You know you’re getting old…when your back goes out more than you do.

Rim shot! 

It’s  the golden age of golden-age comedy. And well it should be here in senior-centric PT. 

Bette Davis famously said, “Old age ain’t for sissies.” 

At our age, the joke goes, don’t buy green bananas.

But there’s a tonic, if not a panacea, for the infirmities of our advanced years: Humor.

One of my favorite axioms is that those of us who know life is a tragedy think it’s a joke. 

Is laughter, as Reader’s Digest has it, the best medicine? Maybe not exactly or technically, but it’s a good start. (And if you remember Reader’s Digest, you’re no spring chicken.) 

We’re the oldest county in Washington state, so we need to lighten up. 

Treating our later years with a mordant sense of humor isn’t the worst idea. Journalists and doctors are big on gallows humor. 

A sense of humor is always a good thing, and especially at our stage in life. 

I recently read a piece about 80-year-old, talented Monty Python alum Michael Palin. He says that before she passed, his late wife charmingly referred to being old as “The departure lounge.”  

Most of my mail these days is targeted — from The Neptune Society, hearing-aid vendors, and assisted-living developments. But I look forward to the leavening that comes with mail from humor publications, like Funny Times, which recently ran a picture of a glass coffin with the headline, “”Remains to Be Seen.” 

Still, it was a jolt to exit Costco in Sequim not long ago and see a display of coffins. They know their local demos.

If you like one-liners about aging, there are plenty online. Sample: You know you’re getting old when people talk about you  — while you’re still in the room, 

I’m always looking for laughs about getting old. 

Want to see a good comic strip about a retired couple? Try “Pickles.” 

Local mystery: I’ve waited for retirement to get senior rates and order Early Bird dinner specials. But here, oddly, not so much. 

One more local oddity: I haven’t seen too many seniors here who leave their turn signals on. Maybe that’s a Florida thing? 

I got my mordant sense of humor from my old man. He wasn’t Jewish, but he liked to joke that he wanted to be buried in Israel. Why? Because, he said, he’d heard that it had the world’s highest resurrection rate.

In closing, someone once asked novelist Phillip Roth the meaning of life. He replied: “It ends.” 

Victorian Humor: For years, I’ve been meaning to suggest an idea to the organizers of next week’s Victorian Festival here. This proved a big hit where we moved from Northern California: A Gilbert and Sullivan singalong. It would make a great centerpiece for our Vic festival.

G&S were enormously popular, truly the Beatles of the Victorian age, as the Fab Four attested to by their costuming (Groucho Marx was also a big G&S fan, playing Koko in “”The Mikado” film). I was lucky enough to “carry a spear”” — sing in the chorus — in two of their comic operas. Their music was almost unparalleled in its beauty (Sullivan was the composer) and cleverness. (Gilbert’s wry lyrics.) 

If you’d like a musical primer about these Victorian megastars, rent/watch Mike Leigh’s wonderful, music-filled film, “Topsy Turvy.” (You can reach retired second tenor Bill at Newsmann9@gmail.com)