When the class reunion is held and Mel Robertson, who nobody has seen for fifteen years, appears, he is apt to go unrecognized. There will be a lot of peering at his name card. By the end of the evening, his classmates will say: “Did you see Mel Robertson? Great Scott! He has turned gray and bald and fat.”

      The chances are his classmates, their husbands and/or their wives have also turned gray and bald and fat, but they haven’t noticed it. Physical changes, we are told, are gradual. Aging is a slow process, like the oxbowing of a stream. Little by little and year by year the human being’s wiring, tubing and muscles wear down and begin to disintegrate.

      That may be so, but it isn’t a complete explanation. There are a lot of exceptions. There are too many men who are old at age 40. They’ve lost their zip. They act like they’re over the hill - and they are. They awoke one morning and decided they weren’t young anymore. Thereafter, they were old.

      On the other hand, we should be cautious about using only advanced age and gray hair as reasons to call a man “old”. I believe most of our ideas about “old” hunters are inaccurate. I believe they are a result of chicanery and deception, perpetrated by some of the world’s most experienced deceivers, impostors and liars.

      Every camp contains at least one of those rogues. At 8:00 in the evening, the “old gentleman” says: “Gig, would you be so kind and bring me another scotch and water?” Gig looks at him, collapsed in the camp’s most comfortable easy chair after tramping around in a cedar swamp looking for a horned whitetail. Of course, Gig answers: “Sure, Ed.”

      So Gig does it. It makes him feel noble. After all, the old timer may not be around for too many more seasons. Deer hunting must take a lot out of him. You have to admire him, at his age, out there hunting in the snow and cold. The least you can do is make him feel comfortable in camp.

      Well, friends, if this has ever happened to you, and I know it has, you have been taken in by a consummate con artist. Go back over the day’s events. Who was up until 3:00 a.m. playing poker? Who was out of bed at the crack of dawn complaining about the coffee? Who was the first in line for the bacon and eggs? Who was on only one drive? It was less than a quarter mile long and mostly down hill. And who got out of both washing and drying the dishes?

      Who will sit up until the wee hours, getting scotch and water served to him and telling stories, and who will be up at the crack of dawn complaining about the coffee? Old Ed, that’s who. If you think back, Old Ed has been getting his drinks brought to him and getting other preferential treatments for well over ten years. There’s nothing fragile about Old Ed. He has the constitution of a rhinoceros. If you don’t believe it, try this:

      Sometime, when Old Ed is within ear shot, casually mention to one of your camp mates that Ed is getting kind of old and you’re worried about his physical condition. Suggest that Ed shouldn’t be invited to deer camp next year - for his own good, you know.

      You’ll see a startling metamorphosis. Come the next sunrise, Old Ed will prepare the breakfast and wash the dishes all by himself. He’ll take a part in every drive and clean and haul two deer out of the woods without assistance. After he’s split a cord of wood and washed the dinner dishes, he’ll want to go into town and kick over a few fire hydrants. You wouldn’t be able to get him out of deer camp with nitroglycerin.

      Old Ed make have counted over sixty birthdays. He may have a wrinkle of twenty around his eyes, forehead, nose, ears, mouth and neck, but he can drive thirty feet of 1 ¾ inch well pipe in a day and wade through 300 yards of springtime white water in the Horse Race Rapids without missing a cast

      The next time he pulls that wounded snipe act and asks you to bring him a drink, the proper response is: “Get it yourself, you damned old fraud. And while you’re up, don’t you think it’s about time you brought me a beer?”

      The reason Old Ed isn’t old is because that thought has never occurred to him. So he’s young - and more power to him. Disintegration is a terrible thing.

      Last year, Beecher Daniels walked into Casey’s Sport Shop to buy a hunting license. He was a rugged featured, slightly wind burned, well muscled, middle aged man. He entered the building as a youthful and perhaps even a jaunty man. He left the shop a stoop shouldered, shaky and trembling ancient - all because of the kid behind the counter.

      Everything was going along just fine as he questioned Beecher and filled out his hunting license application. Then the little cretin came to the question “Color of Hair”. The kid looked up at him, said “Gray” and dutifully inscribed it on the form. In a split second, he aged Beecher by twenty years.

      From time to time, Beecher noticed some iron gray clipping on the sheet the barber wrapped around him. He had wondered where it came from, but no one ever told him he had gray hair. Now the kid told him he was an old man. Beecher managed to walk all three blocks back to his home without stopping to catch his breath. Then he looked into the mirror. By George, the kid was right. His hair was turning gray.

      Beecher called the undertaker and made arrangements for a Funeral Trust. He reviewed the terms of his Will. He pulled out the TV Guide and looked for the time of the Lawrence Welk Show. He was practicing his cackling when his wife came in. She told him how terrible it was that their neighbor would wear such a shockingly tiny bikini to get a sun tan in her back yard.

      Beecher suddenly remembered how the roof needed repairing. He grabbed some shingles, a hammer and roofing nails. He climbed up on the railing, swung onto the roof and ran, leaping over the gables like a gazelle, to that part of his roof that overlooked the neighbor’s back yard.

      It occurred to him he wasn’t so old after all.