The old gray mare, just ain't what she used to be,
ain't what she used to be,
ain't what she used to be,
The old gray mare, she ain't what she used to be
many long years ago.
My version of this song is about "gray hairs" instead of the gray mare. Gray hairs aren't what they used to be, because they used to be found only on elderly people. But now they've changed! They're found on ME, for instance!
When Dorothy was a few months old, I noticed a couple of gray-ish hairs in my sideburns, and I dutifully blamed the start of the color change on my child. But last week, while at the hotel out in Seattle, I noticed a few full-length gray hairs up in the middle of the top of my head. They're spreading! Aaughh!
My father and some of his brothers have a history of going gray relatively young, so I can probably blame this on genetics as much as my lovely child. In fact, maybe I'm doing well by not getting gray hairs until I'm 33. But in any case, the appearance of looking old doesn't match the feeling inside of being young. I'm told that this dichotomy doesn't change for years and years...
Posted by Tom Nugent at December 23, 2004 10:27 PM