Through the Ages : There...

The trick to turning 60 is never to have believed you were 50. Or at the very least, accept Pepys, who believed that the reward of years spent earning the estate carried every right to enjoy it. Of course, he was a callow 36 at the time.

In January, I celebrated the passage from quinquagenarian to sexagenarian as the eternal man; part silver dignitary, part bounder, all blithe spirit.

The norm should have been a surprise party attended by wheezing peers shuffling down memory lane and complaining about fading systems, replacement body parts and geezerhood.

But I chose to borrow a scarlet Ferrari Testarossa and reeled in all comers while heading rapidly south on the 405 for a champagne-and-lobster weekend for two at the Hotel Del Coronado. One night was spent mano a mano , Watney’s upon Burgermeister, with my son, the firefighter. It was a draw.

Since escaping my teens--a monumental trauma when a young man’s face, act and soul are expected to clear up at the same time--I’ve known that turning three score need not be some malady.

The moment might be inescapable, but perception and reception can be set like a thermostat. Rush at age and it will overtake you. By not wondering how you got there, or where you are, chances are you’ll forget you’ve arrived.

Satchel Paige pitched a full nine innings every day for 29 days when he was in his late 30s. We presumed he was in his late 30s because Paige never told anyone how old he was. He went to that bullpen in the sky sometime in his 80s after speaking a wonderful truth: “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you was?”

Among my rules for becoming 60 without being 60:

* I will not give up my motorcycle. Nor will I stop driving fast cars around racetracks because I’m sure my lap times are quicker than Paul Newman’s, who is nine years in front of me.

* I will not measure life by achievements realized or failed. When Mozart was my age, he had been dead for 25 years.

* I will accept that time changes triceps and hair lines. I do not accept that it erodes breeding, intelligence, tenderness, dignity, pride, loving and understanding.

* I will no longer envy Michael Jordan, Jerry Brown, Bjorn Borg, Prince Charles, Sinead O’Connor or Mark Spitz. But if I had it to do all over again, I wouldn’t mind being Clint Eastwood.

* I will stop saying: “If I had it to do all over again.”

* I will play tennis and only singles until an orthopedic specialist, dermatologist, neurologist or cardiologist says I must quit. Then I will sign up for doubles.

* I will continue to occupy window seats alongside emergency exits. In the unlikely event of a ditching, who would you rather have heaving you through a smoking doorway? Me or Macaulay Culkin?

* I will always keep a place at my table and a beer on the shelf for people who say: “You? 60? Get outta Dodge.”

* I will no longer make fun of my wife for covertly enrolling me in the American Assn. of Retired Persons. I resented the implication--until I got $3 off a matinee ticket to “Schindler’s List.”

* And every time I think I have sage, experienced, vital criticism to offer, I will pause and remember Andy Rooney’s curmudgeonly eulogy to Kurt Cobain.

So there is a definite upside to this soiree. One gets to make old people jokes without being accused of ageism. There are invitations to speak at senior professional affairs when at 52 nobody really gave a damn what I thought.

I play wise old owl to interns and yarn with these journalistic catechumen about spikes, copy pencils, Ben Hecht, Linotypes and the Vietnam War, and how I get away with using words like catechumen.

Above all, there is a signal, all-fronts release to being 60.

It says you’ve made it.

It can also reveal, as George Bernard Shaw should have noted, that age is often wasted on the old.

And GBS lived to 93.