For years (and years and years), it had been a running joke in my marriage that I looked like a kid. We married young as it was, and with my youthful appearance I looked, in my rented tux, not so much like a groom as like a Charlie McCarthy ventriloquist doll. As the years went by, there was something about my face that continued to fool people into thinking I was younger than my years. Well into my thirties, people would frown when I told them the ages of my kids, and ask whether I had started reproducing in middle school. I was carded at bars until I was 40. A postman once asked my wife if I was her son.

Then, somewhere around the big four-oh, I hit a brick wall. Everything started to fall apart. My hair started to vanish as I slept, wrinkles appeared on parts of my body that I didn't know could get wrinkled, and my goatee has started to sport odd patches of white.

For the past few years, especially, I've had to endure constant taunting from my kids. My daughters take great pleasure in pointing out my bald spot, which they've been tracking the way scientist keep tabs on the growing hole in the ozone layer over the North Pole. And my wife has taken to calling me "Old Man." (I haven't tried it, but I'm pretty sure that if I were to refer to her as "Old Lady," I'd end up sleeping on the couch and eating takeout for a few days.)

All this is especially troubling, because like so many other baby boomers, I still think of myself, deep inside, as a teenager. (Not, of course, in the "boundless energy, wild spirit, world is your oyster" sense — more in the "irresponsible, no direction in life, marginally employable" sense.) I'm not ready to be considered an old guy.

I know 47 (48 before the end of the year) isn't exactly old, but it hit me last week that I probably have more years behind me than I do ahead of me. Were I a football game, I would be well into my second half.

To my horror, I find myself flipping through the obituaries in the morning paper, sizing up the little photos of the latest dearly departed. This guy was my age, I say to myself, but he's got 40 pounds on me. That lady clearly looked like a smoker. But I shiver each time, thinking how my smiling picture will look wedged between MacPherson, William, and Moses, Jonathan.

This past weekend, my wife and I took the kids to a local amusement park. I told them before we went that I wouldn't be going on any rides. I explained that I never liked rides, and had decided not to go on any more. Life, I said, was too short. That statement, of course, led to hours of sarcastic comments from the kids about how all the younger dads went on rides, and how they'd probably let me skip the lines if it was too hard for me to stand that long.

As we were walking through the park, we came across one of those old-fashioned booths where a barker guesses your age. If he was off by more than three years, you'd get a small stuffed animal.

My kids thought this would be hilarious, and pushed me to the front of the crowd. I pulled out a dollar, handed it to the young man in the straw hat and waited nervously. He eyed me up and down, squinted a few times, then scrawled a number on the pad. Then he asked me my real age.

"Forty-seven," I said. He shook his head, sighed and turned the pad of paper around. There, in the middle of the page, it read, "32."

I pumped my arms in the air like Rocky after the title match.

"THIRTY-TWO!" I shouted. Once more, in case someone in the back of the crowd didn't hear, a shouted at the top of my lungs, THIRTEEEEEEEEE ... TWOOOOOO!" I'm not sure, but I think I actually danced.

I stopped, looking around. Nobody in the crowd seemed to share my youthful enthusiasm. My kids were all looking in various directions, trying to avoid eye contact. My wife grabbed my arm and led me away from the booth.

My family was horrified, but I didn't care. Thirty-two. I still had a few good years before the grim reaper tapped me on the shoulder and asked for a dance. A complete stranger had mistaken me for a 30-something kid.

If you don't believe it, I've got the small stuffed animal to prove it.

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