A few years ago, I had lunch with Dr. Elizabeth Welty, then in her mid-90s. “What’s your secret?” I asked the retired physician, who was in good shape, physically and mentally.

This week, I traded in my dumb cellphone for a smartphone, and I feel dumb as a stone as I try to figure it out. Mental frustration is good for building new connections in the brain, but feelings of panic, irritation and sadness over the convenience of my old phone are triumphing right now over any long-term benefits.

My boomer friends and I talk sometimes about our teeth. It’s come to this – conversations about teeth. But you start to talk about your teeth, and it’s amazing where the conversation leads.

The other day, three of us old-timers at the newspaper reminisced about what it took to research stories before Google. We did a lot more reporting in person and on the phone, conversations that sometimes stretched for hours. And then if the article required in-depth research, we’d pop over to the downtown Spokane library in search of books on the topic, and we’d search (sometimes for hours) for magazine and journal articles summarized in large, heavy index books.