This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

On the eve of my first cataract surgery, I received good news. Utah is considered the best state to grow old in.

According to the website 24/7 Wall Street, Utah ranks number one on the list of places in which to become a geezer. There's also a list of the worst states to grow old in. Mississippi, in case you were wondering.

The determinations were reached by measuring the violent crime rate, median household income, education, disabilities, and the number of Mormons per square foot.

Note: OK, Mormons weren't actually factored into the comparison, but I bet they will be at the end of this column. Let's just get it out of the way right now.

UTnozepicker: "It's cuz the Mormon church decides who lives and dies in spew-tah. And Mormons count dead baptizms. And angels. And they suck."

I have no idea why Utah made it to the top of the human equivalent of an elephant graveyard. As a Utahn, it ought to make me proud that I landed in the right place to outlive my warranty. It doesn't.

Utah is no place for a guy like me to grow old. There are too many ways to get hurt, lost and/or killed around here. And by this I mean places where there aren't a lot of people.

Zion has a wide availability of cannon ranges. Within ten minutes of my house, I can fire whatever I want as far as it will go. And since the older I get the less I pay attention, there's every possibility I might not get much older.

On the bright side, there are a lot of coots, boomers, duffers, fuds, dinos and mossbacks around here. Thanks to the LDS Church's early immigration efforts, Utah has a large northern European gene base. Scandinavians, Brits and Danes tend to live longer.

What this means for the average Utah native is that it takes a little longer for life to kill us. So I'll always have someone around my own age to talk to, even if what we talk about no longer matters.

Rusty: "We saw Black Sabbath in concert in '71."

Me: "My draft number was 15."

Bammer: "We could smoke ourselves to death for 49 cents a pack."

While it's nice when people (or websites) try to give us advice about where best to grow old, the decision is almost always ours.

Unless, of course, your kids want to put you in a home. In another state. But depending on what kind of kids you've raised, that could also be a good thing for you.

I'm trying to talk my own parents into some kind of assisted living center. They aren't really cooperating. Also, I don't really like doing it.

The role reversal creeps me out. It's too weird thinking about telling the Old Man when he shouldn't drive, what time he has to be in, and what to do with his money.

He once had the same problem with me when I was increasingly confused and unreasonable. I was young and clueless. Now he's old and clueless. The only difference is that it's against the law for me to try to whack some sense into him.

Growing old is inevitable. We all have to do it someplace. I don't care what some website says. The best state to grow old in is the one where I'm surrounded by those I love. I can't imagine a better way to get even with them.

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley. Find his past columns at http://www.sltrib.com/lifestyle/kirby/