seem to be approaching the time when your entire body
will be fit for mopping a floor.

"At least my lungs, they're supposed to be spongy, right?"  you say to
the doctor with a quietly desperate look in your eyes.

"No, your lungs are getting hard, he replies.  "You're in what I like
to call 'parts reversal': some of

 TIME FLIES

the things that are supposed to be hard are getting soft and some of
the things that are supposed to be soft are getting hard.  Your head,
however, is still both."

"Doctor, is there anything I can do about the sponginess?"  you ask.

"I'm afraid not," he smilingly says.

"What about the hardness?"

"Absolutely nothing, so just don't give it another thought.  You know
the way the generator light on the dashboard of your car sometimes goes
on and you ignore it?"

"Yes."

"Well, ignore this too."

The doctor has been profoundly comforting with his generator analogy;
you may as well get your next physical at a Texaco station.  He does,
of course, give you some advice.

"You have to cut down," he tells you.

"Cut down to what?"  you say.

"Are you eating food?"

"Yes."

"Well, cut down, especially the stuff that has taste.  Stop eating
salt, sugar, egg yolks, red meat, whole milk, and almost everything
else.  Try to build

 BILL COS BY

your meals around parsley-but with no barbecue sauce, of course."

"Is chicken okay?"  you ask him.

"Yes, but without the skin."

"It doesn't look good that way."

"Then close your eyes and add lemon juice."

At this age, you find that lemon juice has become the all-purpose
seasoning: you squeeze it over the fish you have cooked with no salt
and the chicken you have cooked with no oil and the eggs you have
cooked with no yolks.  Eating egg whites, of course, is the gastronomic
equivalent of the tree that falls in the forest with no one there to
hear it.  Not only do egg whites have no taste, but their validity as
food is somewhere between celery and cellophane.

Were it not for lemon juice, you might not even know when you were
eating because tasteless ness has become the heart of your cuisine: you
sit down to heaping plates of celery and radishes, of cauliflower and
boiled beets, of broccoli and watercress.  I dare any scientist to
discover what celery tastes like.  Not only does your mouth not water
at the sight of celery, it dries up; and so, the lemon juice is needed
as a lubricant, too.  Eating such a meal is almost as much fun as
dining intravenously.

 TIME FLIES

Good-bye, Jack Armstrong

"Eat your spinach and drink your milk."

When I was a boy in Philadelphia in the innocent Forties, this was the
mealtime litany chanted by millions of mothers, who passionately
believed in learning nutrition from cartoons.  Popeye, the world's most
able-bodied seaman, sent cans of spinach directly to his arms; and Jack
Armstrong, the

All-American Boy, sent glasses of milk directly to his knuckles and
teeth.

Of course, Popeye had an IQ of twelve and Jack Armstrong was still in
high school at twenty, but they were the world's healthiest nitwits.

In the years that I was growing up, I began each day with a glass of
milk, the perfect food, and a bowl of cereal that was covered by more
of this perfection; and sometimes I also had bacon and eggs, the stuff
of rural wholesomeness.  For lunch (if I had time for it during my
marathon of street play), I drank a whole quart of milk, sometimes so
fast that I got a headache across one eye; and for dinner, I simply ate
two steaks, which

I didn't even bother to chew.

 BILL COS BY

By feeding me like this, my mother had no doubt that I would live to
one hundred and five, belting bullies all the way while also defending
the flag.

And then I learned about cholesterol.

"Did I hear you say that you eat fried egg sandwiches?"  my doctor
asked me one day when I was in my forties.

"With a pickle," I replied.

"You'd be better off eating cyanide; it has less cholesterol."

"But doctor, I still feel in pretty good shape.  My body is still a
temple."

"No, it's not: it's Fat City."

And so, from that moment on, whenever I had eggs, I ate only the
whites.

To compensate for the loss of the yolks, I quadrupled my intake of
spinach-and it made me sick.  Popeye is undoubtedly in a naval hospital
right now, wondering why all our mothers tried to poison us.

