The older I get, the more my senses seem to diminish. Notice that I wrote senses, not sense, although my sense is probably diminishing, as well. I will proceed to give some examples. I wear hearing aids, and they are helpful. Hearing aids are small, and they require batteries. These batteries must be changed occasionally.

Have you ever seen a hearing aid battery? They are about the size of a lady bug. Have you ever tried to change a hearing aid battery? Here is how you do it. You sit with the batteries in front of you. Then, you take the old batteries out of the hearing aid. Of course, you drop them. Then you pick up a new replacement aid. You drop it, and it scoots under the bed you are sitting on. You find a hearing aid on the floor but don't remember if it is an old one or a new one. Finally, you get the hearing aid batteries replaced, either with new ones or old ones.

The trouble with all this is that you fingers don't work the way they used to and your eyes are about 20 percent effective. That leads me to buttons. Have you noticed how tiny the buttons on television sets, VCRs and other such machines are? They are impossible to see, and your fingers can't grasp them. The same is true with shirt buttons. The only way I can button a shirt is to do it from memory or to call my wife or someone else.

Don't get me started about hearing. Even with aids, I don't hear so well. I saw my friend, Bob, who hears about as well as I do, the other day. I said to him, "It sure is windy today." He replied, "It's not Wednesday; it's Thursday." I answered back: "I'm thirsty, too. Let's stop and get a drink."

A friend of mine, a rancher, told me recently about going to get a new hearing aid. The audiologist explained that he would now be able to hear his wife when she called him. My friend replied: "I don't want to hear my wife. I just want to be able to hear the coyotes howl again."

Yes, my hearing is bad, and my vision is worse. My finer manipulation is lousy. But fortunately, I have a couple of senses that are just as good as they ever were. My sense of taste and sense of smell are still working just fine. I can almost taste the corn bread my wife is fixing for supper. And I just stuck my head out the back door. What do you think I smelled? The unmistakable aroma of lilacs just coming into bloom. Who cares if I can't see or hear? I can still smell the lilacs.

Walter Higbee is a retired college educator living in Spearfish. Write him at the Rapid City Journal, Box 450, Rapid City, SD 57709.