I’ve decided to ban the word “old” from my vocabulary, from my thought processes, from my state of mind. It’s such a depressing word, “old.” A discouraging word. Gloomy. Dismal. Disheartening, really.

And even a wrong word. Today’s talking heads would call it misinformation, disinformation, especially malinformation… because what is “old,” really?

None of us are as old as, say, Moses or Adam. And even they did not grow as old as Methuselah.

I’ve long admired Caleb in the Bible. And I realized in the middle of the night last night that I’m drawing closer and closer to Caleb’s eighty-five when he volunteered for him and his family to “take down the Amelekites,” a nation of giants.

From now on I’ll use “older.” Can’t go wrong there. It’s much more accurate, really. I mean it’s even encouraging, right?

When you’re at a restaurant you have a better choice than ordering “a glass of old wine from the basement.” Even if the wine is older — say, well, eighty years — you can tell the maître-de, “I’ll take a bottle of your 1945 Château Mouton-Rothschild from the vintage wine cellar. “Vintage” — that’s good. It infers “better,” not “old.”

Moreover, older is wiser and more hopeful — or at least should be.  The word can be used about anyone. I mean, my great-granddaughter Ellianna, born in October, is older today than she was yesterday. So I can relate to her; and when she gets a bit older, she will be able to relate to me as well.

(“Hey, Bampa, you’re older today… but not ‘old’ old.”)

So, older remains in my vocabulary, but “old”? No dice. Ain’t goin’ there no more. Old is stricken forever… except when it’s hidden in another word: smolder, colder, embolden…

You get the idea.