When I was a kid, I lived for basketball, always had a good eye.After my early-morning workout at the gym the other day I wandered over to the basketball court. And since no one was there I picked up a ball and started shooting. My first shot from the corner fell a foot short of the rim, an air ball on steroids. When I moved to the free throw line the shot was 6 inches short and when I dribbled in for a lay-up the shot hit the underside of the rim.

After about 15 shots I gave up, just as a group of players showed up for a pickup game. I asked one of the guys, "Who raised the basket?" and explained the problem I had getting the ball through the hoop. We had a good laugh.

As one skates through life there are all sorts of situations where the basket has been raised. The hills are a bit steeper now, a two-mile walk seems like four, the newspaper print has gotten smaller and it's getting more difficult to catch the dialog at the movies or understand what Barbara is asking me. While I chalk up the poor hearing to age, she's convinced it is a case of selective hearing. How come I can hear what's going on three tables from ours in the restaurant but can't hear her when she's in the next room?

Recently, we were in San Francisco with our friends Jenny and Tom, who live in St. Helena in the wine country. While the women were shopping Tom and I found a bench and started talking. We discussed the wine business, the upcoming goofball California gubernatorial election, the growing unemployment and the rise in productivity. Now folks are doing their own work and the work of the two other former colleagues who got canned-more output with less people. Wall Street likes that. And we agonized about the growing terrorism in Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the nutso world we've left to our children and grandchildren.

Later in the conversation I was joking about my hearing loss when Tom mentioned he had ordered hearing aids. He has the same hearing problems I have and gets the same "selective hearing" flack from Jenny as I get from Barbara. But he also has an age-sensitive challenge. Tom believes wearing a hearing aid is a sign of old age so he's getting the most expensive miniature model, which fits far into the ear so it can't be seen. I understand it has a remote control built into a watch. Technology rules.

Each year we live on planet Earth the basket seems to be raised just a bit, yet we plug on, hoping tomorrow will be a better day.

When Frank isn't practicing his jump shot, he can be reached at fburge@cmp.com.