Apparently 74 is the new 90

The headline read something along the lines of "Jaclyn Smith is nearly 90", and not that I'm an expert on Jaclyn Smith, but I knew that couldn't be true.

Nonetheless, I clicked through because my clicking through is the entire purpose of clickbait. But once I saw that it was one of those long series of "news" bits you had to keep "NEXT"-ing on, I gave up. I didn't even read the bit on Diane Keaton Then! Diane Keaton Now! I just glanced at the pictures and saw that she's gone gray, has a few wrinkles, but, at 74, she's still pretty damned cute. But I wasn't going to scroll through 50 or so "articles" on actresses my age and their before and after shots until I got to the payoff on Jaclyn Smith.

Fortunately, while the Internet is an endless source of nonsense "information" and outright lies, it's also the home of Wikipedia, which tends to be pretty reliable on celebrity dates of birth. Jaclyn Smith, it turns out, is 74. She'll be 75 in October. And, like Diane Keaton, this former Charlie's Angel, who in her prime was stunningly beautiful, is still attractive.

But how does 74 compute to 90?

Was it just to grab attention, as it did mine? Or is there some twenty-something ninny out there, writing headlines, who doesn't perceive any difference between 74 and 90?

Personally, while I know there will be, I hope there isn't. I'm 70 and, if I hit the big 9-0, I hope I look as good as I do now.

And I do look pretty good, thanks to the combo of having inherited the great, unwrinkled skin of my mother's side of the family and, as someone with go-up-in-flames skin (and as someone who always had a summer job and scant time to loll around on the beach), I never spent a ton of time in the sun.

But most people I know look pretty good, because this is what 70 looks like if you have good genes and the fortune to have had a relatively cushy life. None of my friends had to flee the Dust Bowl in a jalopy full of kids. If we were toiling from dusk to dawn, it was sitting at a desk in an air conditioned office. We've all had good dental care from the jump, so we've all still got our teeth. We have cool clothing and great hairdressers.

I know that 90, if I make it that far, will look and feel different, both for me and for Jaclyn Smith.

My hair will be gray, something I'm working on now, taking the opportunity of the lockdown to let whatever I've been covering up under there come out. So far, so good. My hair is on the lightish-side to begin with (both my original hair, and the dye job), so the gray isn't all that apparent. Yet.

By 90, I'll likely have lost an inch or two, a process that has already begun. At the height of my height (hah!), I was 5'7 & 3/4". Which I, of course, rounded to 5'8". Now I'm under 5'7", but last time I was at the doctor's they generously rounded up to 5'7".

I don't remember my mother shrinking all that much, but I suppose she did. My Aunt Margaret, who'd been relatively tall for her era - I think she was 5'6" - shrunk appreciably as she aged. Towards the end of her life, Peg fainted (while out to lunch with friends at the Pillar House, a defunct restaurant that specialized in old lady lunches; I so wish it were still there so I could have a schrod lunch with friends!) and ended up hospitalized for a couple of days.

When I visited her, she told me she was annoyed that the doctor had contradicted her when she told him she was 5'6". She was about 5'2", tops, by that point.

Anyway, if I make it to 90, I'll likely be shorter, too. And I suspect I'll be sporting a few more wrinkles.

My hearing will be a little harder, something that I'm already noticing. My nickname as a kid was "radar ears", but I notice that I need the TV turned up louder, and I find myself missing bits of converation here and there.

My vision will not be improving any, either. I have slow moving cataracts that at some point will have to go. Cataracts aside, as you age you just need a whole lot more light to read by and so you can perform certain tasks. Like threading a needle. Like telling the difference between navy blue and black, which now requires a nearly high-noon on a cloudless day level of sun for me to distinguish between.

At 90, I'll be moving a bit more slowly, and all those little pockets of arthritis and bursitis - shoulder, knees, hip - will likely flare up more often.

But all this decline won't happen overnight. It'll gradually sneak up, as it does on all of us, and one day, I'll look in the mirror and realize, 'hey, I'm old.' But I'm not there quite yet, and my 70 and Jaclyn Smith's 74, are a far piece from 90.

Until then, I'll add "Got a Lot of Livin' to Do", a song from Bye-Bey, Birdie, to my shower singing list.

As for the person who wrote that daft headline: just you wait!