Old (or not)

I suppose it’s important that I write something about the end of the old year and the beginning of the new.  My problem is that 2005 doesn’t seem at all like an old year, and 2006, although coming in just six hours or so, seems like it’s far, far into the future.
1933 seems like an old year.  1956 seems like kind of an old year.  1978 was just a couple of years ago, and 1991 was just a few months ago, wasn’t it?  And 2006 might as well be 2125 for all my mind knows.  I just can’t fathom the numbers.
Even though I’m the middle child, my family asks me things about “the old days,” as if I’m a white-haired grandfather rocking on the porch of the old folks home reminiscing about the times past and gone.  Does that mean I’m old?  I think of 1963 and the JFK shooting like it was yesterday.  Does that mean I’m old?  I recollect listening to the radio on Saturday morning when the serials were still on.  Does that mean I’m old?  I call to mind when the neighborhood got the first television, before KTVH (now KWCH) out of Wichita, the first Kansas televisions station, came on the air.  Does that mean I’m old?
What is old?  Is it white hair?  No hair?  Memory?  Lack of memory?  Stiff joints?  Artificial joints?
I’m not as sure now as I was some years ago.  I don’t feel old.  I don’t even look very old.  Is old a state of mind?  Is it physical?  Some combination of the two?  I don’t know, but I’m in no hurry to find out, either.  Where once I would have attacked the challenge of answering those questions with relish, I now know that there will be another day to work on them, and if not, they’re not that important anyway in the great scheme of things.