(This Side Glances originally appeared in the November, 1998 issue of Road & Track)

Realization of creeping age comes slowly upon some of us and suddenly upon others. In my case, all knowledge and insight, such as it is, come in the form of ambush.

For instance, I remember a defining moment about 10 years ago when I was waiting to board a plane to Europe and noticed for the first time ever that the entire flight crew, including captain and co-pilot, were younger than I.

Could these youths be trusted with a great big 747? I wasn't sure.

Earlier that same week, I'd gone to a dermatologist to have a small spot on my arm examined and the doctor had asked if I'd been exposed to a lot of sun at some time in my life. "In Vietnam," I said.

"Gosh," he replied, "You were there? I had an uncle who was in Vietnam when I was a kid."

Yikes! I thought. How is it possible that all these former authority figures, the gray eminences of my youth, have been transformed into fresh-faced youngsters who were riding tricycles and watching Sesame Street when I was out doing adult stuff, like drinking hard liquor in bars and smoking Lucky Strikes in seedy Asian dives with immoral—or at least highly improbable—floor shows?

Since then, of course, I've gotten used to it. I turned 50 this year and virtually every authority figure I meet these days is younger than I am–lawyers, doctors, nurses, priests, airline pilots, bartenders, etc. Worse yet, I'm almost as old as the President of the United States. When Ike was in power, this never would have been allowed to happen.

Still another wake-up call came last month, when Editor-in-Chief Tom Bryant asked me to do a Salon article on a 1968 Dino 206GT.

I have been accustomed, until now, to reading about or researching Salon cars that go back to the dimmest beginnings of childhood memory, or well before, but here, at last, was a car that came along four years after I'd received my own driver's license and a full seven years after I had started reading Road & Track. I was a sophomore in college when the Dino 206 GT was introduced, and I read about it and lusted after both the 206 and the 246 Dino within what seems like quite recent memory.

In other words, I don't even consider it an old car! It came along just yesterday, and I am still wondering if I should be interested in buying one or if it's too modern.

As Kurt Vonnegut (that recently successful young author) would say, "So it goes."

And goes. And goes.

Since this most recent jolt, I've noticed any number of similar automotive reminders of advancing age and thought I would mention them so that any R&T readers who are in doubt about their relative youth or decrepitude might be able to to determine upon which side of the young/old age line they currently reside. For your consideration, a few other telltale automotive warning signs of advancing age:

1. You own an original red and gray Craftsman toolbox from the era before they switched to all-red boxes, then back to traditional red and gray again.

You are still miffed at the MG car company for dropping those tall, elegant wire TC wheels.

2. You are still miffed at the MG car company for dropping those tall, elegant wire TC wheels in favor of smaller stamped-steel wheels when they introduced the MG-TD.

3. A Ford or Mercury flathead is still the only V8 that looks "correct" in a hot rod.

4.You have been paying only partial and desultory attention to Formula 1 racing since the teams quit painting their cars in national racing colors.

5. On your bookshelf is an open-face Bell 500TX helmet you wore in your first year of sports-car racing, just before the full-face Bell Star became fashionable and replaced it.

6. After cheering the demise of the tra­ditional Offy-powered Indy roadster at the hands of mid-engine European cars, you are starting to have second thoughts. Also, you wish Parnelli Jones and A.J. Foyt were still driving them somewhere so you could go watch.

7. Your attendance at midget and sprint-car races has been irregular since they added wings and/or full roll cages.

8. When somebody says "Graham Hill" or "Jo Bonnier," you can instantly picture what they looked like and which cars they drove, yet you cannot summon up a distinct and lasting mental image of, say, Giancarlo Fisichella, or his current ride, even though you just saw them on TV yesterday.

9. You were actually driving and listening to the radio in your own car (or driving your parents' car) when you first heard the word "Beatles" spoken.

10. The Snap-On tool man just re­placed, free of charge, the second flex-head ratchet you have worn out in your lifetime.

11. You can remember when stock-car racing was somehow vaguely connect­ed to actual stock automobiles made in Detroit. Also, strangely enough, you were more interested in which brand of car won the race than you are now.

12. You attended at least one Grand Prix at which no one shoved a spon­sor's cap onto the winner's head.

13. You've attended a race at which the victors actually drank the champagne they were offered rather than spraying it all over everybody.

14. You have never forgiven the federal government for headlights on the Jaguar E-Type.

15. You first suspected the SCCA was switching irrevocably onto the wrong track when they forbade wood-rimmed steering wheels in competition cars.

16. You really can remember when race drivers were fat and tires were skinny. And now you are fat.

17. You have quietly resolved that if Road America puts up just one more catch fence or safety barrier between the spectators and the track, or cuts down one more shade tree, you will take up another hobby. Perhaps.

18. You actually know a person who drove his or her Production-class competition sports car to the track.

19. You took your first racing photos with a Pentax HI-A, a Rolleiflex or a Leica, using a Gossen Super Pilot hand-held light meter and Tri-X film, pushed to fashionable and dramatic graininess in the darkroom with Microdol-X developer and overblown en­largement on the Omega or less expensive Durst. Your color slides are all on Kodachrome.

20. You have steadfastly refused to work on any of your wife's cars since the invention of the "brain box."

You have attended at least one road race, such as the Targa Florio, that was actually held on a road

21. You have attended at least one road race, such as the Targa Florio, that was actually held on a road.

22. You can remember when drivers who were afraid to race on long, dan­gerous courses such as the old Nurburgring responded by taking up some other sport rather than changing the track into a safer, duller facility about which no one gives a hoot.

23. Your parents allowed you to sleep on the back window ledge of a 1956 Buick when the family took a trip.

24. You can clearly remember your first family car equipped with seat­ belts. Front only.

25. You spent—or considered spend­ing—all or part of your accumulated military combat pay on European de­livery of a new Triumph Spitfire or Porsche 914.

26. Your first English sports car, built in the Forties or Fifties, had exactly the same weather protection (and technical sophistication) as an Ameri­can car built in 1914, but was lower to the ground.

27. Your older sister, who would not let you stick your foot or hand across the middle of the back seat of your parents' 1956 Buick, has, inexplicably, turned into a decent human being and is currently shopping for a Miata.

28. You learned to drive in a car with a "3-on-the-tree" column shifter. Also, you drove in such a car on all your high school dates, learning the "crossover" technique in which you reached across and shifted left-handed so you didn't have to take your right arm off your girlfriend's shoulder.

29. When you were in high school, there were four major brands of French cars sold in the U.S., all but Simca sub­ject to colorful mispronunciation.

30. The Nomex driver's suit you wore in your first season of racing now looks small enough to fit a child, or a medium-size ventriloquist's dummy, such as Charlie McCarthy.

31. You remember Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy quite clearly. Also Mortimer Snerd.

32. At racetracks and car shows, you sometimes hide behind tents and trail­ers to avoid making introductions be­tween long-time acquaintances, col­leagues and friends whose names you have suddenly forgotten. This is what my old pal what's-his-name from Cal­ifornia calls "a senior moment."

I hope these warning signs help erase any doubt about the reader's relative place in the great parade of humanity marching toward its golden years.

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