Golden Years

Over 50? Afraid you are beginning to lose it? Take acclaimed Aging Expert Doctor Vincenzo Maggio’s Senior Quiz to ascertain just how well you are coping with life. The answers are on page 63.

The ideal time for a person over age 50 to go to bed is:

a) Before “Taps;” b) Before your adult daughter says, “Don’t you have something to do, Dad?” c) Right after “I Love Lucy;” d) As soon as they lift your face out of the beer mug.

Senior citizens who forget quickly may have:

a) Alzheimer’s Disease b) Alzheimer’s Disease c) Alzheimer’s Disease d) Huh?

You have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and you are short of breath. You can only take one pill total each day. What do you take?

a) Take a third of each pill b) Take the blood pressure pill and put the cheesecake down

c) Hold your breath and chant in Yiddish d) Take Viagra and go out in style

You don’t like to wear sweat clothes out in public because you no longer exercise. You should:

a) Just wear your regular clothes even if your belt covers your breasts b) Find your old bell bottoms and headbands c) Dress formally for every occasion d) Just wear the adult diapers.

You married a younger woman and now you can’t keep up. You should:

a) Let her take another lover b) Let her do what most attractive women do — say dumb things

c) Try and find activities you both enjoy, like gambling d) Dump her and get one who doesn’t know what a “pre nup” is

When you pass gas in the water, the bubbles:

a) Contain nitrogen and hydrogen and contribute to global warming b) Can become a tsunami under the right weather conditions c) Help fauna reproduce d) Smell when they burst

Men experience enlarged breasts as they grow older because:

a) The body doesn’t burn fatty tissue as quickly b) We smoked too much marijuana in college c) We miss our mothers

d) Otherwise we’d grope at women in the balcony of the movie theater

You get on a train in Atlanta at noon and average 146 miles per hour on a trip to Pittsburgh. You stop for a 10-minute bathroom break in Charlotte. What time will you get to Pittsburgh?

a) You won’t because you can’t get your suspenders off in 10 minutes and get left behind in Charlotte b) You’ll never know because your wrist watch stopped working in 1967 c) Never, because you wanted to go to Plattsburgh but your spectacles are so old, you read the sign wrong d) Nun of the above

When you think back on your school years, you:

Remember walking 10 miles through a foot of snow b) Think of the girl in the blue blouse who moved away before you got to know her c) Think of the girl in the red dress who got the restraining order against you d) Remember you actually liked putting chewing gum on the tip of your nose and still do so on occasion

Rick Murphy is a six-time winner of the New York Press Association Best Column award as well as the winner of first place awards from the National Newspaper Association and the Suburban Newspaper Association of America and a two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee.