Source Collection
University of North Alabama Archives and Special Collections, UNA Anderson College of Nursing, Box 1, “Correspondence (1973, 1975-1983,1985),” Collier Library.
Description
Short creative writing work, presumably student written, concerned with the process of aging and the progression of time.
Date Created
4-10-2026
Date
no date
Document Type
Article
Recommended Citation
Ford, Corey, "How to Guess Your Age" (2026). Documents. 6.
https://roar.una.edu/una_anderson_docs/6
Rights
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Included in
Creative Writing Commons, Medical Education Commons, Nursing Commons
Comments
Transcript
How to Guess Your Age
by Corey Ford
If you have stopped running for trains, and winters seem colder, you're getting along quite normally.
It seems they are building staircases steeper than they used to. The risers are higher, or there are more of them, or something. Maybe this is because it is so much farther today from the first floor to the second floor, but I've noticed it is getting harder to make two steps at a time any more. Nowadays it is all I can do to make one step at a time.
Another thing I've noticed is the small print they're using lately. Newspapers are getting farther away when I hold them, and I have to squint to make one out. The other day I had to back halfway out of a telephone booth in order to read the number on the coin box. It is obviously ridiculous to suggest that a person my age needs glasses, the only other way I can find out what's going on is to have somebody read aloud to me, and that's not too satisfying to me because people speak in such a low voice these days that I can't hear them very well.
Everything is farther than it used to be. It's twice the distance from my house to the station now, and they've added a fair sized hill that I never noticed before. The trains leave sooner, too. I've given up running for them because they start faster these days when I try to catch them.
You can't depend on timetables any more, and it's no use asking the conductor. I ask them a dozen times a trip if the next station is where I get off and he always says it isn't. How can you trust a conductor like that? Usually, I gather up my bundles and put on my hat and coat and stand in the aisle a couple of stops away, just to make sure I won't go past my destination. Sometimes I make doubly sure by getting off at the station ahead.
A lot of other things are different lately. Barbers no longer hold up a mirror behind me when they've finished, and my wife has been taking care of the tickets lately when we go to the theatre. They don't put the same material into clothes any more either. I've noticed that my suits have a tendency to shrink, especially in certain places such as around the waist or in the seat of the pants, and the faces they put in shoes nowadays are much harder to reach.
Even the weather is changing. It's getting colder in winter and the summers are hotter than they used to be. I'd go away, if it wasn't so far. Snow is heavier when I try to shovel it, and I have to put on rubbers whenever I go out because rain today is wetter than the rain we used to get. Drafts are more severe, too. It must be the way they build windows now.