Everyone used to be older than me

When did they start giving medical licenses to teenagers?

The doctor I met for the first time today looked all of 17 -- if that. Aren't doctors supposed to be older than their patients, or at least older than me?

They always used to be -- and, in my case, they were until the docs who founded the practice I've gone to the past 35 years began to retire or semi-retire. My own doctor still comes in to work from time to time, but if you'd rather not wait several weeks to see him you go with one of his younger (in this case, MUCH younger) colleagues.

Not that this young doctor didn't seem perfectly capable of handling my relatively minor problem. In fact, once I got over the feeling that I had suddenly turned into a wizened old lady, I found him quite easy to talk to. It's just that lately I keep finding myself the only senior in the room, and sometimes it's tough to take.

That sort of thing happens a lot when you teach at a university. For example, if I make some reference to the Watergate scandal, I get blank stares from my students. Well, Mary, do the math: Richard Nixon resigned more than 40 years ago. If one of my profs back at Ohio State had brought up some scandal from the Hoover administration, my eyes would have glazed over, too.

Time flies. Some days it seems to break the sound barrier. This was one of those days.

I'll get over it.