RIVER CITY JOURNAL: SIGNS OF AGING: WHEN THE VCR AND COFFEE MAKER TURN ON YOU

Life is full of good things like downtown golf courses and trees that blossom before a snowstorm. And then ...

My mother, who is not old at all, thinks I dwell too much on growing old.

There is no getting around the fact that I'm getting older. For a long time I just went along with aging. I didn't make a fuss, because I didn't feel or act differently at 45 than I did when I was 25.

But there comes a time when this business of being age-advantaged swoops over you like that rush of wind rattling the windows before a storm.

I think my mother wonders if I'm having a spell.

For those of you not fortunate enough to have an Ozarks upbringing, "a spell" can be just about anything. Most of the time, "a spell" is taken pretty seriously, even if what ails you isn't all that bad.

When not-old-at-all grandmothers and great-grandmothers assemble in their Sunday-school classroom and learn someone in their vast, collective brood is having "a spell," there is no need for details. Praying begins immediately.

I'm not sure growing older needs a whole lot of prayer, but I'll take whatever I can get.

Among the signs of advancing years is how the things around you start falling apart.

Like most couples, my wife and I started our married life almost three and a half decades ago with no money but a lot of gumption. Over the years, we bought things that now not only fill up our house and the big storage area in the basement, but also a big truck from the Salvation Army every few years.

In just a few days, the devices we have grown to accept as a part of our lives have started to shut down. Just plain quit. They're old too.

The first to go was the VCR, which is an essential part of our household, because it records "Jeopardy" every day so we can watch it when we get home.

The old VCR decided it was tired of Alex Trebec. At least that's what we figured. Sometimes it would take tapes in but not let them out. Sometimes it wouldn't accept tapes at all.

We discovered that VCR prices have come way down over the years, so we bought a new one. The new VCR apparently hates "Jeopardy." Or else it was defective when we got it. Maybe it's that old tape we've been using to capture "Jeopardy" for -- how long has it been? -- about 10 years now. Yeah, maybe that's it.

Then there was the stereo receiver, which is how we listen to KRCU, the public radio station at the university. The receiver is also the contraption that makes our tape player and CD player work. Don't ask me how. A child (one of our own) wired it all together years ago.

So we bought a new stereo receiver.

Next was the automatic drip coffee maker, which has produced a fine brew for years. Suddenly it was turning out brown muck. And it started spewing this mess all over the kitchen counter. So we bought a new coffee maker.

One afternoon this week, I went home to get the mail. The mailbox was gone.

To be honest, I didn't know mailboxes ever gave up. True, this one had been cranky for the last year. It barely stayed fixed to the steel post and frame that also hold two of our neighbors' mailboxes.

The mailbox was upended in a nearby snowbank, either a victim of its rotted wood base or a vandal. Fortunately, over the years I've accumulated a collection of power tools -- toys for men -- that sure came in handy as I outfitted the old mailbox with a new composition-wood bottom and put it securely back with its two companions.

The capper of this rash of aging was when I picked up the St. Louis Post-Dispatch one morning this week. Eating my Wheat Chex and drinking a cup of stout coffee from the new coffee maker, I just about choked.

"Good grief!" I exclaimed, which certainly caught my wife's attention, because words are rarely spoken in the morning until after the second cup of coffee.

I had just read an item about Creve Coeur, a posh suburb of St. Louis, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

"I'm older than Creve Coeur!"

Imagine that: older than a city.

I think I've done pretty well with getting older, even if I do write about it too much. But I have to tell you it's hard to accept the fact that some town is younger than you are.

It was bad enough when we elected a president born after I was. Now I have to put up with some wet-behind-the-ears city?

Well, happy birthday, Creve Coeur. Just wait till your coffee maker blows up.

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.