Welcome to the mudroom. A commentary series meant to incite thought, sometimes anger, fist pumping, and other kinds of enthusiasm brought to you by Rumble Strip Vermont and the Dooryard. Today an essay about aging and activity we're all involved in for better and for worse. Here is writer Mark Estrin with

poppy old man. Some people roll up time. with Poopi Old Man.

Some people roll up titles and letters after their names.

Some people scrutinize their bank accounts and rejoice or despair. Many people watch their children and

grandchildren grow up and remember them when they were one foot tall. My aging

landmarks tend to be the ways others see me. My most recent

achievement I was standing getting undressed in the locker room at the Y and in an adjoining

kids room a group of five-year-olds was getting ready for a swim class and one little

charmer raised his arm pointed at me and announced to his

colleagues look at the poopy old man and they all laughed and not scornfully but because they thought the

sight was hilarious and I did too. A similar occurrence, though not as tada worthy, occurred a few years ago when we heard

some neighborhood children passing by the house comment, that's where the old man and the old lady who

feed cats live. They might have taken notice of the National Bad News Service on the

front porch where we tallied the numbers killed in Iraq and

Afghanistan as we spread democracy and freedom around the world but they didn't.

We were just the old man and the old lady who fed the cats.

That was a marker. Before that, and for many years, I had noticed not being noticed, not even as an object on the street by people

say under 20.

I just didn't exist, though they existed for me.

And there is the visual compensation.

Who sees what?

I can not only see them, but I can see them as they were as children, or as they will be as geezers.

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