Growing younger

ATWATER -- For centuries people have been searching for the "Fountain of Youth" but the elusive prolonger of life is nowhere to be found and may not exist at all. Still an Atwater man believes it's possible to halt the advance of time even in later years.

Sam Dolber teaches a noncredit Merced College class in Atwater called "Growing Younger." His philosophy is the mind is like a muscle and if we don't use it, we'll lose it. Various games, puzzles and mental exercises are just the ticket to grow younger, he believes.

"We cannot avoid growing older in years but we can always choose to stay young in spirit," Dolber said. "We do not stop playing because we get old. We get old because we stop playing."

In the 1500s Spanish explorer Juan Ponce De Leon sailed the seas looking for the magical live-forever water source that the Puerto Ricans were talking about.