 TIME FLIES

Lead Us Not into McDonald's

Unsure of what to put into my mouth besides a cigar, I now go wandering
through the culinary minefields of America, trying to avoid the steps
that might be lethal.  You will pardon the mixed metaphor-at fifty, I
cannot keep both my appointments and my metaphors straight-but these
minefields are constantly calling to me:

Come, clog your arteries at Wendy'sl

Come, set up your bypass at Burger Kingl

Come, get your Kentucky Fried triglyceridesl

Come, meet your maker at Bar-B-Q1

The temptations are international, for the Chinese are also trying to
turn off my circulation.  Oh, for the days when MSG meant only
Madison

Square GardenI At times, of course, I cannot resist the call of the

Chinese restaurant; but at such times, I have to turn away from
everything succulent and say to the waiter, "Just bring me a menu from
the Long March."

 BILL COS BY

Even such a seemingly harmless dish as French toast has now become
tasty

Russian roulette.  Because this game is too dangerous for me, I have to
say to waiters, "I'd like an order of French toast, but hold the
bread.

And if you can figure out what French toast without the bread looks
like, then don't use any eggs or milk in the batter, and no butter in
the frying, please."

What I want is a plate of maple syrup-from which the sugar has been
removed.  And I also want maple syrup on my lettuce, cauliflower,
celery, parsley, and boiled beets so that I will be able to know when I
am eating.  I used to know when I was eating because I tasted the food
going down, but those were the days before I learned that my arteries
were approaching gridlock.  Those were the days before I was told to
switch from soft drinks to distilled water, as if I were not a person
but a battery.

And those were the days before I was constantly hungry, before I began
to fear that my body would soon start feeding on itself and go for the
reddest meat around: my heart.

It is a constant strain on you to be eating like this.  You find
yourself picking up such things as a box of toasted Swedish thins,
which make a sound in your teeth but cause no response in your stomach.
No wonder so many Swedes are depressed.

 TIME FLIES

I want potato chips with salt!  says your mouth.  I want potato chips
with salt from the Dead Seal How dearly I would love them!

But you also love life, so you settle for the leafy vegetables, which
act as diuretics.  There is, however, one compensation in this boring
new diet of leafy diuretics: your urine is clearer than it ever has
been.  You were, of course, happier in the days when your head was
clear and your urine wasn't, but a man of fifty has to accept his fog
wherever it forms--and he has to look ahead with hope.  My hope comes
from seeing all the people in their seventies who are feasting on
triglycerides.  When I recently took an ocean cruise, I noticed that my
mother, my in-laws, and many of their contemporaries ate no more than
six times a day, and they did not eat parsley or sunflower seeds.  And
so, I look forward to surviving my sixties and then merrily returning
to the food that poisoned Jack Armstrong.

The first thing I'm going to do when I turn seventy is go to a
restaurant like the one across the street from the Mayo Clinic, which
is a feeder system for the Clinic.  When I had my physical at Mayo, I
dropped into this restaurant and discovered that it probably holds the
original patent on cholesterol: everything in sight was covered with
chocolate, sugar,

 BILL COS BY

fat, or grease.  They might as well have served you a plate of corks
for your arteries.

Well, that's where I'm going when I hit seventy and can return to
deadly deliciousness.  I'll take a seat at a table there and smilingly
summon the waitress.

"Miss," I'll say, "are your triglycerides fresh?"

"Oh, they certainly are."

"And does the chef have a good touch with fatty molecules?"

"Oh, yes."

"Excellent.  Bring me a plate of bacon and egg yolks, with side orders
of sausages and crullers.  And fry it all in axle grease."

Let's Make a Deal

Until I reach these happy seventies, I will have to learn what I call
re behaving which means resisting the temptation of food that waters
instead of dries my mouth.  I will have to walk past cheeseburgers,
cheesecake, and hoagies the way that Ray Mil land walked past saloons
in The Lost Weekend Of

 TIME FLIES

course, I am losing more than just a weekend: I am losing good food for
the next twenty years-about twenty-two thousand meals.  It is wonderful
training if you are planning to forget the shore next summer and take
your vacation in a gulag.

And so, I now yearn for just one pancake with a dab of butter, but I
have to settle for bean sprouts, wheat germ, tofu, and other things
almost as tasty as library paste.  I wander like a lost soul past
Burger

King and Bar-B-Q, pathetically trying to negotiate with myself "Listen,
I've been good for so long.  Couldn't I have just one-"

Do you want to live long enough to see your children leave the house?

