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I understand. It hadn’t been, I don’t know, the day before yesterday or something, I was in my 20s. And it just goes by. Whenever you’re young, and you’re waiting to get 16 to get your driver’s license, the years go by kind of like highline posts.

And then you get that. And you get out, and you go to work, and all that stuff. And then they get a little faster. They get like fence posts. And then pretty soon, you get up to 65 years old. And things change in your life so much so drastically, of putting your feet where you want them and your body where it needs to be. It’s gone.

And time goes by like cross ties on a railroad track— just tch-tch-tch-tch. These days are gone. So while you’ve got it, use it. Your mind, your strength, your agility, use it.

If I can call back forty years— I’m looking forward to going to heaven. And I wouldn’t want to go through all my youth again. But I miss what I could do. I miss it.

If I got 10 more years in me, that’ll be plenty. I’ll be 83. I don’t want to live past 83.

I don’t want to be where somebody has to take care of me or lead me around or slobbering all my belly in a restaurant somewhere from a stroke. I’d just, of course, fall. And I’d break my neck. I really would.

So you come back through here 10 years from now, I might be around. I might not. If I ain’t, it’s all all right. I’ve had a good life. I know 23, 73 looks pretty old. That’s 50 years difference, son. 50 years makes a lot of difference. But I relate. I can remember 23.

Hit the Road | This American Life