Unregarded Age in Corners Thrown

By Dan Hagen

As you age, you realize you’re being taken for granted by the young — regarded, at times, with a sort of faintly amused indifference. Spooks you. 

You begin to hear your own voice sound suspiciously similar to those muted brass wah-wahs that mark the voices of the adults in the Charlie Brown cartoons.

But even as you fade into the background, you now see what’s going on around you with a vivid, unsentimental clarity. You discover with a start that you have become Miss Marple.

I remember how I felt when I was in Effingham High School 40 years ago. Seeing a girl I knew reading Agatha Christie’s “At Bertram’s Hotel,” I remember thinking, “Why would anyone ever want to read about that silly old bat?”

Life will have its little cosmic wink of a joke at your expense.