"What a drag it is getting old ..."

— The Rolling Stones

So this week I received my first shipment of what my new health insurance company refers to as "maintenance" drugs.

Two big bottles of small pink pills stare at me from my cluttered coffee table top, mocking me for descending into my waning years. It is the prescription medicine my doctor says I must take now and forever, to control high blood pressure.

High blood pressure in the newspaper business — imagine that. I've not only imagined that, I've lived it, for decades. But I could always wrestle the god-demon stress and make it work to my advantage.

Then I got old.

One day last year it was discovered that my blood pressure was coursing out of control. Hello pink pills forever.

This aging thing sucks.

The pills are considered "maintenance" drugs by my health insurance company because, well, in order to maintain my antique body, I have to continually take the medicine. And because of this, in order to take advantage of reduced cost — after a deductible, of course — I have to buy the pills in bulk.

The only thing good about this is that I save a few dollars in the long run.

The thought of having to take a pill to keep me going to the end of my days is depressing.

Yes, I hear you: Do you want some cheese with your whine?

I suppose I should be happy that my high blood pressure was discovered — it's known as "the silent killer" — and that modern medicine has an endless assortment of drugs these days to tame the wild beast.

But happy is not what I'm feeling.

Old is what I'm feeling and I don't like it.

When I was a young man I used to joke that I was saving golf and oil painting for my elder years. That vast vacations and piles of good books would enrich my later years.

But my aging frame, growing health costs and empty wallet are writing a different story.

I see a scrawny old man on the sidewalk, unshaven, a few teeth missing, begging for coins and mumbling about once being an award-winning journalist.

Wait. This is lunacy. I can't stand for this scenario to unfold. I must carve out my own future, one that's brighter, fuller, more fun — days of light beer, dancing, new ladies and movies!

I just about had myself talked into truly golden years at a cozy and friendly retirement home for yours truly, and then I read this:

In Dartmouth, Mass., last month a 100-year-old woman was found strangled in a nursing home with a plastic bag over her head. Elizabeth Barrow was found dead in her bed by workers doing a routine check at Brandon Woods nursing home. Police initially thought it was a suicide, but a state medical examiner later ruled it a homicide after an autopsy indicated strangulation.

Barrow’s son, Scott, told The Associated Press that a nursing home staffer called him early Sept. 24 to say his mother had been found dead “under unusual circumstances” and that a plastic bag from a local convenience store had been put over her head. Yet another reason to ask for paper bags, but I digress.

Barrow said he learned from the medical examiner’s report that the bag had been tied on, and said investigators asked him about his mother’s new shoelaces, which he had bought her the previous day.

I shake my head and convince myself it was a fluke, and then I hear about this:

In Trenton, N.J., earlier this month, a resident of a retirement community stabbed three people, killing an 88-year-old woman who had recently moved out because she was afraid of him and was among a group of neighbors who had accused him of disturbing the peace, authorities said.

Geez. It used to be that I didn't want to end up in an old folks home or retirement community because I feared it would be boring and depressing. Now I'm worried it might be dangerous.

That old commercial for the medical alert panic button bracelet is playing in my head, with a slightly different catch phrase: "Help! I've been shot, stabbed and robbed and I can't get up!"

That is all.

— John Charles Robbins can be reached at 272-6122 or jcr800@gmail.com.