"But just one bagel with the egg whites at lunch.  Have mercy!  Those
egg whites are so boring that I'm falling asleep.  I'm liable to choke.
"

There's butter, salt, and sugar in that bagel.

"I'll toast it and burn that stuff off."

You'll toast the whole wheat bread for your cucumber sandwich.

"If you let me have the bagel, I promise I'll do four extra laps on the
track."

You want them to find all that cholesterol in the autopsy?  We want
your autopsy to look good.

 BILL COS BY

"Okay, forget the bagel.  How about just one buttermilk pancake?"

Buttermilk pancake?  Those things are swallowed by spies who don't want
to be captured alive!

Because I am trying to re behave I occasionally spend a week drinking
an herbal cocktail every night at bedtime.  This particular brew is
made by boiling water with assorted roots and herbs that look as though
they have been harvested from the inside of a vacuum cleaner bag.  And
while it boils, its aroma drifts through the house, decreasing its
value and moving my wife to look up the number of the Environmental
Protection Agency.  The purpose of this drink is to clean out my
clogged arteries; but Drano would also work and it would certainly
taste better.

Women and Children Last

Rom time to time these days, either my wife or one of my children will
sweetly say to me, "We want to keep you around a long time."

I do not mind this sentiment coming from a

 TIME FLIES

creditor, but when it comes from a loved one, I feel a curious blend of
depression, anger, and gratitude.  I am happy that the members of my
family are eager for me to become an antique, but why do they think
that I will go first?  just because I moan for a couple of days after
playing anything livelier than pre-dinner doubles?  After all, I am
only at mid life; and if fifty is mid life, then I will five to be a
hundred, when my quarter miles will be timed not with watches but with
calendars.

Although their saying "We want to keep you around a long time" does
indicate that they love me, it also indicates that they are keeping
themselves free for my memorial service.  However, I need not be
reminded by them about the way of all flesh.  Like everyone else who
makes the mistake of getting older, I begin each day with coffee and
obituaries.  I open the morning paper, turn to the obituary page, and
nervously check out the ages of those who've checked out, hoping to
discover that all of them were at least a hundred.  I do not mind, of
course, if a few of them were ninety-five; but when I find ages close
to mine, I get a chill in my aching bones and I search for comfort in
the cause of the death.  What I don't want to find is a heart attack on
a tennis court, in a French restaurant, or while attending a Temple
reunion.  1

 BILL COS BY

want to find death from a firing squad or from an attack by soldier
ants or from accidentally going over Niagara Falls.

The Numbers Game

In addition to telling me that they want to keep me around a long time,
my children also like to cheer me up by saying, "You look good, Dad."

Strangely enough, the older I get, the more often I look good; and
therefore my handsomeness will reach its peak when they bury me.

Precisely what do my children mean by telling me that I look good? Good
compared to what?  The people in intensive care?  When she turned
fifty,

Gloria Steinem said, "This is what fifty looks like," so I simply look
my age.

I may have made a mistake in this book by giving my real age, but I
couldn't help it: this is the most age-conscious nation in the world
and

I was just being a real American.  In fact, a man of fifty is suddenly
aware that no story written about Americans can

 TIME FLIES

exist without those two little numbers following our names.  And they
follow our names for no reason; it would make more sense if those
numbers were our

IQs.  For example:

Sam Russell, 52, said today that he cannot balance either his checkbook
or his mind.

This is a typical line in an American newspaper; but the routine usage
of

Sam's age gives us no insight into the cause of his bewilderment.  If,
however, the numbers were his IQ, they would be more revealing:

Sam Russell, 83, said today that he cannot balance either his checkbook
or his mind.

In spite of the wisdom of my suggestion, I'm afraid that we Americans
will have a hard time stopping this unfortunate habit of always tacking
our ages to our names.  Even though journalists keep announcing the
graying of

America, ours is still a youth culture; and, like a golf tournament, we
honor only low scores.

Children cannot understand how some of us have allowed our scores to
get so high.