18,000 votes later, Byrd is still master of the Senate

''My only adversity is age," Senate President Pro Tem Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., the longest-serving senator in American history, told his junior colleagues last month. Then he cast the 18,000th vote of his 48-year career in that august body, triumphantly passing the previous record set by the late Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., another legend in his own time. The 89-year-old Byrd observed this historic event with an eloquent, moving but largely overlooked speech on the Senate floor publicly confronting what he described as the "shocking discovery" that he is growing older.

His brain, by all accounts, works just fine. But his hands flutter with an uncontrollable benign tremor and he needs two canes and the assistance of a rotating cast of aides to get around. Making no apologies, Byrd noted cryptically "I am not aware of any requirement for physical dexterity" in order to hold his office. Neither are the voters of West Virginia, who overwhelmingly and uncomplainingly re-elected him to yet another term last year.