Last weekend I flew back to Texas to see my cousin get married. It was a blast. Huge fun had by all. Here's an observation: I was in the "old crowd".

Now technically, I think I was the oldest of groom's coevals, but his older brother and I are close in age. And my cousin, his rowdy friends and I are only a couple years apart in age, 33 on my end, 30 on the young end.

But the bride and her peers? I don't think one of them has had their 25th birthday yet. Now, I didn't really feel old around them, but I'm certain that when they first met the beard and dissolving hairline the thought was, "Who dug out this artifact?", or, "My aunt Sally might like him...".

What do 24 year-olds like to do? With state college barely in the rear view mirror, I'm guessing nightly beer and horseplay. It's that magical time in post-pubescence when you can live like you're in college while actually pulling in a paycheck. Nowadays I like television, like 24 (Monday nights!) and Lost (Wednesday nights!). That's because television happens inside my house, where I need to be now pretty much every night.

But wait! I have pictures of my son and wife!
Who cares, geezer!

And dog!
What a bore!

So you might think, "Gavin, I bet you wish you could party like a 24 year-old!"

The truth is, I can party like a 24 year-old, but I choose not to. You see, with my ever-increasing value on sleep, I don't like it disrupted. A couple weeks ago I went out late at night for a little while and ran around with some youngsters. It wasn't all that great. Any fun I had was countered by thoughts about how tomorrow's misery was increasing incrementally with each passing minute away from bed. What a bore, indeed.

But the old crowd did well hanging with the youngsters this past weekend, no doubt. Up past 3am a couple of times, we were. That's pretty good. Too bad on Tuesday morning after the weekend I still felt beat-up and tired. Betcha the young crowd felt great Tuesday morning, putting together more horseplay plans for the next weekend.

I noticed the old crowd filled up the wedding hotel jacuzzi a couple days in a row. Gotta relax after those hard nights of socializing. Unfortunately, a glance or two from the young crowd getting out of their cars and walking past the back of my grizzly bear shoulders sticking out, and I was crossed off even Aunt Sally's list.