Too good to be true?

Sometimes I feel old. I wrote a column about this four years ago when I became eligible to join the American Association of Retired Persons, or AARP.

I received a few e-mails from my contemporaries who said they felt the same way.
Time just moves too fast.

A handwritten letter I received yesterday returns me to this theme. It came from a reader of my Class of ’63 column in Numismatic News.

He suspects I am seriously understating my age and running a very old photo of myself.

“Every week when I look at your photo, you remind me of Q. David Bowers who going back for years always had a young photo of himself with his ads.”

Now being compared to professional numismatist and writer Q. David Bowers for any reason is a compliment. He is a one-man industry. I wish his resume were a secret because it makes the rest of us look lazy.

Bowers, he noted, eventually had to change the photo in his ads. Bowers has been in the business since 1953 and photo updates are required from time to time in such a lengthy career.

The letter writer expects me to do the same.

“Let’s see what you really look like for a change.”

He adds in a postscript: “I’m 84 years old, about your age, maybe?”