There are a multitude of ways a person could measure one’s age, the traditional of course being in years, 67 of them and some change for me. But you could also measure by months, 810 for me, days, 24,657, and even hours and seconds, which I could do but no need to explode your head or worse, my own.

There are others that would provide a vague sense of age, such as the number of presidents who have served in your lifetime, 13 for me, one guy twice, homes lived in, 14 for me, cities, six, states, one, jobs, 15, and on and on.

My mind took me down this little-traveled path recently when I realized that there was growing sentiment to replace the 40-year-old Dean Dome, home to UNC’s basketball team, with a facility that most likely would be constructed off campus, where Chapel Hill’s airport once was. If that happens, and it rises from the Earth before I am returned to it, then it would be the fourth home for UNC basketball during my lifetime.

I am ambivalent about the prospect, although I hate that the new coliseum would be about 1.7 miles from Franklin Street, putting it beyond an easy walk for most students. My ambivalence is twofold: I do not go to many basketball games even though my family has five season tickets, section 202-A, front row of the mezzanine. My chronic absences are because all the games are televised, the drive is two hours, and the game is over shortly after you take your seat. The problem of no alcohol sales has been solved.

Also, the six or seven years for the new build is a long time, even for a sexagenarian, when the turn of the pages of the calendar is gaining momentum.

UNC’s first basketball home, at least when I was alive, was The Charles T. Woollen Gym, constructed in 1939 and home of the 1957 national champion team. I do not know if this is true, but I will claim to attending a game there while in my mother’s womb. As a student at UNC, Woollen is where we would sometimes go for pickup basketball games, and I took volleyball for PE.

The William Donald Carmichael, Jr. Arena, which opened in 1965, was UNC’s basketball home when I was a student, but I only went to a few games during my four years there. Getting a ticket required patience. I had little at that stage of my life and there were better options, in the tube room at the Pika house, or at a downtown watering hole, where the distractions were many and welcome.

But I was courtside with 8,799 others on Dec. 16, 1978, a Saturday, when UNC’s Secretary of Defense, Dudley Bradley, harassed a freshman named Magic Johnson. Woody Durham quipped while providing play by play that Dudley had swiped the ball and Magic’s watch — and the Tar Heels defeated the eventual national champions, 71-70.

UNC exited Carmichael on Jan. 4, 1986, with a 90-79 win over N.C. State, leaving the arena with a –- get this –- 170-21 record, a .89 win percentage and basically a single loss each season, all the games coached by Dean Smith.

The first game in the Dean E. Smith Center was on Jan. 18, 1986, and I was there with 21,749 others to watch the No. 1 Tar Heels defeat No. 3 Dook, 95-92, with the first basket being scored by Dook’s Mark Alarie, a scar that just will not heal. Still, it was a heck of a christening for the facility, which was named for Smith despite his objection, and might remain my favorite moment there given the rivalry and the rankings.

The Heels, under Smith, Bill Guthridge, Matt Doherty, Roy Williams and Hubert Davis, have compiled a 488-89 record at the Dean Dome, a winning percentage of .845, not bad if less lofty than at Carmichael.

The cost of the Dean Smith was just shy of $34 million, which is $97 million in today’s dollars, and I have yet to hear a trusty number for the cost of a new facility, which would have fewer seats, 16,000 or so, but is desired because of the need for luxury suites and improved parking. The arms race continues.

But whatever the announced cost, expect it grow by about 50 percent before the completion, so I am guessing approaching a billion dollars. My goal is to be there for the first game, but it will not be in my family’s seats.

Meanwhile, there are several more seasons in the Dean Dome, and memories to be made, hopefully more good than forgettable.